Glacier National Park Day 1

Monday: We woke up early and drove into GNP.  After a few false starts, we found a trail head my mom wanted to go on and we started off.

Derrick in the hotel parking lot

Mom and Dad at the trailhead

Derrick and I at the trailhead

There was this cute little family in front of us who were living in El Salvador while he worked at the embassy.  We hit it off with them right off because they saw my dad and my's BYU shirts and the parents had met at BYU.  Derrick and I kept wanting to go off the trail and explore a little, but the family started following us a few times, so we had to keep it to a minimum while they were around.

Me standing by the lake on the off trail excursion the family followed us on

Once we hit the bridge, we took a different path than the family did though so we had fun going on little adventures.  Derrick and I were ahead of our parents, so we were surprised when our parents followed us when we kept going off the trail.  It was fun though!

Falls at the Bridge

Dad, Mom, and I on the bridge

Derrick, Dad, and Mom on the bridge

Mom getting to the stream part

Dad and Mom at the stream

Me

Derrick imitating a photo of me

Me being a gymnast on a log

Derrick being a gymnast on a log

We practiced being gymnasts a lot...too bad you can't see the log we're standing on!

I wish our eyes weren't closed, but this was another one of our off trail adventures

 Once we finished with that trail, my mom suggested we drive to another one by going along the "Going-to-the-Sun Road", aka road of death.  Okay, maybe that is a little dramatic.  But I was definitely freaked out the first time we went along it.  It is right next to the edge of the cliff with only a small rock wall as a barrier, is super narrow, quite steep, and currently under construction, which made it a lot longer of a trip than necessary.  I was freaking out the first time, but even I have to admit the view was incredible.

View at the top of the loop

View of the road

The line on the mountain is the road

View from the road

When we finally made it down the other side of the mountain, we decided to take the trail to St. Mary's Falls.  These were absolutely gorgeous! 

St. Mary's Falls

Hiding under a fallen tree

The family

Dad looks so happy in these pictures!

We hiked a little longer and found another set of falls, although we don't know what they were named.  Here Derrick and I set quite the bad trend by going off the trail a lot more than the park people would like I'm sure.  Especially as seeing us do it gave a lot of other people confidence to do the same thing.  Oops!  It was fun though.  

 We were all tired after we got back to the car, so we drove back along the stupid cliff road and got back to our hotel where we promptly got in the hot tub for a few minutes before dinner, the Olympics, and bed at about 8:30pm.  What can I say?  We were super tired!