August 23, 2024 -Avalanche Lake Trail and Drove to West Entrance

This was the last day of hiking in Glacier NP.  We took ranger’s recommendation to hike Avalanche Lake Trail.  On the way, we took easy by stopping at different spots as frequently as we wished to enjoy the moment.  

We ran into the Red Shuttle in the Bird Woman Falls overlook area, therefore we stopped there and took some photos with the shuttle as the background.

When we drove pass the Trail of the Cedars parking area, we found a spot, so we took it without any hesitation.  It is just next to the Avalanche Lake Trail parking area.  

Avalanche Lake Trail is 4.5 miles round trip with difficult level of 5.96.  Since this is the only trail we planned to do, therefore we took it slow and just enjoyed the hike.  Turnout it was a beautiful trail with a lot of shade from the surround trees.  

After we got to the Avalanche Lake, the scenery is just beautiful. There were a lot of visitors there, and we decided to walk along the lake on right side to the end of the lake to find some quiet spot for relaxing.   It was not easy to walk along the lake, however the scenery from every angles were so pretty, we just took it slow and enjoyed it.  We also saw a lot of visitors taking a dip in the lake. 

Then we walked back to the trail and get down to our parked rental car. It was about 3pm at that time.  Then we decided to drive to the West Entrance at the west most part of the Go-to-the-Sun Road.  It means that we drive on the most famous road in US completely from the East Entrance to the West Entrance and then back.

On the way back before to reach the Logan Pass, we stopped by the Oberlin Bend to enjoy the surrounding scenery.  

At this point the rain was coming down to us, so we had to get back to the car and headed back to St Mary Village.  When we got to the Two Dog Flats area, we suddenly encountered a heavy hailstorm.  Without any previous experience driving during hailstorm, we were puzzled by either stop-and-wait or continue-to-drive decision.  We tried stop-and-wait first, and quickly we realized that there was no place to hide while we stop and wait, therefore we decided to continue-to-drive.  Luckily after we drove for another 2-3 minutes in heavy hailstorm, it suddenly stopped.  It was an unexpected experience for us.  Gladly, the upgrade BMW X3 sustained the heavy hailstorm with suffering any damage.

When we got to the hotel, it was cleared up.  It did make us understand about why people keep saying that the weather in Glacier NP is unpredictable.