DAY 3
Ellie and I chat some more with Crazy Davey at the Merc as we fuel up on pecan-crusted sticky buns and triple-berry turnovers before our hike in the morning. The main road into Glacier National Park is the Going-to-the-Sun Road. It climbs to an elevation of 6,646 feet at Logan Pass in the Rockies' Lewis Range, which runs along the Continental Divide. The road project began in 1918 and took over 10 years to complete; in one part, workers had to bore a 400-foot-long tunnel through the mountainside—by hand.

A naturalist at the Logan Pass visitors center tells us how rapidly the glaciers are disappearing from the park as a result of global warming. Scientists believe there are at least 26 glaciers left, but research is being conducted to determine if there are actually fewer. The last glacier is also now predicted to melt by 2020, 10 years earlier than previously expected. We're pretty dispirited when we set off on the three-mile hike down to Hidden Lake. The scenery, however, astounds us: The pristine lake is ringed by pink and blue wildflowers, and the razor-thin ridges, or arêtes, caused by the glaciers look as if they rose out of the ground in a sudden rush.

RAFT, HIKE, OR JUST CHILL OUT Plunge into whirling river depths, then have a red beer. • Launch the slide show

Exhausted after the steep hike back, Ellie and I drive to a restaurant outside the town of St. Mary called Two Sisters Cafe, which has a sign out front promising GREAT MARGZ.

We plan to just have a couple of margaritas, but the main courses are too inviting: local whitefish with a dry-herb sauce and roasted pork loin. By the time we reach the Many Glacier Hotel, a 1914 lakefront lodge located inside the national park, we're ready for bed. We pause on the porch to take in the view of Swiftcurrent Lake and the purple and blue Rocky Mountains before turning in.

LODGING
Many Glacier Hotel
406/892-2525, glacierparkinc.com, $135

FOOD
Two Sisters Cafe
Hwy. 89, St. Mary, 406/732-5535, twosistersofmontana.com, whitefish $21

ACTIVITIES
Glacier National Park
406/888-7800, nps.gov/glac, weeklong car pass $25

DAY 4
We're up early to catch two of the Glacier Park Boat Co.'s ferries—across Swiftcurrent Lake and Lake Josephine—to tackle an eight-mile (round trip) trek to Grinnell Glacier, the most accessible of the glaciers in the park. Even though we're carrying our bear spray, Ellie and I still hoot and holler at the top of our lungs to scare away any bears as we start out on the trail. I feel a little silly, but we appear to be the first people in the woods this morning.

I can feel the glacier long before I see it; the wind carries gusts of super-cold air down the slopes of the mountain, enticing Ellie and me as we hike up the trail. When we arrive, the landscape is other­worldly. A gray-green lake of glacial melt-off lies before us, studded with huge chunks of floating ice. Beyond that is the glacier itself, which looks like a giant sheet of dirty ice. Ellie and I sit on a rock that juts into the water and eat the peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches we brought with us. We're both wearing several layers of thick clothing, but we can still feel the chilly air against our skin. After admiring the glacier for about 20 minutes, we hurriedly scuttle down the mountain and board the ferry to go back to the Many Glacier Hotel, where our car is parked.

In Kalispell that night, we head out on the town, ignoring the fact that we have 6 a.m. flights the next day. We eat roasted-vegetable sandwiches at Knead Café and then belly up to the bar at Moose's Saloon, which has graffiti-scratched walls and peanut shells mixed in with sawdust on the floor. As soon as we sit down, Ellie spots something odd—people are drinking beer with a reddish tint to it. "Yup, it's red beer," says the bartender, Travis. "You use a light beer and top it off with tomato juice. It's a Montana thing." He gives us a mug to try, and we're at once repulsed and fascinated by the concoction. We gamely sip the beer, which tastes like fizzy, sour tomato juice, until Travis takes pity on us and pours us ordinary drafts.

At $1.50 a beer, one round turns into many. Before Ellie and I know it, we find ourselves in a peanut-throwing contest with some locals at the other end of the bar. The stakes are another round of beer—and we win! Tomorrow won't be pretty, but, compared to Montana, few things are.

TRANSPORTATION
Glacier Park Boat Co.
406/257-2426, glacierparkboats.com, $18

FOOD
Knead Café
25 Second Ave. W., Kalispell, 406/755-7510, vegetable sandwich $9

NIGHTLIFE
Moose's Saloon
173 N. Main St., Kalispell, 406/755-2337, moosessaloon.com

FINDING THE WAY
Only Northwest, United, Delta, and Horizon serve Glacier International Airport in Kalispell. It might be cheaper to fly to Spokane and drive four hours east. Glacier National Park's Going-to-the-Sun Road is open from mid-June to September; check nps.gov/glac for current conditions. Some sections of the Outside North Fork Road between Columbia Falls and the Canadian border are unpaved.