Glacier and Banff National Parks

Tuesday, August 30, 2010: I woke up early, having tossed and turned again most of the night and opened the curtains at about 7am to find the sun was shining most beautifully and I saw a glimpse of that Big Sky through the trees. Excited, I got up and prepared for a pretty big hike for the day.

There were several "big" hikes I wanted to tackle here at Glacier:

1. Iceberg Lake- in the middle of Grizzly country, it's a 9 mile hike (lies, they shaved off at least a mile here) to see a glacial lake in which chunks of glacier and snow break off and are floating in the lake.

2. Highline Trail- 12 miles outside Logan Pass, where it was snowing yesterday but is described by the book as "vista laden" being on the ridge of the continental divide and with huge meadows of wildflowers (blooming like crazy right now). We just didn't have time for this, or the inclination to hike 12 miles in one day, that's a really long day of hiking...

3. Grinell Glacier- 10 miles near us at Swiftcurrent also right through the middle of Grizzly Country as well. You can take a water ride in a boat type of shuttle (also with that 1940s style all teak with a brass wheel) and shave off 1.2 miles each way (yes, saving just under 3 miles, sign me up).

The water Taxi left The Many Glacier numerous times a day, but I didn't really get how this worked until we actually got there and even then not until I came back from the actual trip. The Many Glacier was busy with activity as I entered the lobby, walked up to the information desk and asked where the boat launch was and how to get tickets for it- she gave me an information card and showed me where to head for the boat launch. At the boat launch, there was a pretty big crowd gathered, we walked right up and the guy who was at the booth was soooo slow, didn't seem to know what the heck was going on and let us know that today's 9am were all sold out. He said we could get tickets for the 11am, but that's too late to start an 8 mile hike. So Larry looked at me and said "want to get one for tomorrow at 9 am?" I agreed and we bought the $22 tickets for tomorrow at 9am instead, although this was also somewhat confusing as the guy didn't really answer my question about when we come back "Oh, 4:15." I was left thinking "what if we're done before 4:15?" but this wasn't something he could answer. Or really manage to get us tickets correctly. What we got were receipts that we paid, and he wrote our names in a ledger and looked up at Larry as he seemed to make mistake after mistake "Sorry, this is my first day" he said. We had receipts and our names in the ledger, so we left and I decided that instead we'd do the other hike around Swiftcurrent that I really was wanting to see: Iceberg Lake. Since the trail heads are both right here, I parked the car at the cabin and we simply walked to the trailhead. The first 0.8 miles of the trail were strenuous uphill climbs at pretty steep pitches that left me panting and breathless. At the top of the incline area there was a trail sign letting me know that the area that buts directly up next to the trail pretty much for about 50% of the trail was blocked off for grizzly activity. They're eating and munching and working hard on getting fat for the upcoming winter season's hibernation, so you don't want to mess with them.

The trail gets you above the treeline pretty quickly, at least at the outset up here. I paused, panting and trying not to embarrass myself by being so out of breath as we met these mid-50s wiry types in Royal Robins PolyPropylene Wardrobes and hiking sticks, woman with binoculars and bird bra on, spying something in the distance. Down near the tree line there's usually a lot of thick brush and scrub, and in the scrub she said she was seeing what she thought was a moose. I saw it, too- a female, somebody else came up and said it was probably not a moose, but a mule deer. I said no way, it was too big for a mule deer (just a bit larger than a white tail, or example, but could have been an elk). I saw her face in profile though, and it wasn't an elk, they have heads shaped like deer, kind of long and thinner, and the moose have a wide jaw that makes them look a little like a duck-bill-face. It was a moose, then right next to her, there moves a juvenile out of the scrub. I got a snapshot of them, much blown up here, but you can clearly see it's a moose and it's a mother and her calf, snacking in the scrub.

Onward- the trail actually leads up into this very intimidating mountain that provides the scenery for the swiftcurrent lodge area. So I'm actually up and on the sides of the mountains I'm gawking at as the scenery around here, and between them is a deep glacial valley in a half-moon shape, so you feel almost like you're walking into a caldera. The mountains all have snow covering them at the tops, and the wild flowers are in full bloom everywhere you look. I tried again to promise I'd stop using superlative adjectives as expletives for the view which just kept getting more and more amazing at every turn and failed. It was incredible. There were plenty of other hikers on the trail, but we went long stretches alone. I'm impressed with Glacier more than any other national park by the amount of people who actually get off the paved roads and go into the back country hiking- this was particularly striking here. And these aren't wimpy little hikes, this was (after the first mile in) so slight an incline up to the lake that it was barely perceptible, but we're still talking 10 miles of walking here. Kind of impressive.

Or maybe hiking is just increasing in popularity. I remember hiking into the major mudpits at Yellowstone, which was only about 2 miles in, and I was completely and utterly alone the entire time in, at and back. The mountains were unbelievable, and I was focusing on a glacier in the distance at the middle point of the wall of mountains in front of me, pretty sure that's where I was going to end up. It seemed impossibly far away. The trail, for whatever reason, seemed to go by fast and really enjoyably. About the halfway point I passed a pit toilet stop just off the trail (so much better for the environment than people going in the woods- but my GOD they are the most vile places in the world) and shortly after that came around a bend in a thicket of wood to hear the roaring sounds of waterfalls. There was along waterfall pouring over the edge of a cliff on the trail, and a nice rocky outcropping in the stream bed just before it headed over the cliff where a big group of people were gathered resting and eating with a ranger in their midst. This seemed like a nice place to stop, so I plopped down on a rock with larry and we had a handful of trail mix, some sips of water and let the feet have a rest for 5 minutes before moving on. To the right is the vista at the beginning of the trail- you can see that there are mountains on 3 sides of you, and the apex of the trail is at the very center of those mountains, waaaaay off in the back there. It seemed impossibly far away.

