Tuesday, August 11: We returned to the east side of Glacier this morning and made our first stop at a turn out along Lake McDonald. Once we walked down to the shore we recognized the spot from our previous trip and had to make a rock tower for Lisa. The lake was calm and peaceful and the day was starting out with clear skies and plenty of sunshine.

Just up the road from the Lodge we stopped at the Sprague Creek picnic area for a morning break - I brought coffee and muffins from the hotel. The coffee didn't stay hot but the muffins were great. We also walked down to the lake shore from there.

Next stop was the Lake McDonald Lodge. We watched a boat excursion leave and walked along the shore a bit. Jim was able to get one of the best shots of the trip so far of the mountains reflected in the lake.

On the way out we stopped at the camp store for coffee and then pulled into a turn out along Avalanche Creek for another break. We stayed there for awhile because we had a great view of some cascades on the river that gave us some great footage and stills. There was a bridge across the river there also and we saw a horse back riding group cross the bridge.

Our next stop was the Trail of the Cedars which was an easy hike through some very tall cedar forest. The trail passed a small water fall and then looped back to where we were parked at the Avalanche Creek picnic area. That made it easy to find a spot for lunch so we ate there before moving on.

From there the road started climbing over the mountains. It was interesting to look up and see the road up ahead as it switched back very far up the mountain side and know we would be up that high later on.

The skies remained clear except for one little group of clouds just above one of the mountains that looked like a mound of whipped cream. The views in every direction were breath taking and we stopped at most of the turn outs (would have been all of the turn outs if I had my way :-) )

One interesting site we saw but could not get a picture of was a guy traveling by motor cycle which two large dogs in his side car - the dogs even had red framed goggles!

We reached Logan Pass about mid afternoon but did not stop this time. We knew there would not be any parking and we had pretty much seen what we wanted to see there the day before. The skies might have been clearer this time but I wasn't up to hiking that trail again just to check.

We stopped at a turnout just beyond the pass for afternoon break and to set up the GoPro outside my window. We were able to get some great footage on the trip down. Since there was no stopping allowed from Siyeh Bend to St. Mary that was also the only way to get photos of that section of the Going to the Sun Road.

We made one last stop at Rising Creek which was partially open. That was the area most endangered by the Reynolds Creek fire. We also noticed driving down the east side of the mountains that were was a large amount of smoke to the south. The direction of the smoke didn't seem to fit with the fire area that we had been watching for several weeks. Later when we stopped to the visitor center we found out there was a new fire burning in the Thompson Creek area.

We stopped back to the camper for supper and then drove over to St. Mary hoping to get wifi and ice cream. We could not pick up any signal at the visitor center so connecting with home base would have to wait. The ice cream was available however! We drove south a few miles on highway 89 to get some photos of the smoke cloud. It was amazing the difference in views looking south verses looking north (photos taken in same location).