Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks -- July 2022

Drive to and arriving at Glacier - July 23, 2022

We did not see any more of Yellowstone this morning but had breakfast and packed up camp. Then we headed back to West Yellowstone and took the path that allowed us to drive through Idaho, a state that we have not been to before. 

We stopped at Helena, MT to get a few more snacks and more chili for another frito pie dinner at Walmart (apparently, we visited the only two Walmarts in Montana on this trip -- Bozeman and Helena) and had lunch at Wendy's. Close to Glacier, we stopped for gas in Browning, MT for a lower cost than in St. Mary. There is no gas available in Glacier National Park, so we were filling up before. After Browning, we hit annoying construction/a very rough road; the warning for this was posted on the National Park website. Since it was Saturday, there were no one-ways setup, though during the week when we left, there were.

We arrived a little before 4pm. A lady took our picture with the sign and said they were waiting for the 4pm, no Going-to-the-Sun Road ticket needed entrance. The Park Rangers were separately the car line into those waiting for 4pm and those that could go in. We showed our Annual Parks Pass and campground reservation and were let in. We carried the campground reservation in the glove compartment for when we needed it to enter. We stopped at the St. Mary Visitor Center and took pictures of the alerts, particularly trail closures due to bear activity. We talked to one of the Rangers at the desk for advice on the closures, general do-ability of the Grinnell Glacier hike, and Logan Pass arrival timing for parking. Hikes that we wanted to do with closures was the Hidden Lake Trail and Grinnell Glacier, though we could do part of each. At Hidden Lake, salmon were spawning, so this had attracted the bears. Grinnell Glacier also had a sign about partial closure for bear activity though the Ranger also mentioned snow with melted water underneath that one would step through. He had not been to Logan Pass in a couple of days so did not advise on this. 

Then we went to St. Mary Campground. The Ranger checking us in explained the rules. Here, we were allowed a water bottle in the tent, but other rules were the same. Joel took his into the tent, but I kept with no water at night to avoid middle of the night restroom trips. 

We setup the tents, including re-inflating the air mattresses, and Travis cooked dinner. At Yellowstone Madison campground, we were allowed to wash dishes in the sink room that was in the same building as the restroom. Here, we had to wash at the campsite, without spilling any food water and attracting bear. We had ordered a cheap office trash can from Walmart pickup to use for dishwashing. We took turns washing dishes.  

We were close to two restrooms from site B82. They both had lights, unlike our Yellowstone one. Only one, the busier one, had soap. We discovered the less busier one the second day because it was next to the blue potable water spigot. These were not common and hard to find but ended up really close to us. This restroom did not have soap, but I never ran into anyone else there, which was nice -- with hand sanitizer back at the campsite. Neither had the paper towels like the Yellowstone campsite restroom had. Back to the water spigots, the sink water was noted not potable and to use only the blue water spigots; at Yellowstone, we could drink the sink water.

Next up Going-to-the-Sun Road...

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