Glacier National Park: It Was Home...

Glacier was the main part of this trip. It was the reason we drove across the country. We drove across the country from what we heard about Glacier. We were nervous. How could we top Delta Lake? Or Uncle B’s? We had such high expectations for this national park, we almost didn’t want to go. What if it wasn’t the best? What if we already experienced the best and the rest was just a two day drive home? I was nostalgic half way through my trip. But this was Glacier National Fucking Park. This was the best.

Our main attraction was to going to Going to the Sun road. Going to the Sun wasn’t just a road, it was a road that led to all the best hikes. Most importantly, it was a trail to an unreal night hike where we could see the milky way. It sold out on tickets months ago. We checked every single day for tickets. Every time we went on the website the tickets were sold out in less than a minute. 3 days before we got to Glacier I had two tickets in my cart, and they sold out immediately. A night before we luckily grabbed a campground that was inside the park, which allowed us access to Going to the Sun. We were stoked.

After leaving Yellowstone, we started our day out on Flathead Lake, which was about an hour from Glacier. The lake was calm and beautiful, but we were too excited to see Glacier, so we left Flathead shortly after we got there. Going through Flathead, we noticed their main attraction was cherries. Barbeque cherries, bundles of cherries, cherry wine, cherry pits, cherry everything. We stopped at a cherry store right outside of town. We picked up cherry wine and cherry pits on the way out. The cherries were delightful, and more on the cherry wine later…

We got to Glacier around midday. We weren’t sure where the national park was at first. Of course there were mountains everywhere, but the outside of the park seemed so commercialized. It was full of gas stations and outdoor companies, each one trying to entice you to buy something for the national park. There were cars and a long highway, and all I could think was thank god we have national parks. Without national parks everywhere would be full of places trying to sell people shit. I feel like we’ve destroyed every part of nature, except our national parks.

Once we took a left into the park, everything changed. We were immediately surrounded by trees and seclusion. There were rivers and waterfalls and animals. We actually saw animals! We arrived at our campground, not expecting much from it. We got it two days before from a cancellation, we just needed a place to stay. We were welcomed with this when we got here.

Yes, our campground was on Lake McDonald. Lake McDonald was on our bucket list because it is notorious for colorful rocks. Our trip was already complete before the tent was even set up. We left our evening by sitting on colorful rocks and sipping cherry wine. The cherry wine was the best wine, drink, juice, and liquid I have ever had. It was amazing and fresh and something that I wish I had bought 10 more bottles of. But instead, we had one $10 bottle that we just enjoyed in the moment.

That night we cooked our first meal by the campfire. I have been romanticizing the whole trip, but let me tell you, the food was the worst. I ate Chipotle for breakfast, salt and vinegar chips for lunch, and a PB&J for dinner most of the trip. I was fueled on Bang energy drinks and 5 Hour Energy. But Glacier was different. We were not going to sip cherry wine on our colorful rocks without a good meal next to it.

This was not a small feat for us. We had to start a fire and cook without spilling a single thing because the the bears in the national park. We started a fire and put a pot of rice over it, and added beans, corn, chickpeas, and taco seasoning. Dare I say, it was better than Chipotle. We put avocado on top of it. It was so good we kept the pot in our car so we could save it for later.

When we began to plan our hike for tomorrow we heard the news, Going to the Sun road was closed due to the amount of snow. This was our worst nightmare. We came here for this road. What was this park without the main road? We were devastated, but planned a short hike for the next day until we could figure out a plan.

When I say a short hike, this was fairly doable. It took us about an hour, but the view was surprisingly amazing. I always thought that the hike had to be at least 8 miles to get any sort of view, but this was one of the best hikes I have ever done, and I barely broke a sweat. The trail was called Avalanche. It was heavily trafficked but for good reason.

We planned on going biking or kayaking for the rest of the day, but on our way back from the trail, it began to rain. Of course.

Everything was shut down. We couldn’t do a long hike in the middle of the day, or the rain. So what did we do? We went to the super tourist outdoor activities that wanted people to buy stuff. Although I trashed it before, it was an amazing experience.

We wanted to go white water rafting our whole trip, but the spots had been booked for months. On a last ditch effort to make something out of a rainy day, we stopped at a rafting company, who has 2 more spots left in an hour. Oh Glacier!

While we waited to go rafting, we stopped at a huckleberry store to get pie. Flathead was cherries, Glacier was huckleberries. When I say huckleberries I mean huckleberry gum, alcohol, cotton candy, ice cream, candles, huckleberry everything.

We arrived at the rafting company to find thunder and lighting. It was absolutely pouring. We couldn’t hear ourselves talk with the sound of the rain on the metal roof. It was so stormy that they made it mandatory to wear wet suits on the trip. We thought for sure they would cancel the trip. NOPE. They acted as if this storm was normal to paddle through, and it probably was.

Once we got to the raft, we settled in with a rafting instructor we made friends with on the bus ride. After we settled in the raft we realized why there were two spots left. We were with a family. There were two sons, a daughter, father, mother, and grandma. The grandmother was almost 90 and had been on plenty of rafting trips. For the rest of the trip we called her “Grandma.” She was quiet with a thick accent but was very adamant that she could out drink us. I believed her.

We saw a bear on the bank and rafted through Glacier’s lesser known spots. The river wasn’t too hard to navigate, although I was in the back, and those in the front got soaked. Half way through the trip we were able to jump in the water. It was absolutely freezing, but everyone did it, including Grandma.

By the end of the trip we were all sufficiently soaked, although no one fell in. We also were able to get a family photo, where the entire family had an action shot in the raft, and Kayla and I were in the back with the instructor. Their family bought the photo and most likely hung it up on their wall. There will always be their family, Grandma, and Kayla and I. We never bought the photo because it was $20, although we really thought about it.

