21.05.2012- 21.05.2012   7 °C

Golly, golly it’s chilly again this morning!! (We’re back to single digit weather!!) We left a wet Kallispell early this morning and headed straight into Glacier NP. Not much thought went into the naming of this NP as it is the only NP in the main part of the US that has glaciers! The NP is right on the border with Canada. In fact, the northern part of the park is in Canada and is named Waterton. The park has about 50 glaciers but they are diminishing so quickly that it is expected that by 2020 there will be no glaciers left in the park! (might have to look for a name change…)

We’re too early in the season to drive right across the park (on the ‘going to the sun’ highway) but we were able to drive part way into the park. We’d gotten the oil from one of the rangers on Wolverines. Glacier (and the Canadian Rocky NPs- Banff, Jasper etc) are home to the wolverines. Now I always thought a wolverine was an X-Men and was played by Hugh Jackman.. Today I found out there is more to them than just Marvel Comics! Wolverines are the largest member of the weasel family they look a lot like badgers but have really long claws. Apparently, they can run extremely quickly and can even climb up the sides of sheer cliffs! Needless to say they are extremely hard to spot and we didn’t see any today!

The park is very pretty, steep gorges, high mountains covered in snow (and ice) and raging streams. Sadly, the weather had closed back in so our views of the park were limited to just a few short walks. The main one we took was thru an old growth cedar forest which was very reminiscent of the Redwoods NP (particularly because its raining today J). Lots of huge trees and small critters!! (no wolverines though..)

With the ‘going to the sun’ (which is a mountain by the way) road closed, we needed to turn back around and head along the southern edge of the park to get up to the northern tip and into Canada. This actually turned out to be a blessing because this road is very pretty (more snow capped mountains and pine forests) and is also home to one of the original rail lines. We stopped at the hotel where old rail passengers stopped, to grab some lunch. Lunch was a delicious toasted cheese and ham sandwich (can you beat a toasted sandwich on a cold wet day?) followed up with a hot chocolate in this old turn of the century hotel.. lots of wood grain panelling and old black and white photos!

By the time we made it to the eastern side of the park it was starting to get later into the day so we were debating about accommodation options. We took a look around some of the little towns outside the park to discover that they were either closed or very exy to stay for the evening. The lodges inside the park were similarly priced or closed so we were in a bit of a quandary of what to do… We knew that the border crossing would close at 6pm so we made the call to drive quickly up to the crossing and head into the part of the park that is Waterton in Canada. Our crossing was very quick (no one waiting and the guy couldn’t be bothered stamping our passport again—we already have a visa for 6 months so not necessary) and he told us that there were quite a few accom options in the town of Waterton!! Score! As we made our way into the park it started to snow!!! No kidding, the temp had dropped enough that our rain turned first into slushy snow before turning into nice big thick flakes!! Pretty happy about that (well I was until I had to get out of the car at the other end…)

We arrived at the entry to the park to find out that a NP pass in Canada is 136 dollars!! Bit more exy than the US! We bought one anyhow as it will end up cheaper than buying day passes at each park we enter! Like most of the NPs here in Nth America, Waterton has an old beautiful lodge, the Prince of Wales.. It is perched up on this hill above a glacial lake surrounded by huge snow capped mountains.. pretty specky and unfortunately closed for the season! We kept on going into the park and found the town of Waterton (which is actually quite a village) and somewhere to stay for the night. The hotel was complete with bar and fire place so we settled in for an evening of drinks and the national sport of Canada, ice hockey! The play-offs for the Stanley cup are in full swing and it looks like LA are going to make their way thru to the finals!

Song of the Day– Elton John, Border song