Today we woke up and moved to the east side of Glacier, changing RV parks. Although we hoped to leave by around 8:30am to make an early check-in at our next RV park, Nick needed to go into West Glacier for some better wifi for some work related issues, so we ended up leaving closer to 10:30am. Not a big deal – it gave me time to do one small load of laundry and tidy up the RV a little bit.
We did have quite an adventurous ride, and it took us most of the drive before we figured out why. The road seemed ridiculously bumpy and hard to travel. We didn’t think highway 2 would be rough, but then we hit several miles where they’re redoing the pavement. The speed limit was 35 but we had to go closer to 25 mph because of how much we were literally catching air in our seats, with only our seatbelts to keep us down. At a pull out, Nick moved over to allow to pass what he said were 80 cars behind us. Beau counted them and it was 52, or something crazy like that.
Instead of taking the most direct route to St. Mary, we traveled the path recommended for RVs and continued east to Browning before turning left on 464, which would take us to 89 and then down to our RV park from the North.
We began researching what the issue was, and Nick finally realized that the airbags must not have inflated when we raised the leveling jacks at the park to leave. The only way to try to reset those airbags would be to lower the jacks again, and raise them again.
But we still had 30 miles to go.
Finally, Nick couldn’t handle it anymore. He literally stopped in the middle of a two lane road with zero shoulder (but with plenty of foresight in each direction – and it wasn’t a terribly busy road – 464). He had to lower and raise the jacks twice, and the airbags finally inflated to lift the coach a bit.
The driving difference was ridiculously amazing. Just another learning moment for us of something to check with this new coach before we head out each time! As Nick keeps saying, “I’m just asking for God’s grace in my ignorance.” Ha! We are praying no damage was done during the bit we drove like this. We’ll certainly find out eventually if it was!
We arrived right at 1pm (the original checkin time) at Johnson’s of St. Mary, which is the park where we stayed in 2022. The views from this park are phenomenal, and we got an even better spot this time than we did four years ago! We unhooked, setup, and ate a quick lunch of leftovers (mainly pizza and pork sandwiches), and then loaded up for our afternoon on the east side of the park!
We returned to the parking lot where we saw the Sun Point overlook yesterday, visited the restrooms and loaded our bags with snacks before heading out to Baring Falls. We decided a bit in the moment to string together Baring Falls, St. Mary Falls and Virginia Falls into one extended hike. The trek between Baring and St. Mary added 1.6 miles, but we felt like it saved time from going and trying to find a parking spot closer to the St. Mary Falls trailhead which is pretty small and full this time of day. The sun was high and hot but thankfully the breeze from the lake made this hike significantly better, and we took our time trekking through many beautiful waterfalls, feeling the mist of each one as we paused to watch and rest in front of them. It was refreshing! People were jumping off of the bridge at St. Mary Falls and Behr begged to join them. Although we admired Behr’s adventurous spirit, Nick told him he preferred he wait until he was older since all the jumpers we saw were college/young adult aged, and we were unsure of any undercurrents that might take someone smaller further downstream. The jumpers were pretty impressive, though, for sure. It was a long fall!
We added on Virginia Falls and were so glad we did! Beau paused to fish at St. Mary Falls and told us we could pick him up on our way back down, but then when we started to descend from Virginia Falls, he showed up, having fun that portion of the trail so he could see it real quickly. His stamina and pace this entire trip has surprised me!
We began making our way back with the plans of not having to hike nearly as far, and catching a shuttle at the shuttle stop west of St. Mary Falls shuttle stop. However, once we reached this “shuttle stop,” there was a sign that said “Shuttle service doesn’t stop here.” Makes so much sense, doesn’t it? Ha!
We could tell that not everyone could hike much farther, so Nick and I got the car keys and took off alongside the Going to the Sun road another 1.5 miles to get back to our cars. This was a sketchy stretch of highway to try to walk alongside because of blind spots for cars, and the cliff down the mountain, but we knew we needed to get the cars for our parents and kids so we laughed through the adventure of it all. At one point we felt like we had to run to get off the highway sooner rather than later, and we finally reached the spur that took us down to the parking lot where our cars were.
In a sense we were racing the clock because all this happened around 7:30pm and we were hoping to make dinner at Johnson’s of St. Mary, a restaurant near our RV park that we remembered and loved from our 2022 visit. As we got service near the St. Mary entrance, I called and asked what time they closed. The owner told me in 6 minutes, and that they would serve us if we arrived before 8pm. “Floor it!” He said. We did and we made it with a few minutes to spare!
After such a long hike, we were exhausted and so grateful to sit and eat at this restaurant – their huckleberry lemonade, homemade buffalo stew (made with meat from a buffalo killed by the owner!), buffalo-chicken fried steak, family-style served sides, and huckleberry desserts were exactly what we wanted. It was the perfect end to another full day!
jami lee gainey 