Nineteenth Stop - Glacier National Park - July 29-Aug 5, 2018

Another beautiful drive from Coeur d'Alene to the west entrance of Glacier National Park.  Our campsite was at Fish Creek campground in the park, along Lake McDonald.  See Karl doing some maintenance under the RV?  A  3 minute walk took us to lake's edge for happy hour.  A little deer came to the lake next to me for a drink too.

The next day, we drove the Going-To-The-Sun Road across the park.  We stopped at Logan Pass, on the Continental Divide, and hiked the Highline Trail for about 5 miles, plus the additional mile it took us from where we had to park down the road.   Lots of people!  Bring your patience!  The Highline Trail was just as it sounds . . . high up and some steep drop-offs, and less steep drop-offs.

These pictures are from the drive on Going to the Sun Road.   Narrow and scary road at times!

OK!   Ready for our 3 day backpacking, 2 day white-water rafting trip!   We booked it through Glacier Guides/Montana Rafting, and they were great to work with.  On the backpacking portion, we had Ryan as our guide, and 7 other hikers including ourselves.   You don't really know where you are going, until the day before when Glacier Guides can get the permits for wilderness camping.   Our hike took us through forest, to Harrison Lake.  Bonus!   We got to raft to the trailhead, to save several miles of hiking.  We also rafted at the end, back to the bus to take us "home".   One person of the group slowed us down a bit, but a fun group overall.  The second day, we continued up a creek (without our packs), bushwhacking some of the way, to cross the creek to a nice little beach with beautiful views.  Great experience!  The one picture of tree bark, has grizzly bear scratches on it, and you must like our toilet with a view!

After one night in a real bed in the Glacier Guides lodge (very comfortable - first time since May 29 in a bed other than our RV and a big shower!), we started the white water rafting portion of the trip.   Our gear goes in a second raft, and we had 8 rafters, plus our 2 guides.  (one guiding our raft, the other the gear raft).  First day was a fairly lazy day; no real rapids.   The camping spot was beautiful, and the food was great.  Second day, we went through 3 level 3 rapids, and various level 2.  Fun!   And, at the end of the trip, our guide Bodie let Karl steer the raft.   Not sure if the other folks were happy about that, but Karl loved it!