Fall Carbon County ATV ride

Start: Day 2. A long day my friends... a very long day.
We got up, had our breakfast and were out by 9. We drove the going to the sun road again... A little exasperated by it and continued past the visitor center to more of the East Glacier side which was stunning! Lake Mary is so green and beautiful! Anyways we didn't stop to get pictures because we just wanted to start hiking and I was fairly irritated by all the dirt road! It took over 2 hours to get to the trail head at the Many Glacier Park entrance!

We hiked Swiftcurrent Pass which is about 15 miles long and fairly exhausting. The first 2 miles were boring through the trees and bushes and fairly flat but opening up to some fairly nice lakes. (picture above) and one lake had this awesome falls right around the corner!  I loved them and the rush of water was pretty loud!

At about 4 miles you start the hard part... The trail starts steeply switch backing right up the Mountain side (reminded me a lot of the South Rim for the Grand Canyon) but it did pass lots of Waterfalls (the one pictured left was the biggest and my favorite) featured steep canyon walls on one side and spectacular canyon views of green lakes and multi-colored cliffs.

Also, there was many more Glaciers we had to walk across and a great deal more snow to deal with at the top.

We didn't really see Billy Goats on this side of town but we did see another Marmot and a Moose! Pretty close too! This moose wasn't as scary as my last encounter but she did move really close to the trailer (this picture isn't zoomed in at all) so we had to hurry down the trailer before she crossed over it.

The view from the top was amazing! It was the top of the mountain that the Sun road goes along so we could look over and see Logan's Pass. It was strange looking one way and seeing snow capped mountains and well... lots of snow and looking the other way and seeing fairly lush green valleys and crystal clear lakes!

I did have some adventurous moments as well since we walked across the log in the picture above... a little sketchy since the fall really wouldn't be pleasant if you slipped and took a ride down the falls.

AND I got to cross a real life rickety suspension bridge. It swung this way and that with each step!.. I was grateful for the ropes course Braden and I did for date night a month back... Trained me to be steady :P

The two pictures above are the views looking in either direction while on the switch backs! Really incredible!

This hike was also fairly empty of people once you hit the switchbacks so there wasn't anyone to take our picture together... Solution?
We took lots of selfies. 

Two pictures up was the view from the top looking out at Logan's Pass visitor center area. Picture right above is the view of Lake Mcdonald we had from our second campsite RIGHT on the lake shore. It was stunning! Wish we'd had more time in this site!

Basically we were fairly fine all the way back down the switch backs but the last 4 miles were Hell! My shoulders and neck were sensitive from crazy sunburn. I had the worst heat rash starting on my legs as well as a rubbing rash on the back of my arms from where my pack sat, and the bugs... Oh the bugs had trippled as the day cooled off and my bug spray had all but disapeared from sweating on our way up. I was attacked without mercy! We practically ran back to the trail head but still didn't leave Many Glacier until 6:30 after I had changed into different clothes for the car ride back and purchased some anti- itch medication and my signature magnet from the general store.

On our way back we decided to forgo the sun road (and all its construction) to the speed of the highways that wrapped around the park (prob evened out but it was less stressful) and we stopped for shakes and fries at this little diner. We got back to camp around 8:30, got our fire going to roast some hot dogs and set up our camp again since we had just moved sites. We hit the sack (literally) around 10:30 thoroughly exhausted and defeated.

Sunday morning we got up around 7:30 and Braden made the fire and cooked our oatmeal while I took down the tent. I said good bye the beautiful lake and we left our site by 8:30. Our campground did provide showers on another loop so we headed over and both showered before our long drive home. We had planned on stopping at this really cool Prison Musem we had passed on our way up as well as getting a fancier lunch at the most beautiful Swan Lake (also passed on our way up) but our GPS changed the route so that we circled Flathead lake (still beautiful) and skipped the 1 highway which both those things were on... We were disapointed. So straight home we drove but made much better time! We pulled it right around 8 and unpacked.
I had an amazing surprise from my mother, Jordan, and Amol who left me stunning flowers, a cake, and freezer full of Ben and Jerry pint ice creams! I loved it! (and still loving it every night for dinner this week haha) All in all it was the best birthday yet!

So minus the 30 bug bites (Braden somehow only got 3?) and my now peeling shoulders I survived Glacier National Park and had the best Birthday Weekend Trip yet!