glacier national park

labor day weekend this is where we went to spend some time as a family. jealous? i thought so.

this is mcdonald lake. but i'll start from the beginning. we celebrated 4 years the weekend before and so we decided to go and do something when andrew had an extra day off from work. we left saturday, sept 4th, morning. (that gave us friday night to make sure we had everything, which we did forget some things, like pillows) we were on the road a little before 10am. just in time for sterling to take a nap, we hoped. it took us about 2 or 2 1/2 hours. sterling got a nap in and once we got there we stopped at mcdonald lake to get out and have lunch.

throwing rocks

throwing rocks with mom. after we had had enough of throwing rocks, we headed back to the car and headed to pick out of campsite for the night. andrew was the one who planned the trip. he decided that he wanted to stay at avalanche creek. i think it is one of their more popular campsites. avalache is one that has flush toilets, running water, ranger talks at night etc.

throwing more rocks. but these ones were around the fire pit. they got thrown into the pit by sterling. we found a good spot and put up our tent etc. then we went for a walk. we went on the trail of the ceders nature trail.

it was a little slow going sometimes. short little legs done go very fast as long legs and they are prone to distractions. above, a tree that was still hanging on the life at the very top. andrew fit in it. then we put sterling in it. it was paved most of the way and when it wasn't there were boardwalks. below: sterling running along. most people we passed thought he was cute, even if he did get in the way.

we were almost done when we passed avalanche creek. we had to stop and take a rest to throw rocks.

dad helped sterling find big ones to throw in. after we had enough of rock throwing we went back to our camp.

we hung out for a while and then andrew made peach cobbler. you have to make it early so that it's ready when you want to eat it. we used white peaches from costco that were really good. then we made dinner (brats and corn on the cob) and watched the campsites around us fill up. lots of people drove by, but didn't stay. we figured they saw sterling and decided that they didn't want to be by him. we didn't blame them.

i slept well that night. sterling even slept in his own sleeping bag for a while, which was really nice. andrew didn't sleep as well as i did. we woke up at about 8.30am and i went and got water for breakfast. we made a fire, but ended up using the propane for breakfast of bacon, eggs and hot chocolate.

we packed up camp and found a place to park the car and then we walked to the trail head for avalanche lake. it was 2 miles to the end of lake. i wasn't sure about it, but i figured we might as well try.

you see on our way up it started to rain. no, wait.  that's not rain that's hail. great. well, maybe it will go away. no, it keep coming but changed back to rain. finally after sterling was pretty much miserable, we decided to turn around and go back to the car. we asked someone how close we were and they said we had about 20 mins to go. so we knew we were close. i told andrew that he could keep going and that sterling and i would go down and wait for him in the car or something. with no cell phones this would be a little hard, but andrew didn't want me to have to carry sterling all the way. i did anyway. not because i chose too either. he wouldn't let andrew hold him at all. the above picture was taken in the way back. you may not be able to tell, but we're pretty much soaked!

once we got back to the car, i sat in it with sterling and changed him. andrew made lunch and we ate in the car. once that was done and the windows were defogged, we all needed to dry out and warm up so we decided to drive the going to the sun road. sterling slept through the drive the first time and was awake for the drive back.

here is the sunrift gorge. it's amazing how far you can see back. below is all three of us at the same place, but  farther down the river. please excuse the way i look. just remember that i was totally soaked earlier.

i know that i look funny in this picture too, but it's the only one were we weren't washed out at all. in case you're wondering. we did have these waterproof jackets before too. it's just that nobody thought to pack them in the bag with everything else. this picture was taken just to the side of jackson glacier overlook. it was really far away. they predict that by 2020 (i think or was it 2030...) that will not be anymore glaciers left in glacier national park!

waiting for a light on the going to the sun road. there were two parts were it was one lane only. it made slow going even slower. it wasn't too bad.

the above two pictures are were we stayed sunday night. we weren't sure since it had been raining most of the day if we wanted to stay or go home. we decided to stay and drive to a "primitive" campsite. no flush toliets or water. this campsite was called logging creek and to get to it we had to drive about 18 miles on a dirt road. it was by the creek so that is were we got the water and then boiled it. we had hamburgers for dinner and we just sat around the fire relaxing. we got the fire hot enough to dry sterling sweatshirt out.

it was cold that night. sterling slept with us the whole night and we crushed andrew because he just naturally produces heat. andrew slept the best this night, though i did not. in the morning we had oatmeal and hot chocolate. sterling ate quite a bit. then we packed up camp and headed for the trail head to logging lake. it was about 4 1/2 miles to get up there. i know andrew wanted to go the whole way, i wasn't so sure if we'd make it. we didn't, though we think we hiked 6 miles that day. it's easier to hike when it's not raining on you. it was nice to put sterling down and let him walk for awhile. he was very very easily distracted.

we were gone for about 4 hours that morning. so when we got back to camp it was sprinkling and we had lunch. pb and j sandwiches. sterling ate most of his, which surprised me, but i'm glad. once we finished lunch we headed home. it was nice to get home, but i wasn't looking forward to all the cleaning up, unpacking and laundry.