The first stop after Oregon was going to be Glacier National Park, but it turns out we had two small snags that prevented us from getting settled into the park immediately:

1. Glacier is roughly a 24 hour drive from Coos Bay…
2. Ben and Hannah decided to get married over Labor Day weekend

Given #2 above, we decided it would be prudent to swing back to California one last time in this road trip and visit Mt. Shasta, a witchy wonderland for one of the most fun weddings we’ve ever been to! Phone photos won’t do the wedding justice, but you can get an idea of how fun the entire weekend was by looking at Hannah’s taco floaty – that vibe never let up the entire weekend!

We also had the opportunity to see my close friend and world-renowned Korean Spiderman impersonator Aaron Park and his wonderful wife & daughter before the wedding. Between lunch with them, hikes around Lake Siskiyou & Faery Falls, and the actual wedding festivities, this weekend blew right by and I was reminded (while exceedingly hungover – thanks Jere) that we still had a day of driving ahead of us…

Monday morning therefore, we pack up the van and hit the road – first stop Boise, Idaho. This was a blitz tour of downtown Boise as it was one of the rare hotel-nights we had planned to shower & do laundry before becoming cave people for the next 2 weeks. What surprised us most (besides a freak thunderstorm and 50+mph winds while we walked to a laundromat…) was how quiet the entire downtown was on a long weekend night.

From Boise, we had another 14hr day ahead of us and we got on the road early AM to get ‘er done. The drive was quite uneventful, but with a few stops (Helena is a surprisingly cute town in the middle of nowhere!) we made it to Many Glacier campsite for the night – leading to a very picturesque photo in front of our site!

The first day in Glacier was spent doing the Grinnell Glacier hike – a ~13mi roundtrip, with ~2000ft elevation gain. This hike wasn’t too strenuous, but given the sheer volume of people on the trail it was a bit of a slog on the way down. On the way up however, we did get to see 3 of the major 4 Glacier mammals – one moose, one bear (grizzly vs. black still being determined by forensic scientists poring over our photos) and at least half a dozen big-horned sheep. Wildlife aside, the actual glacial lake at the top of the trailhead was a fantastic view – small chunks of ice floated in the lake, so we took the opportunity to “touch the glacier” since we didn’t venture all the way to the ice shelf. All in all, the Many Glacier area is probably the best part of Glacier National Park and we can’t wait to be back again!

The next day, we drove the Going-to-the-Sun road through the park and marveled at the mountain range we were fortunate enough to drive through. Reading about the creation of the road (fun fact – it’s not the longest or steepest mountain road, but it was the slowest construction…) was pretty interesting up at the Logan’s Pass Visitor Center.

On the second night, we stayed at Avalanche Campground, a very different site compared to Many Glacier – incredibly wooded and quiet, it was one of the most restful nights of sleep in a while! At Avalanche, we could also directly walk to the trailhead for Avalanche Lake, a nicely tucked-away lake in between the mountains. The hike follows Avalanche Creek for a few miles up to the lake and spits us out at the lake where we were greeted by a flighty friend!

The final night in Glacier was spent at the biggest campground – Apgar. This was a very easygoing day with just some showering and exploration of Apgar Village. Turns out you can build quite a metropolis on a 10mi-long lake near that Canadian border if you really put your mind to it! After literally dipping our toes in Lake McDonald, we wrapped up for the day and got ready for the drive to our next destination – Yellowstone.