We spent our first night in Glacier National Park at Fish Creek Campground, on the shore of Lake McDonald (or Old McDonald Lake as we liked to call it). This was one of the few campgrounds that you could reserve a campsite ahead of time (the rest were first come, first served), and we didn't want to feel rushed to get there early to get a spot. Penelope was very excited to be camping and was very interested in helping to set up camp. There wasn't much that she could actually help with, but we found small tasks for her, like bringing me the stakes and helping to tighten the rainfly to the tent poles. After setting up our campsite and trying to reorganize the camping supplies we had packed in our suitcases (having suitcases in the forest just felt wrong), we walked down to the lake and let Penelope play on the rocky shore. If we had brought swim suits, we probably would have gone swimming, because the water was a bit cold but it was a nice warm day.

After our lake time, we went back to camp to cook dinner, only to discover that we had forgotten one crucial item: something to start a fire. Another downside of flying in: we weren't sure we could bring our lighter on the plane (turns out we could have, but we forgot to check), so we decided to just buy one when we landed, but then we forgot to do that. So, with a pot of cold water sitting on our stove, Penelope and I went to a neighboring site and borrowed some matches. With our stove lit, we were then able to enjoy a nice dinner of freeze-dried chicken teriyaki and steamed peas.

Our bellies full, we went on a short walk along the lake. We saw an area that had been burned by forest fire and tried to explain what happened to Penelope, who seemed to understand it. We also talked about how there were bears in the park and that we needed to be sure to make noise as we walked so that we wouldn't startle them. As expected, having Penelope around eliminated the need for a bear bell, as she pretty much talked the whole time we were hiking each day (except for when she would fall asleep in the backpack). Penelope again got a chance to play on the shore and dip her feet in the water. Then it was time for bed.

Getting Penelope to fall asleep in the tent proved to be very difficult, which was surprising since she had been doing really well with our other recent trips. Of course, there is a big difference between falling asleep in a hotel room and in a tent. In the end, it took almost 2 hours for us to get her to fall asleep, since she was all excited and over-stimulated. This was despite her not even taking a nap that day, which usually means she's more tired by bedtime. Finally, she calmed down enough to fall asleep. Katie and I stayed up a bit outside the tent, but it was getting pretty dark by this point, and we had no wood and no fire. Katie headed to bed, and I grabbed my tripod and went down to the lake.

The moon wasn't out yet, and the sky was full of stars. It was incredible. Pitch black except for the stars. I could pick out Cassiopeia, but no other constellations. I could see the Milky Way very clearly, and many satellites zipping across the sky. I set up my tripod and tried to take some star photos. I got a few decent ones, but nothing I was that happy with, and I couldn't get a good Milky Way photo. The satellites were too dim for me to photograph (I really wanted a shot of them moving). After about an hour of star photography, I headed back to camp and went to bed.

After our first night in the tent, Penelope woke us up at about 6:45, same as usual. Still without any way to start a fire, and not feeling like asking for more matches, we had a cold breakfast of yogurt and leftover breakfast pastry from Stefan's backpacking trip (thanks Stefan). We would be staying at three different campsites in the park as we traveled along the main park road, so after breakfast, we broke down our campsite and stuffed everything back in the car. It was a complete mess, with barely enough room for Penelope in the back seat, but it worked. We were also given some leftover firewood from a neighboring family who was on their way home. It was great to not have to buy wood, but fitting it into the car proved a bit tricky.

Our first stop was the nearby camp store at Apgar Village, for that all important lighter. We then stopped off at the Apgar Visitor Center to get Penelope's national parks passport stamped and decide which hikes to do. The weather report said sunny with highs in the 90's, but that proved to be completely inaccurate. It was overcast, rainy at times, and in the 60's most of the day. From the Village, we drove along Lake McDonald to the Lake McDonald lodge, where we stopped to check out the old lodge (lots of dead animal heads) and play on another rocky beach. The rocks were all multicolored and very pretty, and Penelope had lots of fun throwing them into the lake.

We continued along the main park road (the Going-to-the-Sun road) along the lake until we got to Avalanche Creek Campground. We were there early enough to have our pick of campsites, and we found a pretty nice one. We again set up camp, and Penelope was again very excited by the whole process. At least this time we were going to spend two nights there, so we wouldn't have to take everything down again right away. We had lunch at the campsite, then got ready for our first hike.

