Alpine Wonderland
Glacier National Park is spectacular! We arrived on Friday, very early, having learned the day before that the scramble for first come, first served campsites was an intense one. Glacier’s popularity has boomed dramatically in the last few years, so these sites often fill up between 8am and 9am. We arrived in the Two Medicine Campground around 7:30 and felt the anxious frenzy almost immediately. Fortunately, we were able to secure an excellent site, and the campground host advised us to stay put and use this as our base for exploring the entire park. Excellent advice!
We have been here for six nights and expect to stay longer, knowing our limit, sadly, is fourteen. The NPS imposed limit is understandable; I’m sure many people would gladly come and stay the summer!
At first, being in such heavily populated bear country was highly intimidating, and while it still definitely makes us nervous, we are more at ease hiking now because we started our hiking here with a ranger led hike to Cobalt Lake. It was a great way to break into hiking in Glacier, especially since only three other people joined us, and our ranger, Lynne, was incredibly knowledgable and more than willing to carry on a spirited conversation with Alanna, answering all of her questions. The hike itself, all 12 miles of it, was amazing. We moved through a number of different vegetation zones, reaching alpine near the lake, and we saw wildflowers like we had never seen before. Nothing like standing on rocks in the middle of a stream, surrounded by bright pink Lewis Monkey Flower on every side and as far as the eye can see. We are fortunate to be here at a time when the flowers are in peak bloom.
When we reached the lake, we met a hoary marmot, quite fat and quite unafraid. He was busy trying to eat his way into the outhouse, which we desperately needed to utilize. Apparently, these critters love the salt in urine, so they munch through the wooden structure to get inside. They keep the backcountry rangers very busy, fighting the pit toilet-hoary marmot battle!
The next day, we headed up Going to the Sun Road via the shuttle system. The Minnie is too big to travel that road, which was fine with me as it allowed me to fully take in the views, which is tough to do behind the wheel. St. Mary’s Lake, nine miles long, was gorgeous, as was every mountain peak, valley and meadow we passed. Once we reached Logan Pass, our systems went into shock. There were more people in one place than we had seen since leaving San Francisco. We spent a short time looking over the exhibits in the visitor’s center and then headed out the Highline Trail. We didn’t cover a great distance, only hiking for an hour or so, though we loved the views and the possibility of hiking to the chalet on another day.
We eventually made our way down to the west side, going as far as Lake McDonald Lodge. Again, tons of people, many more than were at the top. The west side is certainly the busier side of the park. We ate our PB&J sandwiches by the lake, then began the arduous journey back to St. Mary’s. Arduous because the shuttle system is not efficient or equipped to deal with the increased crowds heading east, and people were getting cranky and trying to cut in line. Felt like MUNI all over again!
The next day found us on a ranger led hike to Grinnell Glacier. I will write more about that one in the next post as I think the glaciers deserve their own space in this blog. What I can say is that we hiked the better part of the way down with a couple from Redondo Beach and got to share with them the experience of a very close and displeased moose on the trail! They were so much fun to chat with, and they kindly gifted us their can of bear spray when we boarded the boat to take us back across the lake. Bear spray can’t go on an airplane and they were heading home the next day. We are grateful to be meeting such wonderful people on the trail and in camp, and to be seeing such spectacular places and wildlife.
Lastly some slides of this amazing place.
