Like much of the country, this area is currently suffering from (past) wildfire forest destruction and (current) wildfire smoke, blowing in here from Canada and Oregon. We soldier on, regardless.

Glacier is 1.1-million acres of wilderness beauty. This is our third visit to Glacier National Park, but our first visiting East Glacier — the kinder, gentler little sister to West Glacier’s overwhelming hordes of humanity.

Glacier National Park is of course named for the glaciers that formed it. There were 80 when the park was established; now there are less than two dozen. If you want to see them, you’d best hurry — they expect all of them will be fully melted and gone by 2030. In order to be a glacier (and not just an icefield), it must be at least 25 acres, 65′ or more thick, and still moving — though they usually only move about 1 cm per year.

The enormous park is bisected by the Going To The Sun Road, a 50-mile long road that is perched on the cliffside, extremely narrow and twisting, and stuffed with cars. It crosses the Continental Divide at its highest point, Logan Pass. This drive is both gorgeous and terrifying.

Also at Logan Pass is the signature hike, the Highline Trail. Its 11.8 miles traverse the “Garden Wall,” which is not like any garden I’ve ever been in, since it’s a narrow rocky ridge along the Continental Divide, high above everything. See the little three little hikers below? (Nope, NOT named Miller. No way.)

The original buildings from the 1920’s are all in the Faux Swiss Tourist style, with a dash of Blackfoot Indian to keep them authentic. Here, the MacDonald Lodge, where you can stop for a visit, a meal or an activity like horseback riding.

If you’d rather somebody else drive the scary road for ya, traverse the GTTSR via a “Red Jammer” tour, carrying visitors through the park for more than 100 years under their retractable canvas roofs. They are called Jammers because early drivers had to “jam” the gears to make it up the steep grades.

All along the route, stunning scenery from pullouts and viewpoints!

Another way to see the park is from the water via a 100-year-old boat ride, which can be accented with a hike on the other side of the lake. We took the ride across St. Mary Lake and then hiked to St. Mary Falls.

Glacier is known for its abundant, and sometimes aggressive, wildlife — with several deadly grizzly bear attacks so far this year. We endured a different type of wildlife attack — shockingly bold squirrels who climbed all over us while we were snacking. It wasn’t cute, it was creepy.

St. Mary Falls is also a popular place for an icy, 48 degree jump into the lake … for the young… the daring… and the dared.

An even MORE remote park of Glacier National Park is the “Many Glacier” area. Here, we took a two-boat ride to then hike to Grinnell Lake, a gorgeous and cold glacial lake with that signature turquoise color. It was truly the highlight of our Glacier visit.

This hike included traversing the most rickety swinging bridge ever, and a quick side route to Hidden Falls.

From East Glacier, it’s an easy 40 miles north through the Canadian border to Waterton Lakes National Park, which actually shares some territory and features with Glacier. Since fish and antelope don’t exactly obey national borders, it truly is an “international peace park.”

One benefit to Waterton is that, unlike Glacier, pets are allowed on their trails. We took the trail to Bertha Falls where Finn cooled off, and gazed down on Waterton Lake, the swimming beach, and the entire hamlet from up high.

The village of Waterton, contained within the Park, is cute and walkable. High on a high, the stately Prince of Wales hotel has looked down its nose (and the bluff) since 1927, at the crowds streaming into the second most noted place in town, Weiners at Waterton — a popular hot dog place with a silly name.

Though it has still been bearable to get outside and recreate, we know we’re missing out on some really killer distance views because of the smoke. But what can ya do?

Waterton has a great RV campground in the center of everything, and if we return to this area, we would definitely camp here for the multitude of hiking trails, and reasonable access to the Many Glacier area of Glacier NP!

Great Falls, MT

On our way to Glacier from Helena, we stopped in the city of Great Falls. Great Falls is known for its location on the Missouri River, even though we’re nowhere near Missouri.

The Lewis and Clark Connection

Why “Great Falls?” When intrepid explorers Lewis and Clark (and their famous womanly sidekick Sacajawea — AND her infant son) were tasked by Thomas Jefferson to explore the newly-acquired Western territories, they headed out with 30 suckers on a fool’s mission. Partway up the river, the Indians told them, “ooooh hooooo dudes, you’ve got a bigggg problem ahead,” and went on to describe the five sets of great falls ahead of them.

