Saturday Sun-day Drive

A sun-kissed view on the way to the Great Bear Wilderness

Subject: HWY 2 (near Stanton Lake Lodge, looking into Glacier National Park)

Rolling over in bed, bleary-eyed, I check the weather forecast on my phone. For the next 10 days it will be a gloomy mix of snow, rain, clouds, an all-around slushy, icky, wet mess.  I want to go back to bed, but a small yellow blinking dot hints at sun for the day. Twenty minutes later, coffee in hand, I stare out over the brown and white garden, at the slate-colored sky. I check the forecast again, the yellow blinking light is still there. This goes on for about another couple of hours, while I shuffle myself around the house, poking at projects and hemming and hawing over cookbooks. About 2:30 p.m, the sky clears. Disbelief shocks me out of my mellow mope into a frenzied flurry of activity. Twenty minutes later, and I am on the road, galvanizing my partner to go along.

One hour later and the two of us are cruising down Highway 2 just east of West Glacier headed towards Stanton Lake Lodge for a hike in the Great Bear Wilderness. When we come around the bend near the lodge, we are greeted with a crisp, sunny winter view staring deep into Glacier National Park. He asks if we should turn around. I nod, mindful of the time, knowing I was giving up a sunset on Stanton Lake. Where he parks, the pull-out is a thin, ice sheet, so although I am excited, I shuffle, careening in a slow ballet towards the edge of the highway, mindful of the ledge and of the trucks streaming by.

The view is so incredibly clear and detailed. I must have driven by this spot at least a dozen times in the last two summer seasons at Glacier National Park but never saw it quite so memorable. My thoughts are interrupted by a train heading east below me on the tracks and my partner waving his phone, trudging through the snow, excited about the view.