Tuesday, 29 May 2018 – Polebridge and Bowman Lake

We ate lunch at the Polebridge Mercantile before heading into the park.
Maverick and I enjoying the view at Bowman Lake.

This morning we headed back into the West Glacier entrance to the park. We continued North and back out of the park until we got to Polebridge. Polebridge has a few cabins and an old Mercantile Store dating back to the very early 1900’s. The closest town is Columbia Falls 40 miles away. The Mercantile has a popular bakery and Donna picked out some cookies and Huckleberry bear claws. We had packed a sack lunch and ate it while at Polebridge. There wasn’t much of a lunch selection at the Mercantile. Polebridge is just 2 miles from the Glacier National Park Polebridge Ranger Station and entrance. We headed back into the park heading East down a fairly rough gravel road. After 6 miles you come to Bowman Lake and campground. The lake is another beautiful glacial lake framed by the mountains and glaciers that created it. The campground was pretty empty so we let Maverick run off leash for a little bit. We were parked at the boat ramp and were treated to a large deer trotting by just 50 yards away. We really enjoyed the beauty of the lake nearly to ourselves and enjoyed the drive in and back out. After the lake we drove straight back to Columbia Falls and then continued to Whitefish. As we passed through Whitefish we stumbled upon a Farmers Market that was just opening. We did a quick pass through the farmers market but didn’t buy anything. Maverick was a hit as usual. We then continued through Whitefish to visit the Whitefish Ski Area. It was a fairly large and nice ski area but was totally silent. I guess its in between ski season and summer/mountain bike season. We came back to Whilefish and ate at the Montana Taphouse. The restaurant was clearly set up as an after ski beer drinking hangout. It was pretty dead while we were there but they served a really great burger.