It was time to take a hike in Glacier. I remain a tad freaked out about bears, but now that we’ve been visited by bears twice in our campground, seeing them in the wild might not be as scary. At least that is what I keep telling myself.

Beautiful trail in Glacier

Luckily, I know a boatload of show tunes and thanks to my voice, have been keeping most animals at bay.

We can’t take Samantha on a hike in Glacier and we don’t like leaving her in the RV for long periods of time without us, so we planned a few shorter hikes. It gives us a taste, and we are back in a few hours.

I had the brilliant idea for our first hike to be short and sweet, on the West side where we are staying. I perused the list of day hikes & picked Johns Lake Loop – a 3 mile hike that only gains 160 feet.

Bridge in Glacier

We started at the trailhead and *thought* we followed the signs right, but ended up in an entirely unexpected spot. On the plus side, it’s a bridge I saw when we were driving and wanted to explore more. Another bonus to taking this trail, was being able to see a mom with two of the smallest fawns I have ever seen. I was in awe at how tiny they were. We kept on the trail, snapped a few shots and then moved on before she got spooked.

We inadvertently left the day hike map at the RV, but every time we leave for a walk, we mark the car with Car Matey, and I run Endomondo that leaves a breadcrumb trail if we ever need it. After spilling out unexpectedly on a road, we checked the car location and it was only 700 yards away. So, our planned 3 mile hike only ended up being about 2 miles.

View of where the river empties into Lake McDonald

Since we had a little extra time, I suggested we stop at Lake McDonald Lodge so we could check it out. We wandered along this historic lodge and made it down to the lake front. I then noticed that there was a boat tour leaving in 20 minutes. We normally shun a lot of organized tours, instead opting to wander & discover things on our own. It was a beautiful day, and Samantha was in the RV — and I really did want an opportunity to see Glacier from the water, so we decided we might as well.

View from the bow of the boat headed back to the lodge

It was pretty cool and fairly reasonable at $16.50 a person. We got to sit at the bow of the boat & had really good views the entire time. The commentary was kept to a minimum, which I appreciated (I detest constant droning…) and when they did come on air, it was informative & interesting. I think for the hour boat ride, she came on roughly 4-5 times, for a few minutes each time.

We got to see the Lodge from the water, the way everyone arrived before the road was built. We got to putter around Lake McDonald on a historic wooden boat. And we got to take a ridiculous number of pictures. Perfect.

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