First Visit Into Glacier National Park.......21st and 22nd July....

This is beautiful Lake MacDonald in Glacier National Park. Today is our first venture into the park and we are not disappointed....
We were later starting out today as we needed to contact a mobile RV repairman to try to get 2 of our day/night blinds repaired or replaced, this is not a straightforward happening !!! Upshot so far is we had to leave messages for him to contact us....
After a call into the Apgar Visitor Centre and as usual great information from the Ranger (she was so excited that we are here a week and not just a day) it's time for our lunchtime sandwich looking at this view :)

Most of the main scenic area and The Going To The Sun Road is on from Lake MacDonald  which we will do during the rest of the week.....this afternoon we drive to Polebridge on the east side of the park.....more grassland than alpine tundra....

Hiding in the pasture above was this mule deer......

This is Polebridge at the end of a 20 mile dirt road !!!
There are a few cabins but the main reason people and us come here is for the Polebridge Mercantile Bakery.....
We succumb to really yummy Huckleberry Bear-claw pastries......rather a long way for a pastry but the drive was scenic !!!

Day 2 and this time we take the wonderful free shuttle from the Apgar Centre first to Avalanche  Creek Trailheads....quite chilly today with a chance of rain, slickers on, a coating of Skin So Soft on exposed skin against the many mossies and we set off on the Avalanche Lake Trail....
This photo and next are of Avalanche Creek cascading through the narrows at the bottom of the trail.....

Part of the trail which is a 4 mile round trip with an elevation gain of 500 ft.....

Avalanche Lake and there are now spots of rain but not enough to deter us from having our lunch sandwich sitting on a log at the side of the lake.....there are black clouds but photos came out well.....

Several high waterfalls surround the lake.....fabulous reflection.....the lake surface level is at an elevation of 3905 ft....

Quite a few brave souls or very silly ones are swimming.....

One of the waterfalls at Avalanche Lake...and now it is raining and time to head back down the mountain...

More of the trail....luckily the trees shelter us hikers from the rain and it does stop by the time we get back to the trailhead...

We now catch one of the many small shuttle buses (they have to be mini buses to negotiate the tight switchback at The Loop) and The Going To The Sun Road up to Logan Pass, elevation 6646 ft.....
The clouds have thinned in fact some blue sky.....

One of the many waterfalls along the road can be seen in this pic but there will be lots more and better Going To The Sun Road photos in later posts.....we went up to Logan Pass 4 times....

Part of the incredible Going To The Sun Road......the clouds gather again and once more it starts to rain...we call it a day as it does take at least an hour and a quarter to get from Logan Pass to Apgar Visitor Centre....the service is fantastic, it is run to help traffic congestion on the road and also many folk do not want to drive the very narrow, winding road as the driver has to focus fully on the road and not the view, there are many turn-outs and scenic pull-outs but it is advised to at least experience the road  in a shuttle first before attempting to drive it...
The shuttles also act as emergency vehicles if needed, in fact on our way up to Logan our bus picked up passengers from one of the other shuttles that was then being used to take a man down to the visitor centre, he had collapsed 2 miles into the strenuous trail from The Loop to Logan Pass, the Rangers had to go up and "rescue" him....
Thunderstorms and heavy rain by 6.30pm, glad we had not planned a BBQ tonight although we always can fall back on the George Foreman Grill....heavy rain and storms on and off overnight and they say a 50% chance of rain tomorrow.....me thinks we shall stay local and try to get these blinds sorted, still not had a call back from RV repairman so we're going for Plan B a visit to 2 RV/camping retailers near Kalispell 20 miles back down the highway....