We'd always known we were taking a risk with snow when we booked this trip. If you come at this time of year the roads may not have been cleared of snow. If you come later the school holidays will have started and everywhere gets more crowded and expensive. In this case the best roads in the Park were still closed, but we managed to see some wonderful sights anyway.

Saturday 10th June – Whitefish

Slightly less pressure today when we got up as we are not moving on. Anne was checking emails and found we had a reply from Bill & Bren in which Bill had offered to cut our lawn. We were surprised to hear that they had already got our postcard from Crater Lake. Knowing that they don’t read their emails very often we thought we’d phone as it was only about 3.30pm in England. Anne had a long chat with Bren. Standard breakfast in a quite large lounge room and then back to our room and off out.

We set off from the hotel back south on the US-93 towards Kalispell and then on the outskirts of Whitefish turned east along the MT-40 and then onto the US-2. We detoured off at Hungry Horse to go up the side road to Hungry Horse Reservoir. We spent some time there at the dam in the Visitor Centre. Lots of interesting information. We returned to the US-2 and continued on all the way to Essex, stopping only at a few overlooks to photograph the river valley of the Middle Fork Flathead River. The Amtrak runs along the valley with the road and river.

At Essex we stopped and went into the Izaak Walton Inn for an early lunch. This was built in 1939 to accommodate railway crews and has a railway theme including a model train running round the whole dining room at cornice height. On site there are several railway carriages that have been converted to holiday cabins and the Amtrak train apparently stops here even though there isn’t a formal station building.

We continued on the US-2 to Goat Lick where we actually managed to see some goats in the distance. We stopped at Silvertail Falls and then at Marias Pass. At East Glacier we stopped for a cup of tea and then took the MT-49 into the National Park and took the fork to Two Medicine to look at the lakes. On the way we stopped at Running Eagle Falls where it threatened to rain as we returned to the car. We decided that that was enough for the day and started back. After we’d come back through East Glacier it started to rain very heavily. Anne drove through pouring rain all the way back to Essex. We went off the road at Essex to a riverside viewpoint as we knew we could park under the road bridge to change drivers in the dry. Murphy’s Law meant that the one car in the car park decided to leave as we were doing this but he was very patient and waited for us.

After leaving Essex the rain eased. We continued back to Whitefish stopping only at a Superfoods in Columbia Falls. Like a Safeway but with some interesting things and we bought more salad etc for dinner. When we came out of the store the rain had obviously caught up and passed us as the ground was wet. Got back to Whitefish in reasonable sunshine.

An odd day temperature wise. It’s varied between about 60F and 41F, the latter being when we were driving back through the rain. This was supposed to be one of the worst two days for weather so we counted ourselves really lucky. Once again when we got back we had dinner in the room and then downloaded our photos etc.

Sunday 11th June - Whitefish

Got up at 7.30am. Facetimed Tracey to wish Niamh Happy Birthday for tomorrow. Whilst having breakfast we realised that the people at the next table were British so we stopped and chatted to them for about 10 minutes. They were doing generally the same as us. Interestingly they’d flown with Delta and were as impressed as we were. They had however flown into Salt Lake City and found that despite their booking, Avis couldn’t provide a mid-sized SUV (similar to ours). This was one reason we didn’t fly into Salt Lake City, so in a way it was nice to have our decision justified.

Set off around 10am and retraced our steps to West Glacier. The town itself is bigger than we realised. Since most of it lies on the road into the park and we had continued along the US-2 yesterday. We stopped at Apgar Village and went first to the Information Centre and then to the village where we had coffee and a danish. We then drove north on the Going to the Sun Road starting off by going all the way alongside Lake McDonald. We stopped at various viewpoints for photos.

Beyond the Lake we could only go as far as Avalanche Creek but this involved lots of stops for looking at waterfalls. At Avalanche Creek the road is closed to cars but bikes and hikers can continue along the road for several miles or go off on various trails. In consequence the area was really heavily parked but we were fantastically lucky going straight into a space on the side of the road as someone pulled out.

We did the Trail of the Cedars which is a short loop of just under a mile along both sides of Avalanche Creek, looking at the Cottonwood trees, the Redwoods and Hemlocks. It was very pleasant - the temperature had got into the mid 60s and there was bright sunshine.

On the return journey we went into Lake McDonald Lodge. We grabbed a late lunch at Jammer Joes and then started to walk down to the lakeside. We were distracted by a small prairie dog town where the animals seemed completely unphased by people. The view over the lake from the Lodge was fabulous. We would’ve liked to have taken a boat trip but unfortunately the next one didn’t leave for another 90 minutes.

By this time it was 4pm and we set off on the return journey to Whitefish. Back in the BW we first put our laundry in the machine and downloaded our photos while it was running.  Once it was finished we put it in the dryer and walked across the road to the Super 1 grocery and bought a few bits for a simple dinner. Started to listen to the Archers Omnibus while we ate. Went through a series of coincidences while all this was going on, keeping bumping into the same American lady, sometimes with her husband, in the lift. The final occasion was when Les took some postcards down to the front desk for posting and met them again.

It was sad that the whole of the Going to the Sun Road wasn’t open as we’d obviously missed the most spectacular parts of the road. We now realise that the road opening depends not only snow clearance but more importantly on the risk of avalanches which doesn’t become minimal until later in June. We have however seen some wonderful views even without the alpine driving.

Anne opened her birthday cards when we went to bed on the grounds that it was already her birthday at home. Had a message from Tracey to say that Niamh had spent part of Sunday in A&E following an accident in the garden involving her friend, her foot and a metal spike.