Oh day four! By this
morning my calves were screaming at me from all the previous day’s hikes, I was
sick and tired of whining, crying, and a two year old who has resorted back to
trying to beat up his little brother on an hourly basis.
This morning we checked out of our hotel on the East Glacier
side and were going to work our way through the middle of Glacier since our
hotel for the night was on the West side of the park. First on our list was the Hidden Lake Trail
(3 miles round trip with a 200 ft climb).
OH.MY.WORD! This trail was just
the devil for me. I think I was just
starting off not wanting to really climb a mountain, and the trail looks tame
since it goes quite a ways up with man-made built stairs and wooden paths. For a tall person, like Mason these steps
were normal sized. For me and someone
half my size (Theo), these steps were a PAIN IN THE ASS! I may have been whispering and vocalizing to
Mason the “F” word several times. Yet, I
was the one who had suggested these trails, so I didn’t have anyone to really
blame.
Eventually the stairs ended and it was a normal path which
worked out better for Theo and me. Theo
was pretty cute, and was again attracting attention with his Daniel Tiger hat
and from climbing these steps that were half his size. Lots of people commented on what a trooper he
was, and Theo reiterated, “I wish I had sticks like those.” Me too buddy, me too! One of the cool things was the view for the
entire walk. We were walking up a very
cleared mountain, so there were lots of wildflowers and views of nearby
peaks. We saw a huge raven, and mountain
goats up close. As we were almost at the
Hidden Lake Overlook (this was the 3 mile trip, it was another 3 miles down to
the lake-not happening!), Woodrow decided that he was pretty much D.O.N.E with
this hike as well. His hands were pretty
cold (whoops, forgot to pack gloves) and the wind was blowing in his face. We finally reached the top and Woodrow was
just a crying mess. We sat off to the
side and Mason tried to warm and comfort him, while Theo snacked on his
promised fruit snacks (a savor on our trip).
Eventually Mason passed Woodrow off to me so he could grab some pictures
since I was afraid we were going to have to head down the mountain with the
screaming little one.
Fortunately, Woodrow was starting to calm down when two
mountain goats passed by on the hill and he decided that they were close enough
to dogs that he was pretty interested in checking them out. Finally the crying ended, I was able to take
a peek at the view, and we gathered ourselves and decided to head back
down. We were wishing that more of the
hikes we were on were loop trails, but those are mostly the super long trails
in the park. The kids were really well
behaved on the way down the mountain, and Woodrow actually ended up falling
sound asleep in the backpack carrier. We
saw some more mountain goats on the trail as well as some hairy marmots that were
pretty close to the trail.
The trailhead for this path is at the Logan Pass visitor
center, which was packed with cars, so as soon as we were back at our car we
had someone waiting for our spot, so we decided to drive along the road for a
little bit and find a spot to stop for lunch.
We drove along the middle part of the park, the “Going to the Sun Road”
and it was BREATHTAKING! That being
said, Mason had to drive because it was way too high up and scary a road for me
to drive on. He had me get out of the
car at one point and I’m pretty sure I was clinging on to him for dear
life. It really was super amazing! Mason got lots of gorgeous pictures-which we’ll
find a way to share later, for now all the blog photos will be from my
phone.
We ended up pulling over near Logan Creek (some ways back
down at lower elevation) and decided to have a picnic lunch down on the rocks
near a river. It was so nice, and after
lunch Theo took off his shoes (and pants) and played near the river, dipping
his toes in the cold glacier water and throwing rocks in the river bed. It was getting a little warm for us, so we
decided to pack up our lunch and we were going to walk more along the river,
but we couldn’t find a good path for me and the kids to climb down and hike on,
so we ended up walking along the Logan Creek for a while which was all dried up
where we started, and we passed a primitive cabin, but eventually I just got a
bad feeling about the place, like we’d be attacked by bears and no one would
know where we were, so I headed back to the car with the kiddos and Mason went
ahead a little farther, but eventually turned back and met us since the creek
was filling with water.
By this point it was almost 5:00pm, so we decided that we
should head out and go check in to our hotel since we still had about a 45
minute drive to the West side of the park.
We drove through and it was all beautiful. Lake McDonald is really huge and just
glistens. We never got tons of photos of
it, because it was just too big to capture how it truly was. We get to our hotel for the night, the Belton
Chalet, and I was pretty excited to see this place. It was not my original first choice, but my
first pick was all booked up, so the BC was a little more expensive than we had
been looking for, but it’s what we were able to get. It was in a nice little area with trees, the
lobby had a fire going, and it just felt cozy after this long day of hiking and
walking around. The woman at the desk
gave us our keys to our room (two keys attached to chunky logs, they were like
a pound each…) and we got to check out our room with the kids.
I can’t really describe how Mason and I felt when we walked
in to the room, and I wish there had been someone to take our photo when we
opened the door, because I’m pretty sure our faces would have said it all. In my mind I was thinking, “OH F….” and
pretty sure Mason was thinking, “Sh……!” I know people have done more with less, but at
the time we just did not want to deal with this small room. The room was smaller than our bedroom at home
and this included the bathroom (with only a shower, which is a little challenging
with little people). There was a “private
balcony”. This essentially meant that
there was a bar dividing our porch from the people who were sitting out there
on either side. One bed and little crib…and
I guess we could hang Theo on the bathroom door…we were just so overwhelmed that
we went back out to the car and called a few other places to see if they had
cancellations, but everywhere was booked.
I talked to the front desk about options to try a different room, maybe
a corner where we wouldn’t be bothering two couples, or one of their cabins,
but everything was booked. This was also
a place that required a 14 day cancellation, so we’d lose money if we left
either way.
We dragged ourselves to
dinner at the local place. I don’t even
know what it was called since it just had “RESTAURANT” on the front of the
building. The portions were huge, the family
was tired, and I think twirled more of my pasta than what I ate. I felt like I was going to fall asleep in the
spaghetti. In the end, the BC gave us a
mat for Theo to sleep on and we worked it out with some creative sheet draping
by Mason to block Woodrow from our view, but I think it wasn’t a great nights
rest for anyone. (Did I mention, no air conditioning, and a freight train that
was literally across the street that would pass every half hour with
horns?) I think I could have gotten over
that, I just felt like the Belton Chalet wasn’t a place for children, and that
when I said it was 4 people (2 young children) they should have told me we
wouldn’t really fit in one of their rooms.
There were NO OTHER kids there and if our kids had ended up screaming
late at night, I would have felt terrible.
Glad the day was coming to an end. Overall, the view were stunning, and the kids
were pretty great despite the few meltdowns.
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