Glacier, Waterton Lakes, Banff, and Jasper National Parks have been on our “to visit” list for a long time. We took advantage of my work travel being cancelled, the fact that I always work remote, and that we felt RV traveling would be safe (even with COVID-19) since we would be bringing our wheels and home with us, to go on a road trip to Glacier NP even though the Canadian parks were off limit (the border was closed due to the pandemic). It was a great decision! Kalispell, Montana, was our “basecamp” for a month (late July to late August)! It was a very central location and the weather could not have been better. We got to enjoy all of our outdoor hobbies and travel the area well by foot, floats, wheels, and wings. The latter one is what I’m here to talk about. We haven’t pulled the trigger on towing a helicopter, an ultralight, a powered paraglider, or a Cub (with the wings folded) behind our Motorhome so, for now, I rent an aircraft in the areas we visit. (And, yes, in case you’re wondering, there are people pulling those aircraft behind RVs. That’s a discussion for another blog! 😉 I’m extremely jealous!) It was frustrating to learn that only one of the area flight schools allows landings on unpaved surfaces and that’s Backcountry Flying Experience. However, unfortunately for me and fortunately for them, they were already fully booked for the timeframe we were there when I called them. So, I flew twice with Glacier Jet Center and CFI Logan Hutchin out of Glacier Park International Airport (KGPI). One of the flights was exclusively focused around Glacier NP and that’s what I’m covering in this blog. It was a fantastic flight, especially since the east side of the park (where the majority of the glaciers are) was closed due to the virus and flying offered the only chance to see it in 2020. Some time ago, I wrote a blog about “flying to and over the National Parks” (https://airtrails.weebly.com/other/flying-to-national-parks). The advice in that blog is very much still applicable and what I lived by. While Glacier NP does not have its own airport, the area has multiple options and I checked out some of them:
Source: Google Earth
Source: Google Earth
The next picture shows Glacier in the distance, after crossing the canyon from Kalispell. Lake McDonald can be seen in the distance. We continued by overflying 2MT1. As mentioned, the flight school I rented from does not allow landings at non-paved runways but I wanted to see what it looked like. It is important to note that, as the sun rose from the East in the early morning, the big mountains created a shadow on said airfield, making it a bit hard to find coming from the west, especially with a little bit of smoke in the air. The picture below, on the left shows the 1st glance of the mountain that we had once we dropped below the sun. From there, we flew all over Glacier NP. The route below is what we used as a start but we mostly applied dead reckoning once flying. I used a combination of the aviation sectional and the aerial to design this course as it was obviously easier to pinpoint the sights I wanted to see on the aerial map. I made sure though that I wasn't violating anything and complying with all airspace rules and the U.S./Canada border by looking at the aviation sectional. Source: ForeFlight Oh, the scenery! I think the rest of the blog will be more visual than text. The pictures speak for themselves. As far as altitude... Montana isn't Colorado. The top of the peaks are much friendlier. One can fly over most of them without a problem. The pictures below are of Iceberg Lake, one of the places one can't visit this year due to covid The pictures below are of Grinnell Glacier and Grinnell Lake, also one of the places one can't visit this year except from an overlook Approaching Hidden Lake, one of the most iconic places in Glacier NP, especially this summer since the trail has been closed, on and off, most summer due to bear activity (really, one Grizzly chasing mountain goats in between people) Sperry Glacier can be seen below with its iron filled mountains/rocks Jackson Glacier below (this is truly the only glacier most people can see while visiting Glacier NP; it can be seen from a pull-out at the Going-to-the-Sun Road) Blackfoot and Pumkpin Glaciers below Time to visit some more of our National Landmarks - America's Treasures! Fly safe and fly often!
(Thanks to Logan Hutchin for taking some of the pictures above)
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