Day 11. Glacier National Park

A weather front blew through yesterday which, although it put a bit of a crimp in our activities, has cleared out the smoke from the valley. We spent yesterday exploring the nearby town of Whitefish and then spent the afternoon reworking some of our plans for the rest of the week. We have shelved our plans to ride up to British Columbia due to all the fires up there. Apparently far worse than down here. So new plans have been made.

This morning we headed back up The Going to the Sun Road and although it was a chilly morning with quite a bit of cloud about the scenery was spectacular.

We parked again at Logan's Pass and took the trail out to the "hidden lake". Unfortunately, due to the cloud, the lake remained well and truly hidden. Nonetheless it was a beautiful walk across the Alpine Meadow.

We even saw some wildlife!

A Hoary Marmot

Columbian Ground Squirrel

These creatures were very entertaining to watch as they ate their breakfast and quite unafraid of us humans.

After spending several hours high in the clouds, we pointed our wheels back towards the valley and headed down for the final time.

Riding along the river valley

Lake McDonald

Two happy bikers!

Tomorrow we resume our travels West again. We feel very lucky and privileged to have been able to spend some time in this special corner of the world. In less than 20 years the glaciers are forecast to  disappear completely and although the scenery will still be amazing, the flora and fauna will be very different. There have been record numbers of visitors to the park this year - it would seem everyone is trying to visit the Park whilst it still lives up to it's mane.