A glimpse of Fall in Glacier

 Our trip to Glacier this year was unique for us in one aspect: it was our first trip as a couple taken in the Fall. My wife is a teacher and is semi-retired but still teaching a couple of classes online. For her entire teaching career taking a trip in September or October was unthinkable as she had to be in the classroom. Now able to teach virtually freed her up to give a Fall trip a try.

Of course as a teacher she was blessed with summers off when school was not in session. Taking a summer trip isn't ideal because that's when the rest of the world is taking their summer vacations so we were really looking forward to our three weeks in Glacier National Park. I mentioned in my last blog how busy we found the Park to be and that was our biggest surprise. And it wasn't just other retirees either; there were lots of families with young children throughout the Park. One young lad we met talked about how he was up at 4:30 in the morning to sign in to his online classes back home in North Carolina. By noon he and his family were free to get out and enjoy the beauty and majesty that is Glacier. 

WIFI is still problematic in most areas of the Park. Even at the KOA campground where we were staying you could tell when everyone else was logging on because the KOA service basically shut down. To be safe we drove into Kalispell, the closest major town, and my wife paid to use a shared-office service that was able to guarantee high-speed internet capable of handling ZOOM calls. The folks there told us they had a busy summer with lots of teachers from around the country scrambling to be able to teach ZOOM school.

It was also colder than we anticipated and even in early September the high mountains were starting to see snow and it was getting close to freezing in the mornings when we ventured out. Not that big of a deal but holding a wet kayak paddle at 37 degrees isn't all that comfortable and we didn't want to break out the winter neoprene gloves quite yet. Daytime highs were in the 60's and low 70's which was very pleasant but it was definitely sweatshirt kind of weather most of the time. The KOA in West Glacier features two pools, one for families and the other for adults only but I don't think they were heated. We jumped in a couple of times  but then promptly headed for the definitely heated hot tubs. This particular KOA is the number one-rated KOA in the country and it is an amazing Resort for the RV set. Pools, a couple of on-site restaurants, the aforementioned pools and hot tubs, weekend entertainment, are just a couple of the amenities the campground offers. We were actually staying at this KOA years ago when it went up for sale and my wife and I had pipe dreams of becoming campground owners. The price was around a $million and was considerably out of our range way back then. The Resort just sold again in the last year or so and from what we were told the price was in the tens of millions. If you get the chance to stay at the West Glacier KOA we'd highly recommend it and like many campgrounds also offers camping cabins and even more upscale houses capable of hosting large families or groups. 

The other major surprise other than the crowds was how much of the Park was already closed - most of the eastern side (Many Glacier, East Glacier, Swiftcurrent) were already shut down for the season by the time we got there in early September. We did, after more than 30 years of coming to Glacier, finally ride one of the famous Red Buses that have been taking tourists over the Going To The Sun Road since the 1930's. You'll see what that was like in the video below. We lucked out in having a beautiful clear (though cold) day for our trip and our driver, Rich, has been driving Red Buses for thirty-plus years and was a wealth of information into the Park's early days.

You'll see in the video that we were able to get out on the water a couple of times and the perspective from a kayak or paddleboard is completely different from the land-bound. And of course, for those who know me, any trip like this would be lacking without putting two wheels to some backcountry roads.

When our time was up in Glacier we headed down to West Yellowstone where we spent a couple of days and watched the temps dip down into the low 20's as we took our morning strolls. From Yellowstone we dropped back down to the Tetons where we stayed once more at the Gros Ventre campground which is where we stayed in July. I'll be putting up short videos about Yellowstone and the Tetons and the Teton one will be an interesting contrast to the video I shared in the summer. The Gros Ventre campground is perhaps our favorite campground in the U.S. and is a great place to see wildlife (moose and bear) casually wandering through the campsites. 

We've been back in Denver for about a week now and its good to be home. But make no mistake, the road that beckons is already whispering in my ear. Not sure where that road will take us, but I'm looking forward to wherever it leads. See you out there!