One aside before I describe the hike: I have to discuss the potty situation. We weren't really sure how that would go. Penelope had been doing pretty well right before we left, with close to a 100% success rate on the pee and a steadily improving poop success rate. (I haven't posted much about the potty training recently, but after looking like she was on her way to being accident-free several months ago, we had some major setbacks, with lots of poop accidents. Then, after some really bad weeks, about a month ago she started getting back into control with her poop, and has been steadily improving since.) Anyway, Penelope was very excited about peeing in the woods. We pretty much gave up on trying to get her to pee in the toilets (which were all flush toilets, no outhouses), because we were much more successful with getting her to go if we just offered her a chance to pee in the woods. The result was frequent small pees, as well as a few "emergency pees" along the side of the road, but no accidents. On the poop front, she had one accident the first day we were camping, but was 100% successful after that, which was great!

Anyway, back to the hike. So after clearing all the bladders, we set out for a hike up Avalanche Creek to Avalanche Lake. The weather was not cooperating, with frequent showers and little warmth. I forgot to bring a hat, and I was too hot from carrying Penelope to wear a rain coat, so my head got very wet. That said, it was a very pleasant 2 mile hike up to the lake. As we began to approach the lake, the weather very suddenly cleared up, and we had beautiful clear skies as we sat on the shore and enjoyed our snack. Some chipmunks tried to steal our snacks, much to Penelope's amusement. The lake was fed by several waterfalls, and we enjoyed relaxing in the sun, looking around, and taking photos. Penelope of course wanted to throw rocks into the water. It was a lot of fun. After our rest, we loaded Penelope back into the backpack and headed down the trail. Pretty soon, Penelope was asleep, but she woke up before we reached the bottom of the trail. At the end, we walked along the "Trail of the Cedars", which had a nice view of the waterfall on Avalanche Creek and wandered through a cedar forest. Luckily for me, Penelope walked much of this part, although she didn't like the fact that it was mostly a boardwalk. She kept claiming that her feet would get stuck in the cracks between the boards, which was pretty much impossible.

After our hike, we returned to camp and started a fire with our free wood and recently purchased lighter. Penelope was really excited about the idea of the fire, but once it got started she claimed it was "too loud" and insisted on covering her ears when she was outside the tent. It was pretty annoying, especially because she then had a hard time hearing what we were saying, and she ended up spending most of the time in the tent (despite the fact that the tent made no difference in the sound of the fire, but clearly that wasn't the point). We cooked our dinner of hotdogs and corn on the fire, with a side of couscous on the camp stove. At first, Penelope insisted on covering her ears while eating dinner outside, but we somehow convinced her that it wasn't going to work, and she ate dinner normally (and ate a lot, too!). We made some smores for desert, let Penelope play around awhile to calm down, then tried to put her to bed. Again, it was a complete failure, and in the end it took forever to get her to actually fall asleep instead of just play in the tent. Exhausted, Katie and I enjoyed a few more smores and sat by our fire, then went to bed, too.

Penelope woke us up around 7AM, which was perfect, because we had a busy day ahead of us. We wanted to get up early to Logan Pass, one of the most popular spots in the park, to avoid the crowds. We had our first hot breakfast of the trip: instant oatmeal and hot cocoa. Penelope usually eats oatmeal for breakfast, but she was very excited to have the overly sugared "maple brown sugar" instant version. After breakfast, we got in the car and headed up to Logan Pass, about 3000 ft above our campground at Avalanche Creek. The road up to the pass is one of those awesome, scary, cliff-hugging roads. There were length, height, and width restrictions on vehicles, so no big RVs allowed. On the rock side of the road, there wasn't even a shoulder, so if cars were coming the other way, sometimes we were less than a foot from the jagged rocks. I really enjoyed driving on it. The views from the road were great, but we didn't stop because we wanted to get to the pass early and we knew we would be going on this road two more times during our trip.

