Glacier National Park

After Mt Rainier we had almost 2 days in the bus heading north for Glacier National Park. We stopped off at Wallace, Idaho, officially declared (by the Mayor) as the Centre of the Universe. Noone told them they couldn't, so they now have signs up about it. Nice little town for an overnight.  Had Huckleberry Margaritas (well, it was my birthday). As it was my birthday I did buy donuts for everyone, unfortunately there are 13 of us and they came in packs of 12, so I had to buy 2 packs. "Would anyone like a donut?" (as I try to get rid of them all) has become a group saying.

Got to Glacier National Park at about 4:45pm, and discovered that it shut at 5, not 6 as we thought. We also found that the shuttle bus service to Logan Pass was extremely limited as it had only just reopened after the recent fires there. We had to get tickets tomorrow, and there were only 200 tickets being given out.  So, the plan was to get, breakfast and make packed lunches to get to the bus ticket place for 7:30am.

We got to the campsite and got set up. Had a lovely burger and sausage dinner (curtesy of Ryan), and then a nice camp fire with some singing, games and s'mores.  Overnight it was very cold.  My sleeping bag was only just good enough, but I survived.  Up at 6 in the dark to get going, very cold, but it was worth it as we got there and got tickets.  We would only have 2 hours up at the pass because of the limited service, so after a very scenic hours' bus ride we got to the top and found ourselves in freezing cloud. It was a very fast paced hike to try to get to the Hidden Lake, but we got there and managed to get beyond the cloud and get some views.

Back down on the bus again, and then a walk for some by the McDonnald lake/lodge. I was knackered, I don;t know if it was the pace we set, or the altitude (over 6000 feet up at the top), but I stayed by the lake and had a snooze.