A Hole Lot of Something...Glacier National Park

I never addressed the Grand Canyon because, to be honest, I don’t completely get it. I loved the climb and view, don’t get me wrong, but the amount of people who travel to see it each year about five million is a little baffling. The only reasoning I have is good marketing and it is one of a kind. There are trails to walk, and that is fun, but you can walk them anywhere. Also, most of the time walking is spent looking down so as to not fall into the giant, oh yeah, canyon. By tripping over a rock, loose dirt, or donkey poop. Even though I am glad to say I was there because I have heard so much about it, I would not put it at the top of a family vacation for two reasons. One, if I ever have kids my heart may stop merely pondering if they will fall off or have a sibling fight to the death, literally and secondly, I am not convinced there is a ton more to explore or do there than just observe.

A family vacation is usually not be based on looking at a hole along with hundreds of other people crowding around nature. I may be wrong, but I thought nature was to be observed in silence with that Lee Ann Womack song “I Hope You Dance” acting like a broken record with the line, “I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean” because you do feel small beside the Grand Canyon.

With that, Glacier National Park is much more for me for if I choose to vacation for a long period of time. There climbing is a limitless exploration and feels safer and more tangible. Also, the mere contrast of warmth or normal mountain temperature with glacial rock is astonishing. Green combining with white blends together to form a new color, one no Crayola manufacturer can name.

There is also a town close by, Columbia Falls, with people chugging along with a tinge of Northern Exposure. So if camping in the park over a motel is not something I desire, then I can stay in the town to witness the magnificence of the mountain at my door. The mountains are unmistakably breathtaking and easily viewed from anywhere in town instead of at death threatening heights such as the Grand Canyon.

For me the beauty and awe is the same as the Grand Canyon but cheaper and more omnipresent. Two million visitors come to Glacier each year, and I can see why. The Robert Frost poem “Fire and Ice” comes to mind while in the park. This mesh of greenery and ice working together to produce a landscape anyone would need to reach enlightenment. If the world were to end like in the poem, I would just chose to be in Glacier when it did.