After Cascade, we headed to Montana. We stopped for lunch on a side road next to a river.
It was Father's Day!
We entered Montana and headed straight for Glacier National Park!
GORGEOUS!
Words are just not adequate.
This was interesting because a cabin seemed to be built on top of a rocky pillar.
The day started out overcast, but the higher we got into the mountains, the rain started to pour. But we had a hike to go on, so we purchased over-priced raincoats and started on the trail to Cracker Lake.
We look like little hobbits walking through the woods.
The problem was, we were hiking on a horse trail and so it was extra rutted and extra muddy.
This is not Cracker Lake. I don't know the name of this one but it sure was large and beautiful.
The horses caused quite a problem for us. They made the trail extremely difficult to walk on (see the deep puddles in the following pictures)
The first time we saw horses, they were carrying a family on an excursion. The leader in front told us to stand aside and be quiet, so we did. But the horses got spooked anyway. They reared and backed up and tried to turn around on the narrow trail. It scared all of us and actually looked very dangerous.
The horses had a hard time identifying us in our raincoats. They thought we were walking trees and it spooked them. So when we saw horses, we had to hike off the trail and up into the woods and hold completely still.
We are all smiling here, but there was an awful lot of crying along the way. I didn't worry about bears because we really were making a lot of noise. :)
We were about one mile from Cracker Lake and saw other hikers coming back. They said it was super windy around the next bend and they made it to the lake but it was so unbelievably cold that they hardly had time to look at it before they turned around.
So we turned around early and came back.
The hike was beautiful.
It was also one of the most difficult hikes we've ever been on as a family because of the weather.
I guess this is just an excuse to return!
