As I mentioned at the end of my Bison Range post, Glacier National Park was one of the stops on the trip for which I was most excited. I arrived after another few hours of driving, much of which was along Flathead Lake with its adjacent groves of cherry trees. The park was an awe-inspiring place for sure, especially with the abundance of yellow and otherwise fall-kissed trees, but I left feeling like I’d really only scratched the surface. The famous Going-to-the-Sun Road was only partially open, either because of the time of year or because of a wildfire that had been burning and was still smoldering in the area (who can remember?), and as with so many parks I was very limited to where I could go at all with a dog.

I found this article extremely helpful for dog-travel advice, and wound up following its instructions more-or-less exactly: parked at West Glacier, hiked with Ollie up the bike path to Apgar Village to see Lake McDonald (timelapse here!), then went back to the car to traverse as far as possible on the Going-to-the-Sun Road. (I could go as far as a spot called Avalanche, and got fairly well reprimanded by my Airbnb host in Whitefish that night for it: “You only made it to Avalanche?! You didn’t even see a glacier! You have to go back tomorrow and see East Glacier!”)

Alas, a return trip to the other side of the park was not in the cards for me, and you can see how I’d have left with feelings that I’d barely scratched the surface. Also, I apparently didn’t even see a glacier [shrug emoji]. So yeah. Would love to make a return journey at some point!