Once at Logan Pass, we loaded up our backpacks (Katie's with food and water, mine with Penelope and all my camera gear and binoculars). At the visitor center, a ranger was pointing out a cluster of big horn sheep up on the cliff across the pass. It took a long time for us to find the sheep. Even with my big lens they were too far away to get a really good photo, but I took some photos anyway. Then we began our 1.5 mile hike to the Hidden Lake Overlook. Our starting elevation was 6600 ft, and we really felt the effects of the high elevation. I was particularly annoyed that much of the hike consisted of boardwalks, and my hiking poles (unlike Penelope's feet the day before), frequently got stuck in the cracks. It also had huge steps, which were not much fun with 40 pounds of kid and gear on my back. Once we got off the boardwalk part, I was much happier.

Other than the annoying boardwalk, the hike was a lot of fun. The pass sits at the continental divide, and the trail crosses over it several times with some great mountain views. The pass itself is a fairly flat meadow, but it is surrounded by several awesome peaks. We also saw a bunch of small wildlife on the hike, mostly "squeaky squirrels" (they sound like birds) and several marmots, one of which walked along beside us for awhile. At the end of the hike was the Hidden Lake Overlook, which had great mountain views and, as you might expect from the name, a great view of Hidden Lake, which really is hidden among all the mountains. We had lunch up at the overlook, this time fending off squirrels instead of chipmunks, and enjoyed the views and rested. The weather varied between sunny and partly cloudy with a bit of rain, but things changed quickly and the little bit of rain felt good compared to the hot sun. Penelope enjoyed that the sun shade of her backpack also worked as a rain shade and a wind shade, and she stayed nice and comfy the whole hike.

After lunch, we headed back down the trail, and once again Penelope passed out. I once again struggled with the boardwalk, being careful not to fall down the steps with my precious but heavy load. Penelope fell asleep with her head almost completely hanging out of the backpack, which didn't help my back. Katie struggled a bit with the altitude (we topped out at around 7100 ft), and felt a lot better once we got lower down. Back at the Visitor Center, we walked around a bit more until Penelope woke up, then had a snack in the shade. Once again the squirrels found us, and both amused and bothered Penelope. Then we headed back down the curvy road, enjoying the views as the clouds started to roll in.

Once at the campsite, we enjoyed some quiet time. Then, in the afternoon, we drove back toward McDonald Lake for a short hike along McDonald Creek to see a small waterfall. We got a little confused by the trails, and wound up on a trail for horses. As you can imagine, there was a lot of horse poop, and we decided that Penelope's job would be to warn us whenever she saw horse poop so that we wouldn't step in it. Penelope really enjoyed her job, and was pretty disappointed when we turned on to a trail without horse poop. Along the trail, we stopped and went down to the bank of McDonald Creek. The weather was pretty warm, and we found a nice protected spot where we could all wade safely in the creek. Penelope enjoyed throwing rocks in the water, while I took an impromptu sponge bath using my shirt. Penelope was inspired by my cleanliness, and asked for her own pretend bath, using a rock as a pretend sponge. After our cooling off session, we finished our hike, stopping to see the McDonald Falls, which wasn't really that impressive. Along the trail back to our car, Penelope spotted three ducks swimming in the water. It was pretty impressive that she saw them. They were having fun riding the rapids, which was pretty cool to see.

After our hike, we returned to the campsite and got ready to cook dinner. We could tell that a storm was brewing and wanted to get everything going. Penelope heard a few claps of thunder and was scared, so she went into the tent with Katie while I cooked and made sure we were ready for a quick getaway if the rain started coming. By the time dinner was ready, the storm had gotten closer and was a bit louder, although still no rain. Penelope was adamant about not eating outside, so we let her eat in the car on Katie's lap. As Penelope ate, I prepared plates for Katie and me and cleaned up in case the rain came.

Just as I was finishing up getting our cookware into the car, the wind picked up and a light rain started to fall. Penelope was done, so we put her in the back seat and gave her the iPad to keep her entertained. I gave Katie her plate to eat in the car, and started to eat myself, but remembered that we had left some stuff outside the tent. As the rain started to come down harder, I scrambled to seal up the tent and bring in our shoes, then returned to the car and ate my dinner. It was just in time, because pretty soon after that it got really windy and hail started falling, a bit bigger than pea sized. Penelope was fine with her iPad, while Katie and I enjoyed our dinner and watched the crazy storm as our windows fogged up. The hail passed quickly and was replaced with rain, which was heavy at first then became light but steady. Our dinner done, Penelope announced that she really had to pee! I grabbed a towel from the trunk (our rain gear was not easily accessible) and dashed to her door. I covered her with the towel, picked her up, and ran with her to the bathroom, while she kept her hands firmly clasped over her ears. She did her business, I covered her up again with the towel, she covered her ears, and we ran back. She enjoyed the thrill of running through the rain in a towel.

