Comparing West and East Glacier Park

We have enjoyed our time on the west side of Glacier National Park. We've made four trips into the traffic and crowds of the national park that are necessary to get to the hiking that we enjoy. But the west side also has a cluster of nice towns that provide farmer's markets and good shopping. We are still enjoying the local cherries, and local vegetables. We had never seen this romanesco cauliflower before the Columbia Falls farmer's market. Denisa loves her vegetables, but this one was rather bitter. It was pretty to look at, but not so tasty to eat.

  
These small towns also host cultural events like the plays and concerts we have enjoyed, and festivals. This last weekend we went to Whitefish's Huckleberry Festival.

Mostly an art festival, the only evidence of huckleberries was the free Sweet Peaks huckleberry ice cream that the local bank was giving away. We have been totally smitten with this wild berry since we discovered it on the slopes of a mountain in Washington. After picking 11 quarts, we have made a long list of huckleberry desserts and breads. Lately that includes huckleberry buckle, banana bread with huckleberries, and huckleberry bread pudding. At every tourist stop there are shelves of huckleberry products for sale.

Even the local grocery stores have a whole section of huckleberry products. All of Montana is obsessed with this wild berry!

These little towns on the west side are surrounded by mountains, rivers and lakes. So even though it feels like an urban setting, there is still plenty of wildlife wandering into town. We caught a picture of twin fawns grazing in the side yard of a hotel close to the river.

There were plenty of things to keep us busy for a longer stay, but after ten days our reservations are up and it is time to head east. We've heard that some of the best hiking trails are on the east side of the park at the Many Glacier entrance to Glacier National Park. Just to show how big this park is, it would take us three hours to drive to a trail head at Many Glaciers from where we are camped on the west side. So we are relocating to an RV park at East Glacier Park for the next nine days. Vehicles over 21 feet are not allowed on the Going to the Sun Road that winds straight through the park, so our road took us on Highway 2 that skirts the south edge. There is an interesting stop on this highway called Goat Lick, so of course we had to check it out. The first time we stopped here, a train was just crossing a high trestle.

But the reason we have stopped is for the gray mountain sides just below that trestle. They are naturally filled with minerals. In the spring, the mountain goats come down to lick these minerals that their bodies need. We are sad to report, however, that in our two stops here there were no goats licking at Goat Lick.

Also along this stretch of Highway 2 is the Izaak Walton Inn. We enjoy seeing historical lodges, and this one has been around since 1939.

We are guessing that most of the guests here are railroad buffs, so they will enjoy the noises associated with the trains that pass through the lodge's backyard.

Across the tracks, we can see glimpses of color through the trees.

Those are the brightly painted cabooses that are also rented as lodging options for $249 per night.

If you prefer to be at the beginning of the train rather than the end, the blue locomotive behind Mark is also available for rent.

Goat Lick and the Inn are two stops along the way between the west side, and our new home on the east side of the national park. We are now settled into our camping spot overlooking the surrounding mountains in East Glacier Park, Montana. This is Y Lazy R campground, a private park with full hook-ups. We are enjoying the fact that the skies are blue, rather than the smoky gray that we had on the other side of the national park.

There are fewer towns on this east side of the park, and less shopping and cultural activities. In fact, we are parked in the middle of the Blackfoot Indian Reservation. Not many miles down the road, we saw a herd of close to 1,000 bison scattered over the hills. The east side is where the mountains meet the plains of Montana, and there were bison as far as we could see.

We were glad to see that there was a fence between the highway and those massive bison. Much of this area is open range, with few fences and cattle meandering across the highway. We are already making a note to get home before dark, as dodging the cattle on the highway is easier in the daylight.

We are enjoying our campground and our new neighbors. We have to mention our new friends, Dennis and Judy, who greeted us to the park when we first arrived. They have traveled to Glacier National Park over 30 times, because they are in love with this majestic place. But in their spare time in Wichita Falls, Texas, Dennis builds simple wooden crosses to give away to people that are proud to proclaim their Christianity in their front yard. Dennis has become quite a celebrity with television appearances and news articles that have explained his passion that has led him to build and give away 5,700 crosses in the last three years. We will be taking one home to Oklahoma as well!

We have no television or radio signal here in East Glacier Park, but we are pleasantly surprised to get a pretty good phone signal at our campground. So we are feeling pretty remote on this remote side of the park. But there is more than a remote possibility that we are going to really like it here!