After the trip the rain had died down, and we heard from the rafting instructors about karaoke night at a local bar. So obviously, we had to go. Getting ready to go to a bar in a tent is a different type of pregame, but I think I was meant for that lifestyle.

We took a cold shower in the community bathrooms, shaved our legs with a travel sized razor, and did our make up in the mirror of the car. We picked through anything that wasn’t wet from the rain and things that didn’t smell like hiking or the outdoors. We brought the rest of our cherry wine, and set off to the karaoke bar.

We did try to get the family to go with us, specifically I begged Grandma to come. The mother was close to saying yes, as she had heard of dancing at the same bar the night before. The family reluctantly said no, but I really wanted to see if I could out drink Grandma.

We got to the bar a little later, as we just missed a rodeo show outside of the bar. The bar was filled with jean shorts, cowgirl boots, and cowboy hats. On the side of the bar there were stuffed bears behind glass which looked like a museum. When in Montana?

When we went to get drinks, a man came up to us and offered to buy us a shot. His ice breaker was that there were at least 10 serial killers hiding in Glacier National Park at the moment. We left quickly after that.

When karaoke started we quickly learned that 1. We didn’t know any country songs and 2. We couldn’t dance for shit. We spent our time talking to strangers on the outskirts of the bar. I mentioned to a girl that I loved her cowgirl boots, and she asked for my shoe size. We had the same sized feet. She quickly took off her shoes and gave them to me. I was in jean shorts and cowgirl boots, a dream come true.

We found some of the rafting instructors by the karaoke station and we took the mic from them. Kayla and I didn’t know the song that was about to come on, but we were ready to sing with all the rafters. What was the song that came on? We Are Never Getting Back Together by Taylor Swift.

A quick side note, this trip across the country has been my dream. I always wanted to do this trip when I had more time and money, but the reason I decided to do it this summer is because I needed to get away. I had recently gotten broken up with from a long distance relationship. During this relationship, as cliché as it sounds, I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. Sometimes I still do. I was blindsided and heartbroken, and exhausted. I was so tired. I couldn’t live in the same place he had been anymore. I couldn’t be anywhere he was. I wanted to get away, forget about everything, do something that I wanted to do. I wanted to be myself again.

When I went on this trip, it was right after he texted me that he still loved me. We had been broken up for 2 months. It destroyed me. He wanted me to wait for him. Until things were better, until I was out of college, until he was ready. I told him I wouldn’t wait, but I knew I was lying. I tried getting over him as if he was gone and he wasn’t coming back. But he still loved me. How could I get over someone who wasn’t over me?

It felt like I couldn’t give up yet. Even though he had no intentions of being together. It felt like everything I had built in the months without him was gone. I didn’t want to give up on him. We still loved each other. But we were still broken up. It felt like I was starting over from square one. It felt like I had gotten broken up with again.

He was actually going to meet me on the trip. He never showed. So here I was, on this trip, by myself, single, in a karaoke bar with complete strangers, singing to Taylor Swift with strangers. One of the instructors recorded us singing the bridge to the song. The flash from the Snapchat video came on right as Taylor and I sang:

So he calls me up and he's like, "I still love you"

And I'm like, I'm just, I mean this is exhausting, you know?

Like we are never getting back together, like, ever.

The flash turned off then the beat dropped. It was the best, most freeing moment of the trip. I never found out where that video ended up. But it was me having the time of my life in the middle of nowhere. It was me telling myself we were not getting back together. It was the first time I realized that I accomplished what I wanted out of the trip. I felt free. I was free.

The rest of the night we danced. We picked up the mic every time we could. At the end of the night I found the girl I switched shoes with. I was ready to give my cowgirl boots back. She refused. She told me I looked good in them and to keep them. Now this at first was a nice gesture, but when I say she refused to give up my AF1s, she refused. Now my shoes I bought at the Salvation Army for $10, but they were worth about $100. They were a steal, and I wore them every day. Was it her over niceness that took my shoes? Maybe. Did she use her niceness as a chance to steal my shoes? Probably. But every time I asked for them back, she told me to take a nice gesture. I was uncomfortable, and I left in her cowgirl boots.

We gave the raft instructors a ride home, and once they got in the car, they were horrified. There were wet clothes, sleeping bags, open containers of food, and energy drinks everywhere. Their first words when they got in the back seat were, “Your car smells like garbage.” We didn’t mention what the smell was, but I can guarantee you it was the rice we saved from a day ago. The grossest part about it was we ate that rice for dinner, and we thought our car smelt fine. We were officially living in squalor. But what did we say back to them? “It was home.”

The next day was our last day at Glacier. We were planning on doing a 10 mile hike on Mt. Brown. The hike included huckleberries, bears, and mountain goats that follow you to the top of the mountain. However, once we woke up, we heard the Going to the Sun road was finally open. A miracle! We had to abandon our plans and see this road. We had no plans for the day but to drive though, and find a hike on the way.

The road was narrow and long, but it was filled with waterfalls and mountain goats. We found this view just by getting out of our car.

We were going to do the hike we originally wanted to do. It was Hidden Lake, where we could see the stars if we stayed the night. Once we got near the trailhead, it was so packed we couldn’t find parking. Nothing is worse than a packed hiking trail, and we tested our luck at another spot.

We settled on a small trail we found off the side. This trail was about a mile, but the views were astonishing. We saw deer and foxes. At the end of the trail, we were met with a waterfall where we enjoyed our last meal in Glacier National Park. I would’ve stayed here for the rest of my life if I could.

We almost stayed another night. But that’s what’s bittersweet about travelling, there are always places that you want to stay, but you have more memories to make. And I am glad we kept going, because Montana, we we're not done with memories yet.