Sure enough, arriving at Great Falls in 1805, they had to “portage,” which is French for “haul a ridiculous amount of stuff over land instead of water,” to go around. What they thought would take half a day, took 32 days and multiple trips over the 18 miles. Why so long? 33 people in thin mocassins. 16,000 pounds of equipment, trade goods, food, scientific instruments, and supplies. Five large dugout canoes and one iron-frame canoe. Cactus-studded prairie, steep hills, huge rocks, mosquitoes, heat, hailstorms, and strong winds. GOOD TIMES! Not.

We’ve been in a LOT of Lewis and Clark commemorative cities, but Great Falls has one of the best Lewis and Clark Interpretive Centers in the whole country. Be sure to visit and feel bad about yourself the next time you complain about your lot in life.

River’s Edge Bike Trail

One of the best non-canoe ways to get a feel for the Missouri River in this area is to ride the excellent River’s Edge Bike Trail, which passes by one of the five falls, now a hydroelectric plant.

Although there are 60 miles of trails on both sides of the river, only about 20 are paved. For a nice 12-15 mile route, park at the pullout just west of the Lewis and Clark Center. From there, it’s a mostly-flat route to the downtown bridge that lets you cross to the other side. Ride past the energy plant and turn back around. A great ride!

A super-cool feature of the trail, especially on the north side, is a series of artwork made by artist Alex Smithson from rusty old recycled tools. Besides the bridge monuments above, pelicans and octopuses and musical instruments and more, oh my!

Hmmm, got me to thinking. My stepdad is a retired custom homebuilder and cabinet-maker. He still has a three-car garage stuffed with tools. Anyone got a welding iron I can borrow?!

Giant Springs State Park

Also in the area of the Lewis and Clark is a pretty little park with a big responsibility. A linear park alongside the Missouri, it holds one of the largest freshwater springs in the U.S., producing about 150+ million gallons of water daily, just bubbling up out of the ground.

If you’re here, you might walk right on past a world-record holder. An associated little-known oddity, the Roe River, is the shortest river in the world — only 201 feet long! That’s only about twice as long as the distance between first and second base on a baseball diamond.  There’s also a fish hatchery you can visit and tons of trails to stroll.

Speaking Of Oddities

Great Falls has some head-scratchers. For instance, Rainboffolo, a colorful half-fish, half-bison. Great Falls goes out of its way to note that Rainboffalo is not a bison statue painted to look like a fish; it’s a giant fish with a buffalo head and feet. Why? I don’t know. I only report the news, I don’t interpret it.

Like many who don’t quite fit in, this weird interspecies has endured abuse. All four of its fins were methodically ripped off in 2014, and it took 200 hours to repair him — much of it spent trying to match the luminescent colors of his scales. We support you in your weirdness, Rainboffolo! Stay strong!

But wait! It gets weirder. Here in the middle of the flatlands of Montana is the Sip N Dip Lounge, or as they casually refer to themselves, “Polynesia on the Plains.”

It’s a funky, old-school tiki lounge (think: strong rum drinks being lit on fire, black velvet paintings, seashells everywhere) where mermaids just happen to be swimming by behind the bar. Right. Here. In….. Montana.

That’s right, I said mermaid. It’s not a show, they are JUST swimming, but still … quite surprising. And very entertaining. The mermaidess seemed delighted to be there, in her rainbow wig and tiara, which continually floated away.

GQ Magazine must have agreed, for they called this “the #1 bar on Earth worth flying for.” Not sure we’d go that far, but it was another fun oddity in Great Falls.

If you want a REAL mermaid show (or to meet one in person!), the place you gotta go is Weeki-Watchi State Park near Homosassa, Florida! Read more about those mermaids here.

Lastly, we’d be remiss to not mention another of our nationwide Muffler Man searches. We seek these guys nationwide, and here in Great Falls, they have Big John, understandably situated outside Big John’s Casino.

We’ve seen Muffler Men dressed up as cowboys before (as well as baseball players, lumberjacks, and hot dog eaters), but he is unique because of his alternate name, “Angle of the Dangle.” This is a G-rated blog, so I won’t further elaborate, but let’s just say his erect thumbs resemble something else erect, when viewed from a certain angle. The 1970’s porn-star mustache doesn’t help matters, I’m afraid.

We’re moving on from East Glacier, but not leaving Montana. On the West side of Glacier, we’ll next be visiting Whitefish, Kalispell and Bigfork!