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| Joe at Running Eagle Falls |
We then headed up to Many Glacier Road which is a valley road that dead ends at the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn. We were told this was a good drive to spot wildlife. Much of the road follows the edge of Lake Sherburne. I stopped to take a picture of the lake with the aspens showing their fall colors.
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| Aspen along Lake Sherborne |
While there someone pointed out the bear scat by the side of the road and the bear prints below in the sand of the lake shore. They had seen bear out on the sand earlier in the day. It was our first near miss for a bear sighting.
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| Grizzly bear scat |
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| Grizzly bear tracks on the banks of the Sherburne River |
We drove by the Many Glacier Hotel, but it was starting to drizzle and the parking was full, so we decided to keep moving.
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| Many Glacier Hotel |
We had a nice lunch at the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn before heading to the St. Mary Visitor Center. This is the main visitor center for the east side of Glacier National Park.
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| Joe at St. Mary entrance Glacier National Park |
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| St. Mary Visitor Center at Glacier National Park Note how straight the flags are flying -- very windy |
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| East Flattop Mountain as viewed from the St. Mary Visitor Center |
I was a bit concerned about driving the Going-to-the-Sun road as all the guides talked about how narrow and curvy it is. Even the owner of the motel where we were staying mentioned how it was good we would be driving from east to west as we would be on the inside lane closer to the mountain. Since I really wanted to enjoy the view and not have to keep my eye on the road, we were thinking about using the free shuttle. However, the free shuttle on the east side is less frequent that the one of the west side coming once every 45 minutes, and what if the bus is full and we have to wait for a second one before moving on to the next stop. We could spend too much of our valuable time waiting for the bus. So we opted to take one of the Red Jammer Bus tours which were highly recommended by TripAdvisor and other sources. We were signed up for the 3 hour Easern Alpine tour that started at 3 pm. Here is where I messed up. I made sure we arrived at the St. Mary Visitor Center well before 3 pm. The very distinctive buses were pulling up just about 3 pm, but they were from the all day tour just stopping to let their passengers use the restroom and look around. One of the drivers said to just wait and our bus would show up. By now it was after 3 pm, and the same bus driver came out to inform us that he had been wrong. We were suppose to catch our bus at the St. Mary Lodge, not the St. Mary Visitor Center. YIKES! He suggested we could drive to the Rising Sun stop, the first stop on the bus tour. We jumped in our car and raced to Rising Sun. Betty went into the hotel to ask if the bus had already left. They were very nice and called St. Mary Lodge to inquire. There is no cell phone service, so there is no way to contact the driver's directly. However, the drivers do check in for messages at stops where there is a land phone. The bus had not arrived at Rising Sun because they actually spent some time trying to track us down at the Lodge. We were both embarrassed and grateful, and we appreciated how gracious everyone was for the delay we had caused.
I will write about the Red Janner Bus tour in my next blog entry.
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