Category: 2023-05 USA

Eating like a grizzly in Glacier National Park 🗻🐻🥧

“Old Duffer’s got it!”

This was the phrase with which Mr. Duff, proprietor of the oldest Hertz rental site in the United States, greeted us (repeatedly) as he sorted out our rental car for our trip into Glacier National Park, Montana. We’d disembarked our Amtrak train from Seattle at the historic Whitefish Railway Station just a few minutes earlier, bleary eyed from our early start and night on the train.

We were excited to head straight into the park, having secured a coveted vehicle reservation the day before. Even better, we read an update as we headed towards the park that the famed Going to the Sun Road had fully reopened for the summer just a couple of days before! Both of these were incredibly lucky, as without the reservation or the road opening (which was tentatively scheduled for the second half of June – we arrived on 15th), we weren’t exactly sure what we were going to do with our time in this remote corner of Montana…

To get into the park, we had to negotiate 9 miles of extremely rough and potholed unpaved road before picking up the tarmac again. The hire car looked like it had seen some things within about an hour of us collecting it! We made it through without a puncture (surely due to my helpful squeaks and yelps while on pothole watch in the front passenger seat) and headed straight for the hiking trails of Avalanche Lake.

This was bear country, and we’d diligently read lots of advice on what to do if we came across a bear, which depended on which type of bear you were dealing with. One of the major ways to distinguish a Grizzly from a Black bear is by the length of their claws, which didn’t sound hugely promising…

But actually, one of the best ways to avoid an encounter in the first place is by hiking in a group and making plenty of noise while you are at it – chatting, singing and clapping all count. This warns the bears of your presence and gives them time to move away if they’re feeling unsociable. I’m sure our fellow hikers enjoyed our renditions of Teddy Bears’ Picnic! But soon, we ran out of steam singing and wanted to find another way to make noise as we walked. We’d seen a lot of bear bells attached to backpacks when hiking in South Korea and found them pretty funny (South Koreans being noted for being super-prepared in all situations, even though they have so few bears in the wild that conservationists have launched a recovery programme) but all of a sudden we wished we had one after all. So Oli fashioned himself a ‘bell’ out of his camping cutlery and a pair of Air New Zealand headphones. Early tests revealed that it did require quite a jaunty walk to jingle at all, but thankfully Oli was happy to oblige.

In the end, we didn’t see any bears on our way to the lake (which was probably for the best, although I was desperate for a sighting from a safe distance), but we did see plenty of other wildlife, including deer, chipmunks, foxes, and a family of ducklings toddling down to the lake for their daily swim. The lake was beautiful too, surrounded by snowcapped mountains and waterfalls of glacial meltwater descending into turquoise waters.

The remainder of the Going to the Sun Road didn’t disappoint, either. When we were planning this part of the trip, we found it hard to believe that it was scheduled to reopen by 1st July, being snowbound before this time. So much snow that a road is impassible in June?! It was pretty hard to imagine, especially as we could see that the temperatures in Hungry Horse, MT (where we stayed) were reaching 30 degrees, but there was indeed still plenty of snow around as we drove along the highest part of the route. We were just so lucky that the road reopened fully just as we arrived – our bet paid off!

Part of the Going to the Sun Road (cutting across the steep mountainside on the opposite side of the valley)

We made lots of stops as we headed along the 50-mile route, which wound through dramatic mountain scenery. Tourguide Oli even found us a ranger-led audioguide, which gave us some interesting snippets about points along the route and urged us to appreciate the engineering masterpiece that was the construction of the road in 1932.

At first I thought this was a bit tiresome, but actually it really was quite a feat of engineering, particularly for a road whose primary purpose wasn’t so much to actually take you somewhere, but more to go through somewhere beautiful with minimum disruption to the landscape. It must be a difficult balance to strike between preserving the wilderness and making it accessible for people to enjoy (two aims of the National Park Service), but they’d obviously put lots of thought into it here. If only the audioguide didn’t have such maddening introductory music that started without warning every single time we hopped back in the car after a stop, prompting Oli to yell, “Will you shut up, man!”

We had a strong second day of wildlife spotting (still no bears, though 🐻). First, we saw a group of bighorn sheep chilling out in a gorgeous meadow, and we heard from a ranger that they only turn up every couple of weeks, so we were very lucky to see them.

