Day 13: Waterton Lakes NP to Glacier National Park

On August 12^th, we wake up at 6:20 am, have breakfast, fill the water tank, and dump our waste water tanks. We leave Crooked Creek campground as soon as possible. Why so early? You will know soon. Read on. We arrive to the border between Canada and the homeland. There is an RV in front of us in line, and we are sure they are going the same place we are. They had just passed us before the border. The tension is thick. The border guards are probably asking the usual questions to the RV owner, but suddenly they are searching the RV. A minute late they come back out. That is when a container full of firewood falls out of the RV to their feet. Our surprise is growing bigger when we see firewood being thrown from the RV. That is when a small woman from Montana emerges, throwing a fit. She is told to bring the wood to a container back at the Canadian side of the border. It is strictly forbidden and well known to move firewood between borders. It is actually very restricted between states too. While the small from Montana is walking her wood back to Canada, one of the border guards is following her with the rest of the wood. The other guard moves on to us and asks us the usual questions. We don't have any wood, but we do have some Canadian tomatoes that we need to discard. We hand them over. Well... most of them. When the small woman comes back from her trip, we can hear her jeer at the other guard because he is taking even longer than her. Long story short, we enter Montana before her, but she does end up passing us a few miles later while Yellow is stopping once again to take pictures of the scenery.
 

We meet this small woman and her RV again at the Many Glacier Campground in Glacier National Park. This is why we had to wake up early: the campsites are claimed on a first-come, first-serve basis. So, we stop at the ranger station to claim a campsite. No, no, no. We have to drive around the campground and find an open campsite that has not been claimed yet. We find ourselves in a frenzy in the middle of a group other cars and RVs doing the same. We are saved from the confusion by several campers who are giving us precious hints on how to solve this puzzle. We finally arrive to campsite #97, where the campers tell us the place is open and not yet claimed. We claim it. We fill out our papers, stick one to the post, and put the other with cash in the correct box. Done. We should have campsite #97 tonight and tomorrow night. At 9:30 am the Many Glacier Campground is full.

We take off for the St. Mary visitors' center, where we take the free shuttle through the Going-to-the-Sun Road to Logan Pass, the heart of Glacier NP. The drive is spectacular along the shores of the lake to the huge cliffs just below the Continental Divide. We hang around the visitors' center, getting to know some very tame ground squirrels. Then hike the Highline Trail for about 2 miles round trip. The first part of the hike is right in the middle of the cliff, while the second part is surrounded by the richness of wildflowers, called the Garden Wall. The view is stunning, but there are tourists everywhere.

We grab the shuttle again and take it to St. Mary Falls bus stop. Then we walk 3 miles, first to St. Mary Falls, then to Baring Falls, and then to Sun Point on the St. Mary Lake shore. The scenery is magnificent along the whole way. And we get to pick some thimble berries here and there. Unfortunately Red is so focused while looking for red ripe thimble berries, that she rolls her ankle badly on a stone in the path. It takes her several minutes to pull herself together, but she is able to walk okay the rest of the way.

We take the shuttle back to St. Mary visitors' center and drive back to Many Glacier Campground.   As not mentioned before, the road is awfully rough, and we find driving quite the challenge. We also hit a traffic jam. Most of the time traffic jams in national parks have to do with wildlife. This is one no exception. A bear has been spotted. Silly tourists, stopping recklessly on the side of the road. So we stop on the side of the road and see the distant bear, take some pictures, and go. We find our lovely campsite and notice right away that it's surrounded by thimble berries. We eat some dinner and go to sleep with the sun.