While sitting in the car, we kept seeing other cars going the wrong way down the one way camp road, so we thought maybe some debris was blocking the road. We stayed in the car until the rain mostly stopped, then got out to look around. I noticed some small tree branches down, so it was clear the wind had done some damage. Then I looked behind us, and thought, "Huh, that's weird. Didn't there used to be a tent in that site? Now there is just a fallen tree!" I went over to investigate, and found the people in the site next to the one with the fallen tree. They said they had seen the tent (unoccupied) blow away onto their site, and had gone out to secure it next to their tent. Then, the tree fell, right where the tent used to be sitting. If the tent hadn't blown away, it probably would have been crushed by the falling tree's branches. After hearing that story, and being really glad we rode out the storm in the safety of our car, we started to walk along the campground road to see why all these cars were going the wrong way. Well, what did we find? A huge "granddaddy" tree, about 4 feet in diameter at the base of the trunk, had fallen straight across the road. The top of it had come down right between a truck and it's camper trailer, damaging both slightly. The trunk fell across the driveway of a campsite, missing the car and tent at that site. Luckily, and amazingly, no one was hurt.

When we arrived, a member of the chainsaw crew and a ranger had already arrived and were beginning to clear the tree. Penelope was really interested and excited to see the process, and we watched as the branches were removed. Soon another group of park maintenance workers arrived with a second chainsaw, and they got to work cutting up the trunk and rolling the pieces out of the road. They had to leave the part of the tree that hit the trailer so that it could be documented for insurance purposes first. It was a pretty amazing sight, and after it was cleared, everyone started talking. The tree came down in the harsh winds that arrived right before the hail started. It turned out that the truck and trailer were both occupied, with the husband in the truck, his wife in the trailer and a tree between them. They were celebrating their wedding anniversary. Another couple were also split by the tree, with the woman at the campsite and her husband getting water about 15 feet from where the trunk of the tree fell. The guy staying at the campsite right next to the base of the tree actually had to run away from it to avoid being hit by the tree. All in all, it was an amazing event that could have been much worse. According to the park ranger, this storm was way worse than normal for the park, and trees were reported down all over the park, stretching their work crews pretty thin.

After that excitement, we walked back to our campsite. Penelope was very into this whole tree falling down and getting cut up thing, and wanted to go investigate the one that fell next to our site. As we were looking at it, the chainsaw crew came over to cut it up, and Penelope insisted on watching. Once they were done, Penelope asked to watch another one, and was disappointed to learn that there were no more downed trees in the campground. It was actually really interesting timing, because the day before, on our hike, we had been discussing why trees fall down, and how they can come down in rainstorms. Well, Penelope was really excited to see a rainstorm actually bring down a tree, and for the rest of the trip, we continued to discuss fallen trees. Penelope would often point to a tree and say something along the lines of "a rainstorm made that tree fall, but I don't know which rainstorm did it. It was awhile ago." We also had many discussions of forest fires, but luckily, no first hand experience of that.

By the end of the evening, Penelope was very wound up, and we pretty much gave up on trying to put her to bed. We waited until she was super sleepy, which was much later than we usually would have kept her up, then put her to sleep. During this time, I tried to start another fire with the rest of our wood, but the air was so humid from the storm that it refused to do anything more than smolder. No smores for us that night. I eventually gave up so that we could save the wood for the next night. Katie and I continued to discuss the storm and the trees. It was a bit scary to realize that while our car would have protected us from the small tree that fell, it would have been no match for the big one that came down. But, in the end, no one was hurt, and it was cool to see how interested Penelope was in the whole thing, and how she made connections between what she saw there and what she saw in the forest when we hiked.

Our neighbors whose tent was almost hit by a tree returned in a tow truck. Turns out their car had also broken down. Seems like they had a pretty rough day, although they seemed to be in good spirits. Following the storm, a thick fog had rolled in, and visibility was minimal. In the light of our headlamps, we could actually see big particles of fog. With no fire, we decided to head to bed. It had been a very exciting day.