The vista below is as we rounded the first mountain on the right side, you got closer toward the center and you can see the trail in front, the flowers on the side, and in the distance, that white line of glacier which is where the lake was. Also pictured are the falls at the middle of the trail and the rocky spot on the top of the falls that made a nice little spot to stop and have some water and much for a minute.

The trail was spectacular. As you can see, much of it was above the tree line so you can get a nice view, I thought this made us safer from bears as we would be better able to see them, but that isn't actually true. The berries and plants they like to eat are at this level, and grow best at the edge of the tree cover, so it's prime bear habitat. I was talking to Larry the whole time, who was behind me at the top of my lungs as to let everyone know I was coming, and we sprung the $50 at the camp store the previous night to get a bear spray canister, which was strapped at the front of my belt in easy reach should be need to use it. I can't recommend this hike enough- it's so majestic and the trail undulates steadily above and below tree line so every now and then you walk right into super dense pine forest, almost impossibly dense and then into a clearing again. The last mile to the destination you know you're finally at the center of that "caldera" (or I kept calling it that) and I had to really push myself on, my feet were starting to rebel some and I felt like this trail was neverending. Then- at long last, you reach another spot where there's a horse tie up and off to the left a trail leading to another pit toilet, which I forced myself to use. To the right, over about 0.2 miles of wildflower bursting meadows, is the lake. Glacier blue color looking up at you, and the thin remnant of a glacier that will be gone very soon. There were no ice bergs in the water, although this being the end of August, we are probably just too late in the season to see them. Apparently, you can check on You Tube and see people swimming with the glacier ice chunks in there. Larry offered me a dollar if I got in there (no way, thanks) and the guy next to us let us know we could do it vicariously. Larry stuck a finger in, just to check, and it was actually not bad. Nothing I'd ever want to swim in, but not as cold as expected.

To the left: IceBerg Lake. To the right: the little picas were everywhere!

The photo ops seemed endless, but the sun wasn't cooperating and didn't peek out from behind a very massive cloud the whole time I was back there, so I didn't catch the sun on the wildflowers, but I wanted some nice shot of the flowers in full reveal with the lake and mountains in the background, so the shot above left is one of my favorites. And I kept taking shots of the flowers along the way as they were just unforgettable. We found a spot lakeside, ate lunch and headed back just as the huge group hike with the ranger came over the hill and started pouring into the lakeside. As soon as we were a mile into the hike back, I could feel how much I was going to feel this hike... my feet were totally in rebellion, blisters forming and really painful. This was going to be hard. And it was, and it only got harder all the way back, the last mile seemed endless and I think I was limping obviously. All I wanted to do was to put my feet up, naked and free from all socks, wool, arch supports and boots...

The one picture I had to take as we rounded a curve a group of 4 hikers decided to sit down and have a break and a snack looking out into this unbelievable vista of deep, deep glacial valley and they just looked so much like a postcard I took a picture of them, and actually walked up and offered to take one with their camera. I was originally going to email mine to them, since they were all in profile in mine (nicer) and of course all looked at the camera for their photo, but I felt like it was such a cool picture they would love it.

In what seemed like the hike that would never let me get off my feet which felt like they were better off being amputated, I made it back to the cabin to pull off the boots and lie down for an hour and relax. Finally. In the evening we decided to head into Babb for a meal, this whacky cafe we passed on the road to St. Mary that looked so cute and funky that's where we went for a good meal. No kidding it's funky. Two Sisters Cafe- complete with "Aliens Welcome Here" sign, and an interior with yes, count them, TEN people working and an interior like some kind of flea market- wild colors on the walls, license plates from everywhere covering one wall almost completely, bumper stickers like wall paper, tibetan prayer flags, plastic inflatable animals, kites on the ceiling, it was whacky. Food was good, I ate a side salad and got the chicken quesadilla which must have had about 8lbs of cheese in there so I managed to eat one slice and had to take pretty much the whole bad boy back to the cabin.

Back at the cabin, it was a night to veg. Larry got some internet access while we had dinner and took the time to check on his fantasy baseball team and update facebook (of course, he's an addict I swear :), then back to the cabin to read, work on this blog, drink some of the wine (not too bad) from the camp store and eventually sleep.

One more cool thing happened today- on our way out of the valley toward Babb, there was a carjam in the road and I knew it for an animal sighting (wildlife jams, they called them in Yellowstone) and immediately pulled over at the first available spot. I luckily was keeping the binoculars in the back seat of the car, so grabbed them, my camera and ran to see what the fuss was about. A mother grizzly bear and two cubs were eating waaaaay up on the mountain side! What Larry cleverly discovered is that I could see them in the binoculars and actually take a picture with the camera THROUGH the specs for a closer zoom. It worked! I got a few shots, and I've photo-shopped these to zoom in more, but I got one that I'm really pleased with. TWO bear sightings in two days!! And GRIZZLIES!!!!!

What a day!