There was also a bit of a commotion in one of the pull-offs, with people frantically photographing some hoary marmots, who were parading around on the rocky mountain ledges above the road and showing off their athletic prowess. We were excited to see them (although we didn’t let anyone overhear us that we didn’t know what they were – we suspected marmots but we had to check later!), but even more so when one turned up within an arm’s reach at a viewpoint. Sadly I suspected that they wouldn’t enjoy a cuddle with me as much as I would with them 😔.

One of our favourite stops was at Saint Mary Lake, where we followed a short hiking trail along the lake shore to a waterfall and then back to Sun Point, the site of one of the park’s first chalets.

The chalets were long since dismantled, but had been built in 1911 by the Great Northern Railway company to serve early intrepid visitors to the park, who would explore by boat or on horseback. As part of their advertising campaign to encourage would-be visitors to ‘See America First’ (rather than going to Europe), the railway company referred to Glacier National Park as America’s Switzerland, and to maintain the theme, waitresses at the chalet wore Swiss-inspired uniforms. To be fair, this was less of a stretch than Dilijan, which was marketed as the Switzerland of Armenia…

Outside of the park, we explored some of the area’s other attractions, which ranged from the weird to the wonderful and the delicious.

The weird

I asked Dad to pull into the Ten Commandments Park at very short notice, so we screeched in on two wheels – probably not quite what those who built it had in mind. Anyway, I’m not even quite sure how to describe it because none of us really understood what it was! So here, have a video of a drive-thru billboard park of religious messages…

Only in America.

The wonderful

The town of Whitefish surprised us. While some of the other small towns in the area felt very ‘wild west’ (not a bad thing!), Whitefish was quite different, crammed full of craft beer places and appealing shops. In fact, I read afterwards (a recent habit being that I read the guidebook only after we’ve left somewhere – just in time!) that the Lonely Planet described it as “suspiciously refined”.

We enjoyed a wander around the town, drank some craft beer (obviously) and poked our heads into the railway station museum, which was run by volunteers from the local historical society. This had a little bit of everything, from an exhibit on the logging industry, to a local woman’s wedding dress from the 1940s, to photographs of Whitefish ski area’s opening season, also in the 1940s. We captured this extremely convincing photo of Dad in his full skiing regalia…

The delicious

We read that huckleberries were a local speciality and that the way to sample them was in a Huckleberry Pie, but it wasn’t until after we’d ordered that I saw an article on the wall of the Huckleberry Patch that compared them to blueberries, and I really dislike blueberries!

But actually, the article was at pains to describe their superiority, and they certainly were delicious in a pie, with a warm, almost smoky flavour on top of their berry tang. They’re also apparently a favourite food of the Grizzly bear – I knew we’d get along well!

We didn’t really know what to expect from Montana, but Glacier National Park was spectacular, the surrounding area was beautiful and the small towns were welcoming and comfortable, with just a touch of the wild west to keep things interesting. We’re so glad we made this our first stop on our cross-continental Amtrak adventure; next stop: Minneapolis, MN!

A night aboard Amtrak’s Empire Builder 🚞

After a couple of long flights across the Pacific, we were excited to be getting back on a long-distance train again. Although travelling on Amtrak has been growing in popularity in recent years, it’s still pretty niche, with only a small proportion of the population as diehard fans. Meanwhile, domestic flying remains the default, and it’s easy to understand why, given its relative speed, price and choice of routes. But Helen and Mick had a couple of trips under their belts already, and having heard their stories and consumed more cheesy, relentlessly optimistic Amtrak content from Jeb Brooks than we’d care to admit, we were very keen to get in on the action.

From Seattle, WA, we took an overnight train to Whitefish, MT – the gateway to Glacier National Park. This was our first taste of Amtrak’s Empire Builder route, which we’ll ultimately ride all the way to Milwaukee, WI, just shy of its terminus in Chicago, IL.

We boarded the train from King Street Station, a beautifully restored 1906 terminus in Downtown Seattle.

Since this was our first of three long-distance journeys aboard an Amtrak train, I thought I’d do it justice with a full review…

The room(ette)

Sara and I shared a “roomette”, which consists of two wide seats facing each other in a small lockable compartment. While it has plenty of space for two travellers, there’s not a lot of room for luggage beneath the seats, and it’s quite a squeeze to host any guests!

