Bearclaws

Well, we are back in civilization for a bit. We spent the last 3 days in the West Glacier area traveling the dirt roads. We must have seen 100 deer and another grizzly, this one a bit bigger than the last. 

We drove Wednesday night up the North Fork Road which is right outside of West Glacier N.P and conveniently within National Forest Land. We found a place to camp for the night on the side of the road. When Thursday morning came we all awoke to temperatures near 40 and the pitter patter of rain on the roof…none of us were in a hurry to get out of our sleeping bags… When we finally did start to stir Andrew started to make coffee…then the propane ran out. We took out our backpacking stove and waited about 20 foggy minutes before the sounds of the percolator started erupting and then we all enjoyed one of the most anticipated cups of coffee ever. 

By the time we cleaned up the van and got ready to go it was noon, and we had all decided to just go into Kalispell and drift through antique shops on this cold rainy day. In town we did just that, found a few antique shops and then an army navy store…we all did the best we could to not spend much money. After getting some propane and shopping around we found our way back to the North Fork Road and went almost to the entrance of Glacier N.P. where we found our campsite. We did some fishing along the way but came up empty handed. The campsite was at a boat launch, still technically part of the National Forest but we could literally see the entrance to the park, perfect spot! Our fire was going for only a few minters before another truck pulled into the campsite. After a while they came over to visit with us, a trio of native Montanan's. We chatted with them for an hour or so, they told us we had stumbled upon a nice remote and beautiful part of Montana. The 3 guys soon left and we went to bed, us still the only ones in the campsite. 

Friday Morning we awoke to the hustle of people moving all around the van…we looked out the window to find about 5-6 other parties had moved in and set up camps. Apparently this secret site wasn't so secret. In front of us a man popped out of the back of his camper truck (Bob was his name) and told us about a party just down the road in Polebridge that was happening that night. We told him we would stop by. 

For about an hour we drove up to Kintla lake in Glacier N.P. We passed a border patrol truck parked as we approached the lake since we were about 5 miles from the Canadian border. When we got the the lake we pulled into the campground and met 3 park rangers who we conversed with briefly. They explained which trails were un-passable due to recent snowfall and then we talked about our vanagons (one of the rangers had one too!) Before we started to hike the edge of the lake we scoped out another vanagon at the campground, this one was 4WD (a gem in the vanagon community!). We packed up our gear and hit the trail and fished along the way. The trail offered us beautiful views of a pristine aqua blue lake with snowy mountains overhead and the lake offered Jon two lake trout! While fishing we heard the call of an owl. Jon called back and within 10 minutes the owl was in plain sight staring right at us, a bard owl as far as we can tell. It was amazing. Andrew got some awesome video of it, which is good because i didn't even bring my camera. Soon after the owl, a couple walked by us and stopped to share what they had found: a picture of a mountain lion track, and a grizzly bear claw that they picked up off the ground. After chatting with them we found out that they were the people who owned the 4WD vanagon that we were admiring.

We hiked for about 3 hours and then went back to the van around 7 p.m. We drove back to our original campsite just outside the park where even more people were now parked, gearing up for the party, and cooked the fish over the fire. Then we went to the party down the road.

Polebridge is a historic little town…I do mean little. Ok, so it's not actually a town. In the middle of the "town" is Polebridge Mercantile where you can buy anything if you've brought your checkbook, and a saloon right next door. There's also cabins that i'm assuming people rent, but don't really know. The town has no electricity other than what the solar panels and generators provide, and if you need a gallon of gas you better be prepared to pay $6.50 a gallon. 

It was about 10 p.m when we arrived at the party and people were playing frisbee in the street, drinking everywhere and everyone was calling each other by nicknames…we realized quickly everyone was a local but us. We at least looked the part of the locals with our shaggy beards, shaggy hair (well Jonathan anyway) and VW Van. We got out and played some frisbee then went to mingle. There were people talking, people dancing, a campfire, a glow in the dark volley ball game, and dogs running loose everywhere. Once inside the bar we listened to some live bluegrass music and wouldn't you know it Bob was the accordion player! Before long the 15x15 bar was packed and people were wooting and hollering, dancing and slapping their knees. Jon even tried the "yeeeehaww!" that everyone else was doing. We said hello to Bob and he told us where we could fill our water bottles at the spicket around the corner of the store. After filling the bottles we headed back to our campsite around midnight. We had a small fire and then went to bed. Around 1:30 the rest of the party showed up at the campsite and we let their "yeehaws" in the distance lull us back to sleep.

This morning we woke up, made some coffee and then conversed with a fellow camper "Stevo". Stevo also let us know that we had stumbled into a rare local niche, a very remote part of Montana but was very welcoming towards us into the local culture. Stevo happened to be the 3rd person to recommend getting a pastry at the Polebridge Mercantile, so we had to stop in; we shopped with and were waited on by the same people we saw at the party the night before…We got some delicious chicken sandwiches with chicken, bacon, swiss and ranch baked into a french loaf crust like a calzone and followed them up with some huckleberry bearclaws…wow is all I can say. I also got a couple more huckleberry beers which I tried last night!

Now we are on our way south towards Yellowstone, but plan to take our time stopping to camp and fish along the way and hopefully hit up some ghost towns. We just stopped in Kalispell to walk through some stores and see anything that we just need to have. Jon got an awesome cheap pair of sunglasses and Andrew got some Gators for hiking. We stopped into a little diner and grabbed a couple of buffalo  burgers and some fries followed up by free samples of fudge…which were enormous for samples…and unbelievably good. 

Hope to end up near Missoula for the night.

-Adam

Taking the time to smell the flowers

Laketrout

Rainbow