It was time to leave Two Medicine, partly because we had run out of food and partly because I had FOMO (fear of missing out) about the West side of the park. I knew the West side of the park was popular, but I figured it was like pop music-- people liked it for a reason. We descended 2000 feet during our ride around the Southern end of the park, and finally arrived in West Glacier.
Oh boy, that was quite a change. The Eastern half Going-To-The-Sun Road was still closed at the halfway point, and it seemed like all of the people who would normally be driving the 48 miles through the entire park were all packed into the West side. It was such a spectacle. These were the people who were on their Western road trip, hitting up all the major sights in Yellowstone, the Tetons, and Glacier. They wanted Glacier sweatshirts, huckleberry souvenirs, and to view all they could from their RV windows. Ok not everyone but mostly everyone.
On our second day in West Glacier we learned that they had opened Going-To-The-Sun up to Logan Pass! There were bus shuttles that could take us to the top of the pass, allowing us to see some of the park's iconic mountains and hike trails that were formally off limits.
But....... we were reminded that that we were in a zoo. The wait time for the shuttles was an hour and a half MINIMUM. And the travel time to the top of the pass added on another hour and a half. So we put off Logan Pass for a day and hiked the popular Avalanche Creek trail. We passed a bunch of brave people who had left the comforts of their cars and were huffing and puffing their way to the top. Ok not everyone but mostly everyone.
It ended up at Avalanche Lake.
Travis followed it up to the waterfalls.
And we ended up at our campsite on Lake McDonald, where we took a dip in one of the warmest lakes we've swum in so far, and got ready for the next day's adventures.
