Montana's Glacier National Park is a real kick in the pants. As a Seattle-ite, I live just about in the shadow of Mount Rainier. Since moving to the great Northwest from Chicago in 1994, I've hiked and driven through much of the the rest of the grand Cascade Range - which runs from northern Washington down through Oregon to northern California. As my Brooklyn-via-Ukraine ancestors might say, I know from mountains. My appreciation is probably enhanced a lot by growing up a Flatlander. But as wondrous and beautiful as are the Cascades, I'd not seen anything like the concentration of jaw-dropping mountain vistas, mountain lakes and wildlife that are packed into Glacier. For six days ending last Friday morning, our family rented a swank but reasonably-priced Flathead Valley vacation home near the Mission Range 90 minutes southwest of Glacier, which we shared with another family. We visited Glacier once during that stay. Then, tantalized by our first taste, we lodged for two more days in Essex, Montana at a modest roadside motel, much closer to The Glacier Church of the Great Outdoors. Driving the entire 580.4 miles from Essex back to West Seattle on Sunday was a small price to pay.

Our three days in Glacier occasioned a bunch of different hikes, explorations of the million-acre park's different regions, tourist amenities and its great scenic byway, Going To The Sun Road. All this left me with a big itch to return as soon as possible. If you're going to be planning a trip there, a good place to start is at the official Glacier National Park Web site.

Like many other visitors, our first Glacier excursion was to popular Hidden Lake, from the visitors center at Logan Pass on Going To The Sun Road. Logan Pass lies smack dab along the Continental Divide.

After a few minutes tooling around in our trusty Honda sport utility vehicle and stalking departing vistors heading toward their cars, we actually scored a parking space in the large but completely packed lot at Logan Pass. It's best to arrive before 10 a.m. or after 3 p.m., but we didn't. We weren't so lucky a few days later, and couldn't find a spot even after 10 minutes of lurking about. It all turned out well, though. We simply drove on a short distance to the St. Mary's Falls trailhead and hiked to St. Mary's Falls and Virginia Falls, then returned to Logan Pass later when parking was plentiful, and got a taste of the gorgeous Highline Trail. Another approach: the park shuttle service allows you to get to and from Logan Pass without parking hassles. Relying on the shuttle, you can also plan some great one-way hikes in the park.

Before getting started on our hike to Hidden Lake, we ate our sandwiches sitting on benches up above the vistors center. One of the first things you see from the parking lot is Reynolds Mountain. Here's a picture I took of it shortly after arrival. At the lower left is an odd-shaped peak called Bishop's Cap - one small part of the larger Garden Wall arete.

After fueling up, and accompanied by streaming hordes of tourists, we launched upon the 1.5-mile boardwalk portion of the Hidden Lake hike, to the overlook. I shot this at the outset, looking toward Mount Clements.

Back across a meadow a bit further on down the boardwalk, a bunch of Bighorn Sheep came into view. Here's one with Haystack Butte in the immediate background, and behind that, part of the famous Garden Wall.

Not only do the vistas shift as you proceed along the boardwalk, so do the foreground colors. Another view of Mount Clements, rimmed in red rock just below the base.

Upon reaching the overlook, most visitors see the moderately steep descent toward the lake, and head back to the visitors center. Fair enough. To that point, it's a great scenic walk with only a very modest elevation gain. Our party of eight (four adults, four kids) proceeded all the way down to the shores of Hidden Lake, a descent of another 1.5 miles and 700 feet. ( Hike description here from Trails.com, and here from BigSkyFishing.com). On the way down, Bearhat Mountain came into view over a corner of the lake.

On the way back up, I spotted Sperry Glacier (center right, in background).

I lingered behind, observing unflustered mountain goats, beefy marmots, ptarmigans and grouse up close and personal. Along the Hidden Lake trail you tend to easily fall into conversations with other visitors. Something about all those sociable critters nearby seems to engender humanoid fraternity. The trip in reverse also revealed some other new vistas. This is Piegan Mountain Going-To-The-Sun Mountain in the center.

By the time we were done, the parking lot was nearly empty and we were hungry for a good hot dinner, knowing a dining room in one of the park lodges wasn't going to work for four sweaty, dusty adults with four kids in tow. If only we'd known that night about Eddie's Restaurant (406-888-5361, no Web site), a great casual spot in Glacier's Apgar Village serving fresh pan fried mountain trout, broasted chicken, roast sirloin, roast pork, and homemade huckleberry-peach pie. Our family discovered Eddie's a few nights later. But alas, on this evening we made the long drive back toward our rental south of Flathead Lake searching in vain for a joint that didn't look too touristy or crummy. Not much luck. Our friends were in another car behind us, and after we turned south from westbound Route 2, heading toward Bigfork on a sparsely-populated stretch of Route 206, they detoured back north to Columbia Falls and ended up - they told us later - in a serviceable greasy spoon with 18 beers on tap in an adjoining tavern.

We continued on, resigned to 10 p.m. spaghetti back at the vacation rental. I know, I know, life is hard. But then at the intersection of Routes 206 and 35, north of Bigfork, we happily stumbled upon the Frontier Roadhouse, a classy log lodge with a packed parking lot. They feature pit-smoked BBQ, southern fare, and nighttime golfing out back with glow-in-the-dark balls. I had a pile of lean and tender BBQ brisket, which I nappped with pepper vinegar and the great tangy, smoky house sauce; plus a stellar cornbread muffin, tangy BBQ beans and a small Romaine salad with huckleberry vinaigrette. My wife had a nice Caesar salad with a bit of brisket on the side. The kids did their usual restaurant thing, which used to irritate me and I have now learned to accept: order a smidgen of food, poke it around on the plate a lot, describe its physical properties in detail, and finally eat just enough of it to earn dessert. In this case, dessert was a warm and scrumptious homemade cobbler of huckleberries and peaches. Yeah, I poached some. Turns out these Frontier Roadhouse fellas have a Seattle location. Similar menu, but more Northwest around the edges.

We got back in around 11 p.m., and spent the next day in Riverside Park in the town of Polson, doing a whole lot of nothing under the Montana sun.

TECHNORATI TAGS: MONTANA, TOURISM, VACATION, GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, HIKING, HIDDEN LAKE, EDDIE'S RESTAURANT, FRONTIER ROADHOUSE, FLATHEAD LAKE, POLSON

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at August 29, 2006 09:35 AM

---