At night, the train attendant folds the seats down to form the lower bunk, while the upper upper bunk folds down from just above the window. Sara definitely drew the short straw on the upper bunk, with a slightly narrower bed and heavily restricted head room. Having said that, they were probably the most comfortable beds we’ve ever slept in on a train.

Amtrak trains also have larger ensuite “bedrooms” to which our budget did not stretch, and daytime “coach” carriages which we’ll test on a later leg of the Empire Builder route.

The food

Amtrak sleeper-car tickets include three-course meals in the ticket price, which are served in the dining car and accompanied by a view – what a way to travel! All tables seat four diners, which means that couples are often treated to polite conversation with two other Amtrak travellers. Fortunately we were already a party of four so we didn’t need to share with anyone else, although we still overheard plenty of very forced conversations over our early breakfast. Meanwhile, we were free to sit in stony silence until we’d all had our coffee!

For dinner, I had coconut shrimp to start, a flat iron steak for the main event, and a slice of lemon cake to top it all off. Much like the beds, we were genuinely impressed with the food – the shrimp was satisfyingly crispy, the steak was genuinely comparable to anything you’d find in a restaurant, and the lemon cake was deliciously sweet.

  • Note the combo of both lemon cake and chocolate cake on my plate. I was framed!
  • Coconut crusted shrimp
  • Signature flat iron steak
  • Utimate Meyer lemon cake

The main downside of eating this much good food is that there’s pretty much no way to burn it off while on the train. Fortunately, we woke up on the doorstep of Glacier National Park the following day, although we still found time (and space) for a breakfast quesadilla before alighting!

The scenery

Our train departed Seattle heading north, and unexpectedly (for me, at least) tracked the coast for quite some way before turning east. This meant that we were treated to some stunning afternoon sun over Puget and Possession Sound from our little compartment.

Our train also featured a beautifully light observation car, with plenty of huge windows stretching all the way up to the carriage roof. The only issue with this car, though, is finding it – Helen and I both made independent expeditions into the staff-only section of the train in our attempts to find it! With such a long train and with so many similar looking carriages, it was really quite disorientating.

Later on in the journey, we passed through the tiny town of Dryden, WA, whose residents had turned out in force to treat us to an “Amtrak salute”. This consisted of about 15 residents lined up beside the railway exposing their bare behinds for all to see. It was an incredibly coordinated effort! For better or worse, there wasn’t time to reach for my phone to take a photo, so you’ll have to make do with the mental image instead.

The speed

Our train averaged 71 km/h over the 943 km route from Seattle to Whitefish, including stops at stations. While it isn’t exactly high-speed rail, it’s still significantly faster than our long-distance trains across eastern Turkey on the Doğu Ekspresi and from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan.

Amtrak trains are often criticised for their frequent (and sometimes unscheduled) stops. These occur because passenger trains must give way to freight trains, since Amtrak rents the rails from the freighters who own them. This can lead to delays accumulating along the route, although our train only arrived about 30 mins late in Whitefish, which is apparently pretty good going!

The price

Long-distance Amtrak trains are both slower and considerably more expensive than commercial flights, so they’re up against some pretty tough competition. In fact, our train journey cost nearly three times the cost of the cheapest flight from Seattle to Glacier’s nearest airport. Having said that, this Amtrak route was still cheaper per kilometre than our Eurostar and New Zealand trains, and neither of those included meals or a sleeper compartment!

In terms of carbon, our rail journey emitted 41% of the CO2 that would have been emitted by a direct flight. These savings aren’t quite as large as I’d expected, owing to the wonky route taken by our train as it left Seattle and passed through the mountains.

Overall, Amtrak felt like the definition of travelling slow and low. It gave us the opportunity to enjoy the mountains, prairie and small towns from the train window, while also giving us a sense of scale of the distance we were covering. Here’s our final scorecard for how Amtrak ranks against the other trains we’ve taken on this trip:

Comfort: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️★
Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Scenery: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Speed: ⭐️⭐️⭐️★★
Value: ⭐️⭐️⭐️★★

Seattle-ing in to the west coast

After our (thankfully cougar-free) hike up Mount Walker, we headed to Seattle via the Kingston-Edmonds ferry, which took us across the Puget Sound and into the city.

