Monday, July 23, 2007

On top of the world, among the glaciers




We entered Glacier National Park in Montana three days ago and it was absolutely incredible. In my opinion, it is the most beautiful place in the United States. Almost imediately after we entered the park, we were besieged by majestic beauty. The mountains rise up from the valleys and many still have snow and even glaciers on top. Down below the forests are dense with pines, birches, and larches, and what ground isn't taken up with trees in covered with beautiful red, blue and yellow wild flowers.




After biking around Lake McDonald, we camped at Avalanche Creek and hiked up to Avalanche Lake. The blue-green lake was rimmed with steep mountains and fed by half a dozen waterfalls from the melting snow above.




The next day, we woke up early to bike up 4,000 ft over Logan Pass on the Going-to-the-Sun Highway. The road is very narrow and snakes up and up the mountain to the top. The view just keep getting better and better as you assend, until at the very top, 6,600 ft, you're on top of the world. Looking back from where we biked across the valley the peaks of the park are at your eye level - incredible!




We coasted down the other side and camped at St. Mary by the Johnson Family Restaurant, where we had lunch and the next day, breakfast. The food at Johnson's was the best, heaviest, greasy food I've ever had!




Glacier, as expected, has been the highlight of my trip thus far. The incredible, undescribably beauty, coupled with the serenity of the mountains, make it my favorite place to be!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Both you and Eric talked about the wonderful food at Johnson's, but neither of you said what you ate! More details?

Rambling-Biking-Jason said...

Here's the scoop on Johnson's Family restaurant. The restaurant, located in a log cabin, started in the '60's with 10 lbs of ground beef and one loaf of bread. The selection has expanded since then, but they've kept to their greasy roots. For lunch, I had the "Rockin' Robin" which included "everything but the kitchen sink". The waitress explained that it's whatever the chef feels like making. My sandwich was a burger with bacon, sauteed onions, cheese, and a fried egg on top. It was all on two slices of their home made bread and came with a cup of yummy vegitable soup with chicken. For breakfast the next day Eric had the "Papa Johnson" which was two eggs, meat, potatos and bread. I had an awesome omlet with sausage patties, homefries and homemade bread and butter. Oh so yummy! It's almost worth coming to Montana just for Johnson's!