Glacier National Park - Going to the Sun Road

Glacier National Park – Going to the Sun Road – Kalispell, Montana – Aug 2-4

I have been communicating via email with an old shipmate from when we served on a Navy ship together in the early 60’s. His name is Joe Tyran, and he has been following our blog. Back in early June he sent me a note saying that he and his wife Fran would be going to Kalispell, Montana in early August, for some family events they had planned, and that it would be great if we could meet there.  Our schedule at that time had us up in Canada, near Vancouver by early August, so I didn’t think we would be able to get together.

The last time I saw Joe was when he was being discharged from the Navy in mid 1963. We completely lost contact shortly after that, and did not correspond at all until late 2009, when I was able to locate Joe and another shipmate via facebook.

Due to our extended stay in Yellowstone, we arrived in Kalispell on Aug 2.  I had forgotten about trying to meet with Joe because we were not planning to be there when he was.  I got an email from Joe that day saying that he and his wife Fran would be arriving in Kalispell the next day.

We were able to meet with Joe and Fran for a couple hour breakfast, catching up and getting to know them both. We made tentative plans to meet at next year’s annual reunion of shipmates from our ship, being held in Norfolk, VA.

Thanks for breakfast Joe. I’ll buy the next one.

Going to the Sun Road – Glacier National Park – Montana

We entered the west entrance to the park and wanted to drive the whole length of the road from one side of the park to the other (then back again), so we put the top down and took off.

This is Bird Woman Falls, which is just snow melt water melting into a small creek as it drops down the face of the mountain.

Multiple snow melt creeks join together to become a large stream before getting to the bottom of the mountain.

To give you an idea of the size of these streams, the downward pointing arrow added to the picture below is pointing to two people in the picture. The two horizontal arrows near the top of the picture are pointing to two waterfalls way up the mountain that flow into the stream

The stream really roars through the valley. See there really is a couple there on the rocks.

Multiple streams then end up in a very cold, crystal clear lake that Sylvia can dip her tootsies into. 

Her exclamation was ‘My feet feel frozen, but it is really invigorating. It feels like a spa treatment called the ‘Ice Cold Plunge’.

If you don’t want to drive up the ‘Going to the Sun Road’ yourself, you can take the Shuttle up to the top.

Or you can take one of the antique ‘Red Bus’ limousines that provide interpretive tours through the park.

Further along the road, there are glaciers. The sign says ‘Going, Going, Gone’…and that only 25% of the ice remains from what was there in 1850.

The projections are that all the Glaciers will be gone from the Park by 2030. Of the 150 Glaciers that were present in 1850, only about 26 remain today.

This is a picture of Lake Mary, on the east end of the park, so now it’s time to turn around and go all the way back again.

At the summit on the way back, Eagle Eye Sylvia spotted this Mountain Goat resting in the snow.

Great find.