For our last full day in Glacier, we drove over the pass to the east side of the mountains. Unfortunately, the weather was still overcast on the west side of the pass, so we didn't have very good views of the mountains as we drove over the pass. Instead, we just drove straight over and down the other side. On our way to our next campsite, we stopped at a turn off for a short hike. We hiked to St. Mary Falls and then continued to Virginia Falls, a total of 1.2 miles in from the road. At Virginia Falls, we stopped for lunch along the bank of the creek, then headed back down the trail. Penelope decided that she wanted to walk along the trail, but soon she got tired and was back in the backpack.

After our hike, we continued driving to our campground. We had wanted to stay at Rising Sun, but it was closed to people in tents because there was too much bear activity in the area. Instead, we drove to the last campground along the road: St. Mary. In contrast to the west side of the mountains, which were very forested, the east side was flatter and mostly prairie. Our campsite was on the edge of a big open field, and when we arrived, it was incredibly windy from the storm the night before. Setting up our tent in the high wind was a bit of a challenge, but we got it up and secured without it blowing away. While it was windy, it was also very sunny, which felt nice. With our tent set up, we then took advantage of one bonus feature at this campsite: free showers. It felt really good to wash off all the dirt and grime from the previous days.

We had a snack at our campsite, then headed to the boat dock at Rising Sun. We had a 4pm reservation for a boat ride on Lake St. Mary. The lake was a bit choppy from the wind, but the boat ride was very smooth. We got great views of the mountains, with the sun low in the sky behind them. Our captain told us lots of interesting facts about the mountains and the park. For example, it is called Glacier National Park not because it has lots of glaciers (it doesn't have many, and they are not impressive), but because glaciers carved out all the mountains during the last ice age, with some glaciers that were nearly 2000 ft thick. In addition, the rock that forms the mountains used to be at the bottom of giant lakes before the uplift that produced the Rockies, leading to the striated but "flaky" nature of the rocks. In contrast to the west side, which had lots of foot hills in front of the main mountains, the east side had no foot hills. This made the mountains look much larger, as some of them rose nearly 5000 ft from the plains and the level of the lake. We really enjoyed the views from the east side more than the west side, and we were glad that we started on the west side and then headed east.

Our boat tour took us to a small dock on the lake where we could walk in a short distance to Berring Falls. It was a nice waterfall, and we enjoyed taking some photos. The trail continued past the waterfall, but we weren't planning on going any farther since we had to get back to the boat. However, while we were looking at the falls, a man came up to us and others from the boat, and told us that a small black bear was sitting just off the trail past the falls eating berries. A bunch of people in the group were very excited to go see it, myself included. However, Penelope told us that she did not want to see a bear. Katie took Penelope back to the boat, while I joined a few others to go look for the bear (perhaps not the smartest thing to do, but we figured we had some safety in numbers). It was happily eating about 15-20 feet from the trail, ignoring us watching it. I put my telephoto lens on my camera, but the bear was so buried in the bushes that it was hard for me to get a clear shot. Still, it was pretty awesome to watch, and we were all sad that we had to get back to our boat.

Back on the boat, we traveled back to our starting point, watching the mountains around us. The crew had a very hard time docking the boat because of the high winds, and it took them many tries. At one point, one of the crew members almost fell off the dock into the water. It was kind of fun to watch, although it seemed quite nerve-racking for the crew. Back on land, we drove 5 minutes away to the restaurant at Rising Sun. It was fun to eat a real dinner in the middle of the park, and the food was very good. Then it was off to our campsite.

By the time we arrived back at our tent, the wind was beginning to die down, and our tent was still standing. We had bought a wax-coated fire starter and used it to start a fire, since we were concerned that the still relatively high wind would make fire starting difficult. With a nice warm fire, we made smores for desert, then Penelope and I went for a walk around the campground. After a little more playing time, it was off to bed with Penelope, who actually managed to fall asleep pretty easily this time (perhaps because she hadn't taken a nap at all that day). Katie and I enjoyed our warm fire, and ate more smores. The sun set behind the mountains, and the stars started to come out. Unfortunately, the sky was partly cloudy, so it wasn't the best weather for stargazing. I got out my tripod and took a few star photos anyway, though, including a cool one with a tent that was being illuminated from the inside. Eventually the clouds got thicker and most of the stars were hidden, so it was time for bed.

