Glacier Park Chat
Thought I better get started, before I get too far behind all the rest of the trip reports!
Wed Sept 2nd
Drove from Seattle to Eureka. Spent a few days visiting friends and family.
Here's a view Looking north towards Canada, from about half way between Eureka and Rexford.
Lake Koocanusa near Rexford, looking north
Looking east towards Mt Ksanka from Lake Koocanusa
Another view of Lake Koocanusa, looking NW towards the West Kootenai and Canada.
Mt Ksanka from the hills west of Eureka
Mt Ksanka from just north of town
just north of town, looking north towards Canada
Eureka and Mt Ksanka, from a friends house in town, my friends house is right across the street from where my grandma lived when I was a kid.
This is the ranch where I grew up, a couple miles west of Eureka. I milked cows in the big red barn.
The building in the center in the distance, left of the barn, with the metal roof was our machine shop where we parked our tractor. Our house was just to the right of the machine shop, but its gone now.
Snow in the mountains while I was there. May have been the same night that everyone in Glacier was getting snowed on!
Monday Sept 7th
Drove from Eureka down to Columbia Falls. Made a stop at SuperOne for some groceries, then headed up towards Polebridge.
Looking into Glacier from the Northfork Road.
Stopped at the Merc, but they were out of BearClaws, it seemed to be a theme for the weekend… I got to Schnauss cabin around 4PM, and Jen and Maia showed up around 6.. Enjoyed the views from the cabin, and fiddled a lot with the propane lights and heaters.. There was a note saying the woodstove wasn't working, but we tried it anyway and filled the cabin with smoke.. We had some dinner and beers and played Parcheesi. It was mixed clouds with a few sun breaks in the afternoon, but after dark it cleared off and there were beautiful stars out!..
Schnauss Cabin
Living Room
Kitchen
Stairs from the Living room up to the Loft
My room
The Loft, where Jen and Maia stayed.
A panorama I made from several images I took from the porch of the cabin.
The clouds and sun were going in and out that afternoon, sometimes cloudy and gray sometimes sun breaking through.
View into Glacier from near the cabin
More views from the cabin.
Tuesday Sept 8th
Woke up to clouds and fog, although I heard that the early risers saw nice views of the mountains before the fog rolled in. We had some coffee and breakfast and packed up. Bruce met us and we all drove north to the Trail Creek road for a hike up to Thoma Lookout. Kind of a cloudy partially drizzly day. The drive to the trail head took longer than we’d expected, although it turned out we probably were at the wrong trail head. We hiked a few hours, the higher we got the more drizzly it got and we ran into more snow. We decided to turn around about 1PM without finding the lookout.. Most of us made it back to the car without incident…
Ice and medicinal alcohol was the theme of the evening at Ben Rover cabin. Bruce headed back to Ranch Bottom Cabins, and Jen, Maia, and I had a nice dinner at Northern Lights Saloon. My first time ever at Northern Lights.
With the clouds and drizzle during the hike, and the knee issues afterwards, I didn’t take a single picture that day…
Wed Sept 9th
Wasn’t quite sure what to expect on Wednesday morning.. I was afraid we might be making arrangements for some early departures and trains back to the midwest.. But after some coffee and a bit of breakfast, as we were packing the cars, I discovered that the plan was to “go for it”! So we packed up and headed out, meeting up with Bruce at Home Bottom Ranch, and convoyed to Lake McDonald Lodge, and soon we were on the trail. We took our time, had a nice pleasant hike, and were at the Sperry Dining Hall by about 2PM for some lemonade and a sandwich.
As we were heading towards our rooms we encountered several people in front of the Lodge with way too much wine, and had to stop and investigate.. And low and behold it was the rest of the chatter gang, and I was able to meet my room-mate!! I got my gear into my room, unpacked a bit, and grabbed my cup and headed for the wine bar! What a great afternoon, on the rocks in front of a beautiful lodge, enjoying a beautiful view with some wonderful people!! Our only concern was for the beer that was coming in from Iowa, oh, oops I mean for LikeToHike and FuzzySideDown who were hiking in from Gunsight Pass, but they arrived shortly, in plenty of time for dinner, and the beer was located!
Another great dinner at Sperry! Great food, wonderful friends, and very fun camaraderie with all the other guests who have made the effort to get to Sperry, it is quite a bonding experience! There was a lot of pre-dinner discussion about what the nights menu would be, there was some hope for the awesome Thanksgiving dinner, but there was also some hoping to save the turkey dinner for our last night, but luck was with us and our first night was probably everyone's least favorite the Thai chicken dinner. But its not that it was a bad dinner, in fact I think there was total agreement that it was a great dinner, but it was just the third place dinner of three awesome dinners!!
A little more after dinner wine on the rocks in front of the lodge, enjoyed the stars for a bit, and then off to bed.
No pics on this day either, I guess I was too tired on the trudge up the hill to take pictures, and too excited when I got to the wine bar to remember to take any pictures!!
[To be continued]
Great to meet you there! Should you ever find yourself in the midwest, give us a holler..... 