It was a gorgeous evening, so having been fantasising about burgers and cold beer all the way down the mountain (honestly, you’d think we’d been lost and starving for months), we stopped for a pub dinner on a sunny terrace as soon as we disembarked the car ferry.

The next morning, we headed to Pike Place market, probably Seattle’s most famous attraction. Given that we’d all been to Seattle previously and we all knew just how touristy the market was, I’m not quite sure why we felt the need to go again, but there we are! It did mean we could revisit Lowells, a local institution that’s famous for its seafood. Even on a grey day we were very pleased to nab a window seat for a view over the ferries and seaplanes crossing the harbour.

  • Clam chowder
  • The famous fish-throwing stall

My clam chowder was delicious, but our next stop was much less palatable… Seattle’s famous gum wall, which has been gradually building up since the 1990s. Well actually, the alley walls have been cleared at least once in that time (because the bricks were starting to degrade from all the sugar!) but the gum is now back with a vengeance. It even came second on a TripAdvisor list of the world’s germiest attractions (after the Blarney Stone near Cork, in case you were wondering). It was totally disgusting, of course, but also strangely pretty.

In the afternoon, we headed to the Museum of Flight, where we introduced Mum and Dad to our signature move of arriving at the rear entrance. You could tell the staff were very confused about how we’d ended up there, but we couldn’t explain because we didn’t know! Anyway, we went inside a BA-liveried Concorde with its interior intact, so Mum gave us a guided tour of where she used to work. It never fails to astound me just how tiny the Concorde is inside.

  • Climbing aboard Concorde. It’s SO small!

We also saw an exhibit on the development of the Boeing 747, where we had our own personal tour guide in Dad. In fact, he was so knowledgeable that I accused him of skipping ahead to read the information panels!

  • The first 747 Jumbo Jet at Boeing Field
  • When it was first launched, the 747’s iconic ‘hump’ was used as a First Class lounge. Following the 1973 fuel crisis, it was modified to squeeze in more seats

Dad was most indignant because the museum claimed to be exhibiting the only Blackbird M-21 in existence and he knew for a fact that there was another at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, but then he realised that OF COURSE the one at Duxford was the SR-71. Silly him! We all nodded along, obviously already aware of the big differences between the M-21 and the SR-71 (as I’m sure you are too). Actually it was quite cool – the Blackbird already holds the record for being the fastest and highest flying jet in history, and this version had an added drone sat on top that launched from the ‘mother ship’ to collect intelligence from enemy territory during the Cold War. Apparently it never quite worked as it was intended, but we did enjoy the relatively low-tech way it delivered surveillance data, by dropping a canister over friendly territory (rather than transmitting any data electronically).

  • The Blackbird M-21
  • The communications equipment on board the first presidential jet (1959), known as Air Force One when the President is on board
  • Dad and Oli shake on their deal to go for beers after the museum
  • Fancy an Aerocar in your garage?

The following day, we had breakfast at Toulouse Petit, a Louisiana-style Creole restaurant that Mum and Dad had visited before (and Oli, it turned out, on Dad’s recommendation). Dad had mentioned it just the once or twice, so we knew he was keen to return! And it was delicious. Oli and I hedged our bets and shared some tangy, spicy shrimp served with creamy grits (left) and then went full Americana for our remaining choice, with chicken fried chicken, which came with eggs, breakfast potatoes and (my favourite) a biscuit.

To work off our breakfast (which, slightly worryingly, we all polished off), we took a wander around the Capitol Hill neighbourhood. This was described by the Lonely Planet as “Seattle’s most unashamedly hip neighbourhood, where the exceptionally rich mix with the exceptionally eccentric”. Indeed, it was an interesting walk, but to be honest it was mostly notable for Dad’s antics at the gas station just before we parked, when he attempted to pay by posting his credit card into the receipt dispenser of the self-service pump 🤦🏼‍♀️. Thankfully he managed to retrieve it before I reached the front of the queue in the gas station to ask for help, because I still hadn’t worked out how to explain why he’d done it!

After this mishap, it was time to drop off our hire car (probably for the best, really) and head to King Street Station to begin our much-anticipated Amtrak adventure across the continent.