What do you give one of America’s most beautiful national parks for her 100th birthday? A visit, of course. And whether you decide to head to Montana’s Glacier National Park this year for ongoing centennial events or for fear of a future meltdown, there’s no debating that 2010 is a prime time to go.
For more inspiration, here are five ways to celebrate Glacier’s beauty once you arrive:
Take part in centennial celebrations
Events run the gamut from assembling a time capsule to attending a film festival to catching an exhibit from the Montana Historical Society. The official centennial calendar has dates and details.
Drive Going-to-the-Sun Road
Whether you wind your way in your own vehicle or in a red jammer bus, this road affords views of “spectacular mountains, hanging valleys, gorgeous wildflowers, glaciers, waterfalls, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, and black or grizzly bears,” says creekland.
Find a spot of solitude at Many Glacier
Under a skyline dominated by Grinnell Glacier, this area of the park is considered its prettiest part by some and is generally a sparsely populated place to unwind.
See Waterton Glacier International Peace Park
The Peace Park is located where Glacier National Park meets Canada’s Waterton Lakes National Park at the 49th Parallel; besides being gorgeous, it was the world’s first international peace park.
Make an excursion to Polebridge
This small (or, as callen60 writes it, small) town made btwood2 feel like she’d entered the 1960s and callen60 think he’d returned to the 1970s, but the biggest attraction is the Polebridge Mercantile--the “world’s greatest bakery” with “cookies to patch up any tired-out hiker.”
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