Glacier National Park
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Sure enough it was quite brisk in the morning, at least for me. Les wasn’t cold but I had on a shirt, a sweatshirt, a flannel shirt over that and it was only when I put my snow coat over that, that I started to warm up. Once I got to work packing up the tent gear though, I warmed up some.
Les cooked up potatoes and eggs which were quite tasty and we were on the road to Glacier by 8:45. Les had been telling me about this hike across the continental divide that he’s done before. 12 miles, 6 up, 6 down. He figured if we could get across the park, park the truck, and find someone to take us to the trailhead by 1 pm. we could make it before dark. I was skeptical for two reasons: 1) Knowing Les, I figured it was probably longer than he said (it was), and 2) I didn’t think I could make it anyway (weight training at Nautilus aside).
But, the end result was we intended to boogie a little bit faster than we might have through the park. The first stop was at the entrance, where we tried to take pictures of both of us together in front of the sign. My camera seemed to do okay (strategically placed on top of the car) but Les’ seemed to have more trouble. As it turned out, his actually worked and mine didn’t but we didn’t know it at the time. After 15 minutes or so of dorking around, we gave up and headed in.
We headed up the Going to the Sun road, stopping only briefly for photo opportunities. Going to the Sun road attaches itself precariously to the side of Garden Wall and other rock formations that thrust themselves 9000 feet or so above the valley floor. They don’t let campers over 20′ on the road and rightly so. They wouldn’t make the turns. And when they plunged over the sides, they’d make a real mess (but I bet they get some pissed off retirees at the gate).
Decorative stone walls lined the drop-off side of some of the roadway. I say decorative because they were only tall enough to give your vehicle a good flip before you went careening over the side, not tall enough to actually prevent you from doing so. Still, they provided a certain sense of security that was noticeably absent when they weren’t there.
The fall color painted the mountainsides. The sun was still pretty low in the sky since it was only about 11 and the low light really created a dramatic affect. When I told my eye doctor I was going to Glacier, he told me he didn’t think the scenery was all that great. He was wrong.
We crossed the continental divide at about 6600 feet and headed down the eastern side. The view was just as good on this side. We continued on to the park boundary at St. Mary’s and turned north to head toward the Many Glacier Hotel which is the end of the trail we wanted to take. We discovered that the hotel was closed and in fact the lower two floors had the windows boarded up. Clearly the snow gets a little deep around these parts.
The hotel is much bigger than you might expect for the area. It has a real mountain chalet feel to it. It sits at the end of a beautiful lake surrounded by some serious rock formations. But, clearly we weren’t going to get a ride from anyone there. We continued down the road to the next place but no luck there either. So, we decided to go up the backend of the trail for half the daylight time left, then come back. This seemed like a good idea at the time…
The trail starts off meandering around 3 lakes. The first one, Swiftcurrent Lake is the one the Many Glacier Hotel sits on. It’s relatively small. It’s got forest on one side and these really big rock mountains on the other. The second, Lake Josephine is bigger. We walked along the western edge a ways, then crossed a stream back to the eastern side to the third lake. The third lake is Lake Grinnel and it sits up against the mountains at the point where intelligent people turn back because the path starts getting steep. It was about 7 km to this point. Up on the hillside we saw our first mountain goat. He was hanging off the side of the mountain eating some grass. It is really inconceivable that they can live on the sides of cliffs like that. We spotted another one lying down off to the side of the first one. We figured that was all the goats we would see but it turns out there were many more to come.
From there, the path headed up the side of the mountain for about 1 km, then leveled off somewhat and headed along the mountainside to Morning Eagle Falls. That trail took us through some forest and some tall grass/weeds as we walked between two towering mountains. As we headed down the trail I spotted another mountain goat a short way up the side of one cliff. As we were looking at him, I spotted a second one five or six hundred feet above the first one. It was happily eating grass from one of the few small areas that wasn’t completely vertical. We could not figure out how it got there, or for that matter, how it was going to get back.
We crossed a stream or two that still had water in it and a few more that didn’t. The rangers had put the bridges away for the winter so we made a few crossings via river rocks.
We had taken careful heed of the signs posted at the head of the trail warning about bears. It suggested talking loudly or singing to let them know you were in the area. While it seemed to us that letting them know we were around was sort of the last thing we wanted to do, they’re the experts. So, anytime it got to be looking like bear country, we’d start having conversations in a loud voice like this: “Don’t suppose there’d be any bears around here do you?” “Well, if there are I sure hope they don’t mind us passing through. We’re just passing through. Don’t bother getting up. We’ll find our way out.” It seemed to have the desired affect since we didn’t run across any bears on our trip.
By this time the old legs were starting to get a little upset. The longest trip they’d been on before had been about 6 miles and this was getting to be about that long. They weren’t stupid either and figured out that we still had to go back. But, we were on a mission to see the Morning Eagle Falls so on we went. The falls turned out to be kind of nice, cascading down a cliff side into a stream full of all different kinds of rocks. It was really quite fascinating the variety. In a 3 foot by 3 foot area there was a caramel colored rock, a purple striped rock, a greyish sort of standard color rock, pinks, green, you name it. I sort of expected them to be a little bit more uniform than that.
By the time we hit the falls, I had about had it. Les decided to climb up them for the view which he did. I found a nice flat rock and had a seat and tried to convince my legs they could make it back okay, and besides, what choice did they have. It had taken about 3 hours to reach the falls. Once Les made it safely back down the waterfall, we started back for the hotel. I had sort of a rental horse turning for home thing going for awhile and we made good time. We had about 8 km to go and at about the 6 km mark I was ready to stop. But, since I didn’t want to camp there, especially since we had eaten all the food, I had to press on. Volleyball training came in handy. I knew if I could play volleyball with my legs feeling like this, I could probably walk a mile or two to save my life. We did manage to spot a bunch more mountain goats. Our grand total hit 23 by the time we finished.
We made it back alive and had a short rest in the truck before heading off to find a campsite for the night. The St. Mary’s campground just inside the park entrance, while not especially scenic, was close and had a spot. Les prepared a meal of Ramen noodles and hot dogs, we lit a fire and settled in.
Actually the fire lighting was pretty exciting. I didn’t know it but Les had decided that last night’s fire didn’t start too well, so he soaked the wood in the cook stove fuel. I turned to look at him just as he turned and threw a match into the campfire container. I didn’t see the match. To me it looked like he just turned and pointed at the fire. With a great PHOOOM it erupted into 3 foot flames. I immediately had second thoughts about spending three weeks traveling with this guy. I had visions of devils and demons and bad science fiction movies but once the phenomenon was explained, I was okay. We put up the rain fly on the tent this time since the weather looked like it might take a turn for the worst. We’ll see.
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