Jamie Thingelstad

Contrary to the predictions of the weather people, today was a better day than yesterday. The temperature seemed slightly warmer and there was definitely much less rain. We stayed dry most of the day, except for our treacherous trip to East Glacier.

We had a great breakfast at the West Glacier Restaurant. The only restaurant open. Tammy and I are both confused why there are nearly 10 gift shops open in the park, but only one restaurant. It would seem that visitors in need of gifts would also be in need of dining. After breakfast we took headed up the Going-to-the-Sun Road as far as we could go, to Avalanche. It seemed like a popular destination as there were more cars parked there than we’d seen almost anywhere this early in Glacier.

Tammy and I have been trying to gauge our hiking (if you can call it that) expectations with little Mazie. As is typical, we have different worries. I’m worried about her getting in way over her head on even a moderate trail and that we are idiotic parents if we don’t have a basic first aid kit, compass, tent, sleeping bag, 3 weeks of food, etc. along if we have a small child with us. Tammy on the other hand isn’t worried about any of that, she’s just afraid of the bears.

The hike we took along Trail of the Cedars was perfect though. It’s a rare wheelchair accessible trail in a national park so Mazie could walk the whole thing. Most of the trail was a raised boardwalk. Just under a mile long with nice scenery in all directions. We had a great time and took a lot of photos. Thankfully, no bears encountered (or mountain lions!) and we didn’t fall in need of dire first aid care.

We were headed back for lunch and Mazie fell asleep on the drive so we decided to do an impromptu trip to East Glacier. First, a little background. Glacier National Park is huge. There are a couple of main entrances, unimaginatively named West Glacier and East Glacier. Tammy chose to stay in West Glacier because it is much more connected to the park. Typically the Going-to-the-Sun Road is the way to get between these two towns. However, that is closed. So we had to take US-2 all the way around the park, 56 miles one way, to get to East Glacier.

As soon as we got on the eastern side of the park is was raining and the temperature dropped 15 degrees. No good. We continued on and took the road up to where we were told a cool falls was that was an easy hike. We got there after nearly turning around a few times and decided to try the hike. Here however both my fears of hypothermia and Tammy’s fears of bear attack rung loud and after a short 0.2 mile walk we turned back to the van. There was a reasonable amount of snow there still. Not that much, but we were totally not prepared for anything. The lack of fellow hikers got Tammy thinking we were the sole prey for that hungry bear that must be lurking. So, around we went.

Since the Going-to-the-Sun Road is closed and isn’t going to open anytime soon we decided tonight to cut our trip short a day and head to Seattle tomorrow. There is much more to see here at Glacier, but it’s better seen in July, particularly if you have a toddler with you. I definitely want to return here. Next time we’ll maybe just pack our backpacks and hope on the Amtrak. We’ll be driving most of the day tomorrow.

Today was our first full day in Glacier National Park. This place is pretty amazing. Our cabin is a just a couple of steps from McDonald Creek, connecting to Lake McDonald. The water moves quickly, and is so clear that you can see right through it to all the rocks underneath, even at several feet of depth.

Glacier has just opened up for the season. There is only one restaurant open, and it just started up again on Friday. We’ve been there three times so far. Today was cold and rainy. Unfortunately it looks like we will have more of this. The forecast is for rain and temperatures in the upper 40’s to low 50’s for our whole visit. We took it easy today and only really walked around for a couple of hours. Mazie spent two days in a car seat so she got some nice time to just hang out in the cabin and play with toys. With the rain and temperature, Tammy and I were happy to oblige.

I’m making my way quickly through Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. I watched Into the Wild a month ago and the movie really struck me. My friend Kent borrowed me his copy of the book. Reading it in Glacier is a bit of a treat since Alexander Supertramp “tramped” around this area a bit. In fact, I’m sure that he hitched a ride on the rails going right through Glacier. More about this book at another time.

The Going-to-the-Sun Road is not open through Logan’s Pass since it’s early in the season. We can take it up to Avalanche and are going to do that tomorrow. Since the road isn’t open the whole way, our glacier viewing will be limited. We are still hoping to see a couple of glaciers and some good falls.

But even with closed roads and less than great weather this is a stunning place to be. There are beautiful things to see in every direction, and having nice quiet time as a family is priceless. There are no distractions here. No television. No Internet. No telephone. And we are far from even any cellular coverage. That is a treat in its own regard.

Today was another driving day. We got up early in Glendive, MT and hit the road after having breakfast in the hotel. We had a full 10 hours of driving ahead of us and wanted to get it behind us quickly. I drove all day yesterday, so Tammy took the wheel today. While I spent all day on I-94, she spent all day on smaller state highways going down roads that seemed to stretch on into infinity with a perfectly straight path. This was boring stuff.

I got in the back with Mazie and we decided to watch one of the movies on the new iPod. I had purchased some new kids movies for the trip. Dumbo was one of them. I vaguely remember watching Dumbo when I was a kid and thought it was pretty cool. After watching it today I’m tempted to delete it off of iTunes.

Seriously, have you watched Dumbo lately? Watch it yourself before you have your kids watch it. In an hour this children’s classic teaches some less than valuable lessons. First, we start of with a whole-hearted reinforcement that if you are different you will be laughed at, picked on and ridiculed. The movie is completely over-the-top on this.

After starting with this, the characterization of the circus that Jumbo, Dumbo’s mother, is in is so backwards as to be offending. She is whipped and then caged for protecting her baby elephant? And there is no backstory here on how horrible and bad that is. Oh, and then it gets better. We learn when Dumbo and his mouse friend accidentally drink a bunch of alcohol that that is really funny! Hey kids, go get drunk! It’s hilarious!

Now, we start the highlight of the whole movie, the 5-minute pink elephant drunk hallucination scene. I mean really, forget about watching The Wall. Just fire up this doozy. I encourage you to make sure you are flatly sober since anything else would likely result in you hiding under your bed shaking in fear.

For its final touch Disney introduces you to the four crows that help Dumbo figure out that he can fly. Here we have black crows, that are wearing fedoras and other garish hats, sucking on cigars and doing everything they can to invoke black imagery. Wow!

If you, like me, remember Dumbo as this nice movie about an awkward baby elephant with ears so big that he can fly, I offer the following advice. Watch the first 5 minutes, and then the last 7 minutes. Done. Cut everything in the middle.

The movie aside, we had a nice drive and got into Glacier National Park just before dinner. As we pulled close to Glacier we realized that Mazie has had a different understanding of Glacier National Park. She immediately asked to go to the swings. She wanted to go swing for a while. And hey, we had driven all this way to go the park after all! Let’s swing. This presented Tammy and I the challenge of explaining to a nearly 3 year old that a National Park wasn’t the same as a park at home, and there certainly weren’t any swings here.

We had a nice dinner and got checked into our cabin. We are 10 feet off of McDonald Creek right where it empties into Lake McDonald. The water is sparkling clear. The mountains are beautiful. I’m looking forward to exploring, although Mother Nature looks like she isn’t going to cooperate and is sending cold and rain.