I woke up a bit early on our last day so that I could take some photos of the morning sun hitting the mountains. It was really pretty to watch the sunrise, and I got a few good photos. I also wanted to get up early so that we could get an early start to our busy day. We had to pack all our stuff back into the suitcases, drive back across the park (about 50 miles), drive to the airport, return our car, and catch our plane. In the end, we had ample time to make our 4pm flight, but I didn't want us to be rushing at the end.

After breakfast, we set about breaking down our camp and packing up. Penelope was eager to help, so we gave her little tasks to do. Eventually we got all our stuff back into the two suitcases and duffel bag. We loaded up the car, and set off on the main park road back to the west side. The weather was beautiful that day, clear skies and warm. We enjoyed stopping at a number of view points. Penelope was very into taking photos, so I let her take a few pictures with my camera. We climbed up over the pass, then down the other side, again stopping for a few photos. We were making great time, so we decided to stop at a picnic area along Lake McDonald for lunch. We tried to eat up as much of our camp food as we could, and by the end we had only a few things left over that we could bring back with us.

After Penelope and Katie were done eating, they walked down to the shore of the lake to play. I was finishing up, when Katie comes running back up holding Penelope, who is saying "I need to poop!" We had actually forgotten to scout out where the restrooms were at the picnic area, and they were not in direct view, so we were a bit panicked. As Daniel Tiger says, "When you have to go potty: stop, and go right away." Not knowing where the bathrooms were, and not knowing how much time we had, we decided that pooping on the ground was better than in the undies, and so we started getting Penelope's pants off and holding her in position. Thinking fast, I grabbed our garbage bag and held it under Penelope's butt, while Katie held Penelope. Penelope of course thought all of this was great fun. Soon enough, she was pooping straight into the garbage bag, and of course she was interested in seeing it after she was all cleaned up. I kind of wished we could have taken a photo of us, since it was pretty funny, but very effective and an easy clean up. With that taken care of, I set off to find a trash can, only to discover that the restrooms were just behind a clump of trees, about 15 seconds from our picnic spot. It would have been easy to get there in time, but then we wouldn't have such a great poop story, so I think it was worth it.

We finished cleaning up our picnic spot, then went back to the lake one last time. We played on the shore and took some self portraits against the mountain backdrop. We were about to head back, but Penelope announced that she wanted to take a photo of Katie and me. She stood where I had set up the camera for the self portrait, held the camera all by herself, and took a pretty good photo of us. I was impressed. I think soon I will have to get her a camera, because she is really into it and is pretty good, too. We just have to work on framing and holding the camera level.

We got back into the car and drove out of the park, saying "Good bye, Glacier National Park" as we left. We got on to the highway and drove back to Kalispell, the whole time discussing how we had to return the car to "Thrifty", the guy, not the company. We pulled in to the car rental shop only to find a note on the door that he wasn't around, but we should return the car to the Hertz counter at the airport. Penelope was a bit disappointed that Thrifty wasn't there, and confused why he left us a note. In any case, we drove to the airport (5 minutes away) and returned our car. We arrived with plenty of time to spare, especially considering that the airport is tiny and it takes no time to get through security or walk the 10 steps to the gate. I was a bit nervous about the weight of our bags, since I had used a scale at home to make sure they were both under the 50lb weight limit, but it turned out that we had packed them perfectly balanced at about 45lbs each.

We went through security, and proceeded to wait for our plane. Penelope and I walked around and watched a 737 (the only big plane there) and a regional jet get refueled, load the bags, and take off. They also had some Legos that Penelope played with. Eventually our plane arrived, and we got on board. It was a short and uneventful flight, with nice views of the mountains. When we got to Seattle, all our bags came off quickly except for our car seat. Eventually we found it far away at an over-sized luggage area. We got to our car and headed home, stopping for dinner along the way.

We had a really great time in Glacier National Park. The lakes and mountains were great, good hiking, and cute animals. The only complaint was that the hikes were either short and easy or long and hard, without much in the middle. That said, with Penelope on my back, I didn't mind the short and easy stuff, but one longer hike would have been nice. The weather mostly cooperated and gave us some interesting experiences. Now we are well relaxed back in Seattle, ready to begin the process of moving to Boston.