GAR: Day Nine – Spokane WA to East Glacier MT (375mi)

Today’s trek took us from our stop in Spokane to Glacier, driving across the upper part of Idaho, and into Montana. The upper part of Idaho wasn’t nearly as impressive as I thought it would be — not exactly as bland as Napoleon Dynamite portrayed Idaho, but more bland than I expected. And then we crossed into Montana.

Wow.

I can honestly say that I’ve never seen such amazing natural beauty as we saw in Montana today. This place is special, and boy does the landscape speak to me. We drove alongside Flathead Lake, stopping here and there for lunch and gas, and it just never got any less beautiful. We traversed the state highways, making our way toward Glacier, and the farther we drove, the more the mountains came into view. They were… are… beautiful, still with snowtops.

We arrived at the lodge, which was built in the early 1900s, and it had a quaint charm about it. No elevators, bellhops, folks opening doors for you, no TV, barely any connectivity through my Sprint card…. it’s well off the beaten path. As someone here said, they don’t believe in upgrades.

And about that snow… The Going-to-the-Sun road didn’t open on the 12th. Seems that there was a snowstorm that dumped six inches of snow at the lodge location just a few days ago. That’s about 4000′ lower than the pass through the mountains. Right now, they’re expecting the road to open no earlier than July. Now that’s some snow.

We made arrangements tonight to ride one of the Red Bus tours tomorrow. That should be a blast!