Glacier National Park

Aug 10
We spent Monday driving – a lot. We got up super early to drive the Road-to-the-Sun in Glacier National Park – and afterwards to do the Iceberg Lake hike. The Road-to-the-Sun was a bit disappointing to be honest. The glaciers in GNP are almost completely melted, and there were a lot of roadworks in the park so it took us about 2 hours to drive 50 miles and spent a lot of time sitting at roadwork stops.
The Iceberg Lake hike was nice. So nice in fact that I cant really call it a hike J more like a long walk. And long it was, 5 miles each way! But the path had only a slight incline, not strenuous at all, and plenty of flora to see as you walked along. The walk was made more exciting by the fact that we were in Bear Country and both Black and Grizzly bears frequent the area we were walking through. Everytime I heard a rustle in the undergrowth I wondered was it a bear! And our nervousness was rewarded! About 2 miles along, we met a couple who had turned back because there were reports of a bear with 3 cubs in the area. But we were told there were also plenty of rangers in the vicinity so we pressed on hoping to get a glimpse of them. And we did! Well, we saw the mother bear but not the cubs – see pic below – only about 50ft from her!
We hiked on to Iceberg lake – which was very sad looking indeed. Only a few small pieces of ice on the walls surrounding the lake and some dirty looking ice in the water. My guidebook estimates that all the glaciers in GNP will have melted by 2030 – from what we saw I don't think it will take even that long L.