Avalanche
I was in no hurry. I planned to stay at the Avalanche campground on the west side of the park no more than 20 miles away. I wanted to get there around 10 or 11 to get a good spot. On the way over I got good pictures of bighorn sheep, a badger, some mountain goats, and several spectacular waterfalls. The pass was only around 6800 feet but had 6 foot snow drifts on each side of the road. There were two places where recent avalanches had damaged the road enough to reduce it down to one lane.
I stopped along the McDonald creek to try some more fishing with no luck. The creek was dark green in color, about 100 feet wide, and moved very swiftly. I just could not see any place fish would like to hang out.
By 10:15 am I was at the campground and chose a nice site after circling both loops three times. I set up my tent, had lunch and headed for the Avalanche Lake trail around 11:30am. The trail was supposed to be only 2 miles long and raise 500 feet in elevation so I thought it would be a nice afternoon walk and then I could either find another trail or a place to fish.
The trailhead was at the campground entrance and right next to a shorter nature trail. I was shocked at the number of people on the trail. I must have passed 50 people before I even got off the nature and on to the lake trail. I probably passed another 50 people on the way to the lake. I arrived at the lake around 12:30pm.
The lake was large in comparison to Otomoki and Gunsight. It was very calm and dark green in color. There were large logs floating around the beach on the west side and children had walked out at least 50 ft on them. Most people stopped at the west beach, but I continued on to the east side of the lake where several people were fishing. At the trail's end I could see the tell-tale signs of the funnel of mountains and waterfalls leading down to the lake.
By 1:15 I was on my way and by 2:30 I was back in camp. It had been at least 10 days since I had done laundry so I decided to drive 5 miles down the road to Lake Mcdonald to see if I could wash my clothes and get some AA batteries for my GPS. They had no Landromat but I did get the batteries and a fresh can of Pringles.
The clerk said the nearest laundromat was in West Glacier only 15 minutes away. I started in that direction but 5 minutes later realized I was headed for another St. Mary disappointment and even if there was one I would have nothing to do while waiting for my clothes. I decided to wait until I camped at a KOA which I planned to do next near Spokane. I found a nice place to fish on Lake Mcdonald as I was turning around. I went down in my shower shoes and shorts and made a few casts. I even waded out into the cold clear water up to my knees. No luck at all. I headed back to camp.
Without a doubt I had the best set of neighbors at this campsite. The ones that I thought might be the most trouble when they pulled in was a couple that ended up reading books side-by-side all evening and retiring at 9 o'clock. It was a nice quiet campground. It was much larger than Rising Sun and I did not feel as comfortable, but I thought I might stay through the fourth to avoid any holiday rowdiness and traffic.