Days 120 to 121: Glacier National Park

The weather to the east of Hidden Lake overlook

We didn't have time to do any long hikes in Glacier National Park so instead we had time to do lots of short hikes with plenty of time to lie around observing the scenery.  We went to St Mary and Virginia falls and spent more time lying around looking at rainbows, spray, and dragonflies swooping overhead like swallows than we did walking.  We met a couple who were making their way slowly over to Alaska and they recommended a hike to Hidden Lake from Logan Pass.  So Mike made us get up at about 6:30 in the morning to drive to Logan Pass and walk a mile and a half over snow to see this Hidden Lake.  It turned out to be a really good thing we went so early, because we had the place almost to ourselves.  There were just a couple of mountain goats occupying the path in such a way that Antonia found it hard to be a good Junior Ranger and stay away from them.  From Hidden Lake overlook, there is a really beautiful view over both sides of the mountain range, which isn't really the case at Logan Pass itself.  This morning was particularly interesting because lots of little fluffy clouds were scudding over from the west and seemed to be piling up in a big traffic jam on the east side where things were looking pretty grim.

The weather to the west of Hidden Lake overlook

When we started the slow drive down to the western side of glacier, we lost sight of all this threatening weather, and high-tailed it across Montana and some of Idaho to our friends' house near Sandpoint.  We didn't even manage to keep track of when we passed the state line or the time change to Pacific time.