North to Glacier.

Travel day to Glacier National Park; August 25, 2014

From Missoula, we headed north through the Flathead Indian Reservation and along the east side of Flathead Lake on our way to the Apgar Campground in Glacier National Park.

The sky was clear and crisp, with a cool breeze when we stopped at an overlook on a hill south of the lake.

The GPS routing took us on the east side of the lake, away from the more heavily traveled route going to Kalispell on the west side.  The road traveled close to the lake most of the way, with a few opportunities for pictures.

Once we got set up in our campsite – the best one thus far in the trip! – we went to Apgar Village, a little commercial area inside the park near the campground.  We were familiar with the area, having camped at Apgar in the early 90s and in one of the rustic cabins in the summer of 2001.

The campground and village are on the western end of Lake McDonald, with often interesting and stunning views of the lake and the mountains across the water.

After supper, we walked back over to Apgar Village.  Along the way, we made an error and took a “trail” back that wasn’t the trail we intended to use.  It really didn’t have any signs to indicate that it was a trail , though there was enough traffic over it to keep plant growth down.  We only took it once.

On one of our later walks to the village, we talked to a couple not too long after  they had an encounter with a mountain lion.  With their two small dogs, they had been walking toward us and, while they were a distance from us, I made a wise crack to Karen about “bear or mountain lion bait.”  As we were about to walk past them, some comment made all of us stop and start talking.  They told us that they had been on the other trail (the one in the picture above) and something made the man look behind them, where he saw a mountain lion following them.  He said that he had yelled at it and it drew back; then he threw a stick and it ran off.  I admitted to them that I had made a little joke about “lion bait,’ and they agreed!  They assumed that the mountain lion was following, hoping for a chance at the little critters with them.  After the cougar was chased off, they carried the dogs the rest of the way on the trail.  They also had informed park rangers of the encounter.

Next up: Going to the Sun and back again.