Off-Roading, Sweets and Geocaching - Polebridge, Montana

Today we decided to drive up to the Polebridge Mercantile on the northwest edge of Glacier NP. The mercantile is famous for their sandwiches and pastries. The road up was 2/3rds paved and 1/3rd gravel. We arrived about 20 minutes before the sandwiches were coming out of the oven. We opted for the chicken. It was OK, but I think the meatball or pastrami would have been better. We also purchased a couple of pastries for later...NOT. We ate the cinnamon roll after the sandwiches, it was good. We saved the bear-claw for when we get back to the rig.

We chose an alternate, return route...the Inside North Fork Road. It is 30 miles of off-roading in a more remote area of Glacier NP. The road was in pretty good shape and did not require 4x4. There was not a lot to see along the way because of all the trees. However, we stopped to take a couple of pictures of Winona Lake and a couple of creeks.

Winona Lake (2 photos)

Camas Creek

After arriving in West Glacier, we decided to do the last of the geocaches that we had picked out. Four of the six were quick and easy. On the fifth we took the wrong, overgrown trail and Rick (wearing shorts) got his legs cut up on some thorn bushes. On the way back to the Jeep, we found the correct trail and the cache. The sixth cache is going to go down as a "no find". It is a micro-cache (about the size of your thumb) on the side of a steep embankment. The GPS kept giving different readings, probably because of our closeness to the hills and tall trees. We searched for at least an hour, and finally gave up. :( After dinner, we decided to console ourselves my sharing the leftover bear-claw with a blueberry filling. :)

Cedar Ripples Creek