Today we left Sandpoint headed for Glacier National park where we are staying at the Glacier Guides Lodge in West Glacier. We checked out of our AirBnB in Sandpoint around 8:30 after having our last breakfast at Evans Brothers coffee. We really enjoyed our stay.
The drive was very pretty, almost all along Rt 2. We did one sightseeing stop along the way at Kootenai falls and did a small hike to see a waterfall and a swinging bridge. There was ample parking, restrooms and it was wirth the stop. We walked down a trail and across a bridge that went over the train tracks to get down to the river and the falls.
After the bridge we continued our ride until we got to the small town of Kalispell. We stopped to have lunch here. It was a pretty sizeable town but the restaurant that we had planned to visit for lunch was closed and we couldn’t find much nearby. We decided on an asian restaurant called Alley Connection. Despit it being 1:30 PM they were still pretty crowded and very understaffed. The food was mediocre but it was quick and we got back on the road.
We arrived in West Glacier at around 3:15 and just as we were pulling into the Glacier Guides lodge we got a message that our room was ready. The lodge is just outside of the West Glacier park entrance, and set back from the road by a short gravel entrance road. The room was clean, and well appointed. We had air conditioning and plenty of space.
After we got our luggage inside and settled, we headed off to see the first part of the park inside of the west entrance, specifically wanting to see Lake McDonald and get some pictures. We tried to get good pictures of the colored rocks in Lake McDonald but the glare on the water at that time of day made it difficult.
We then decided to drive out to Lake McDonald Lodge and see the historic lodge. We took some pictures around the property and then sat on the porch and had a huckleberry lemonade which was delicious. Huckleberry’s are very popular here, in lemonade, cocktails, ice cream and pie
We headed back to the lodge, stopping at a few pullouts to take more pictures.
Once we arrived back at the lodge we decided to just eat dinner at the bottom of the driveway of our hotel at a restaurant called Highland Restaurant. It was small and casual and the food was pretty good. We then headed to bed because we have to meet our guide from Glacier Guides – Mo, in the morning for a day hike. She called us when we arrived at the lodge to let us know that the Highline Trail, which we had planned to hike is closed and so we decided on a different trail with 3 waterfalls, that is about 7 miles.