Lake McDonald, Avalanche Creek and Avalanche Lake

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.