Glacier

The Sunday after the 4th we left Brad's moms house at 4:00 am to begin our drive to glacier to meet up with our friends Wade and Elizabeth Pilling and their 4 kids along with Wades brother Brek, his wife Emily and their 6 kids with two babysitters. It was quite a big group and that made it a lot of fun. The 9 hour drive went really well and I was impressed with how good the girls were. It was nice to get an early start. The last part of the drive, around Flathead Lake, was really pretty which helped too.
After we arrived in West Glacier around 1:00 we set up camp and since the pillings were gone we decided to drive up the Going-to-the-Sun Road which is a 75 year old road that spans 50 miles through the parks wild interior, winding around mountain sides and treating visitors to some of the best sights in northwest Montana (ha ha, I copied and pasted that from their description of it). Even though we were all done being in the car it was an incredible drive and well worth 2 more hours in the car.

We stopped at a waterfall for a family picture.

Here is the view from part of the road. It was so beautiful. The picture really doesn't do it justice.

Here are the girls at the summit. There was still a lot of snow. I guess usually by this time of the year there isn't any snow left. Global warming my butt, oh wait, that is right they changed it to global climate change.

This was our first animal encounter. There was a big horn sheep just wandering the parking lot.

Another view on the way back down.

This is Weeping Wall and we got to drive through the water. It felt like we were in a car wash.

On our way down we saw this little head peaking over the barrier. Then he jumped up on the wall.

I wanted to be like the big horn sheep I suppose and so I jumped up on the wall too.

This is a night picture of the lake close to where we were camping.

One of the days we decided to go on a hike to a Avalanche Lake. It was a fun, scenic 4 mile hike which all 12 kids handled very well. I am sure hiking is easy sitting atop mom and dad's shoulders.

This is what we saw at the top. It was really breathtaking with all the waterfalls coming off the mountain into the lake. Ayden said it best as we walked towards the lake she said "Wow Mom, Heavenly Father created a beautiful earth for us." It is so true.

Ayden and Sidney on the other side of the lake. Sidney is Wades brothers daughter and she took a liking to Brad. She is a super cute little girl and Brad didn't mind his little shadow at all.

This picture is for Grandma Marsha the big fisher of the family. Ayden caught her first fish on this lake.

After the hike we walked around the "Walk of the Cedars" which is a mile loop of these cedar planks and it was really beautiful.

One of the evenings everyone decided it was time for a bath so they all bathed in the freezing lake. I decided I didn't feel dirty enough to endure the frigid water but it was fun watching everyone else suffer.

We stopped for ice cream a couple of times in Apgar village.

One of the mornings Brad got up early to ride the going-to-the-sun road on his bike. It took him 4 hours to ride the 64 mile round trip (about a 3500 ft climb to the summit). At the top of the summit a German couple went to Brad and said they wanted to take the picture for Lance Armstrong.

Brad saw a lot of wild life on his bike ride. Brad claims this mountain goat tried to kick rocks down onto his head.

A couple of days were spent boating on some spectacular lakes. The first time we went to a little lake called Echo Lake which is surrounded by really cute lake houses. Definitely a place I would love to live. We didn't have our camera that day. The next time we went to Lake McDonald which is the lake we were camping on. It was so beautiful but like I said earlier the water is freezing. Where else is there a back drop like this?

Everyone thought Brad was crazy to only be wearing a wet suit. Most everyone wore a dry suit but they had to look like the stay puff marshmallow man.

We also went white water rafting one of the days but we didn't get any pictures. At the end of our rafting trip everyone jumped off a 35ft bridge into the freezing water. It was fun but I woosed out and jumped about 8 feet lower then everyone else. It was still enough of a thrill for me. Click here to see Brad jumping off the bridge one year ago.

One day after boating, the men (Brad, Wade, Brek and two of his sons Scott and Josh) went on a back country hike to a lake (Harrison Lake) for some fishing. They had to raft across a river and then bush-whack for an hour to find the trail head. They successfully got to the lake after getting really scrapped up and seeing a lot of proof there were big grizzlies in the area.

Notice the cuts on Brad's legs.

After fishing they ran down trying to beat the dark and saw two grizzly bears. One crossed the trail about 100 ft in front of them and another was seen walking through the brush (the same brush they had bushwacked a few hours earlier) as they reached the raft. Luckily they had bear bangers and maise. They all came back to camp tired, hurt and scared.

This doe and fawn came by our camp site a couple of times.

Some of the kids getting a picture with them.

Alex and Sidney on our last day there.

We took a little hike on our way out of town and I guess I just felt the need for some jumping shots.

I was really disappointed that I didn't see a bear in the wild. I am glad we didn't see one around our camp site and considering the fact that every hike I went on we were in a huge group I am not surprised but it was still a bummer. So on our way out we cheated and drove through a bear encounter place. The girls had fun seeing some black bears but it didn't make me feel any better. Ayden decided that she could like the bears since they seemed freindly and were cute.

On a strong recommendation we stopped in a little town called Whitefish and ate at Mambo Italiano. It was a really great restaurant and we were not disappointed.

We broke up the drive home a little bit by staying the night in Missoula. We felt a little unlucky beause most of the hotels we checked out were full. Then someone recommended the Stay Bridge suites because it had just opened the night before we arrived. They had room and we were the VERY first guests to ever sleep in it. It was sooo nice not having to do my usual ritual of re-cleaning the room and pulling all the comforters off the bed before I can feel comfortable in a hotel room (I did work as a housekeeper at a hotel for one day (yeah that is how long I lasted) so I know how well those rooms are cleaned). It was really nice too and oh did the shower feel nice after a week of camping!

We drove back to Boise over the LoLo pass and it was beautiful the WHOLE way. It is amazing how beautiful Montana and Idaho really are. Most of our drive home was the way Lewis and Clark had explored and it was crazy to think that they made it through that kind of terrain without roads. We stopped on this little foot bridge to stretch out legs and get a few pictures.


I just have to say that this was a really great family vacation and I am so please how well it went. It was so much fun and I fell in love with Montana. I can't wait to go back. We also had a great time with both Pilling families and all the kids. Thanks to everything and everyone who made this trip a success!