This trip took place mid- Aug 2022.
Day 4: Glacier National Park is called the Crown of the continent- "A showcase of melting glaciers, alpine meadows, carved valleys, and spectacular lakes."- from the national parks site. It was the place I was most excited to visit on this trip and it did not dissapoint. Glacier has a very small window where all it's roads are open- July through early Oct- It is otherwise snowed in. That makes for an extremly large number of visitors in the summer. They have instituted a pass that you need to buy in advance in order to enter the park- it opens for purchase a few months in and it does sell out. We all bought our passes on chol hamoed pesach before the trip (2$ each). In addition you need to pay entrance or have the national Park pass. The workaround to the pass if it sold out is to enter before 6 AM - which we did anyway!
The west side of the park has the towns of whitefish and kalispal, an airport, lots of chain hotels, touristy things, etc. I wanted to stay on the east side, so we would have a 15 min drive to our hike int he morning as opposed to 1 1/2 hours.
The east side is an indian reservation, and basically has nothing- there were some airbnb's- but none that could handle our whole group.
WE finally found the hook's hideaway motel- it looked barebones- but clean - so we booked (we stayed here 2 nights). We refered to this place as the "happiness hotel"- if anyone has seen the Muppet Caper Movie, you'll understand.
WE pulled up the night before after driving down a dark and deserted gravel road for about 10 minutes to the place- a basic aluminum box wth the word MOTEL running down the side. There is no front desk, and they had called us earlier telling us they were leaving the keys in all the doors and we should let ourselves in- We did, and found it pretty basic but clean- each room had 2 twin queen beds + a tiny couch and the bathrooms had sliding barn doors.
they were new and clean and we went to bed.
We got up early enough to daven netz in the park at the trailhead- It was actually freezing cold. After a breakfast of cereal and milk we set out on our hike- Grinnell Glacier. This hike can only be described as EPIC. It was truly beautiful every step of the way. There were beautiful waterfalls, wildflowers, some big horn sheep, and lakes of the most beautiful turquoise color. Every few feet- we said wow- and stopped for pics, and then it just got prettier!
It was a long climb up- and the last half an hour is a pretty steep climb up- but we all made it, including my 70+ yr old parents and 7 year old son. At the top you reach the glacier which has its own beauty and some of the boys took the polar plunge and jumped in!
After spending some time at the top, we took the hike down- yes it was hard but we were treated to the same beautiful views.
This hike lived up to its hype- was truly spectacular.
I think I was the last one of the group to get down, and it took just over 7 hours round trip with over an hour spent on top.
We literally collapsed in the grass- then davened mincha with some other frum pple that were there.
now it was back to the Happiness Hotel for our big 50th anniversary bash- we sent our parents to take a nap and we got to work. The motel has an amazing huge bar that they let us use for free- what you'd expect of an old western bar- a huge room with antlers on the walls, rodeo and beer signs and lots of gadgets. We brought our own anniversary decorations with us, set up the grill and made a great party, complete with a family song, a banner, a game, speech etc. we finished as the sun was setting and cows were literally roaming the motel grounds.
