Glacier National Park

Liv and I arrived in East Glacier today after six days in the national park. We started from the Chief Mountain trailhead, which is on the US side of the border about 200 yards from Canada. A potential Triple Crowner named Joel started with us and was with us for three and a half days. Overall I think we had a good time both physically and enjoyment-wise.

The trail from Chief Mountain descends to the Belly River and then goes up the river's drainage. The first day we hiked about 10 miles, starting mid-morning, and stopped for a rather long lunch and a nice chat at the Belly River ranger station, the only backcountry ranger station in the park. The ranger there was very friendly and I really want his job, though I doubt he will give it up anytime soon. The hiking was pretty flat and very beautiful, with mostly cloudy skies and mountains peaking out all around us. After lunch we stopped at Dawn Mist Falls for a little while and then reached our campsite at Elizabeth Lake in the early afternoon. The rest of the afternoon we lounged around and it rained for about an hour and a half. Then we made dinner and it started raining again, so we all turned in rather early and had a rainy, windy night (dry in our tents).

The next day we climbed a few thousand feet up to Red Gap Pass. There was a bit of snow in the trees on the climb, but once above treeline there was very little snow. The trail was easy to follow, though it was steep near the top and the wind was howling and gusting at what I would conservatively estimate at 50 mph. There were steps where my moving foot actually ended up behind where I had picked it up. We finally made it over the pass and out of the wind and had a descent through more snow and trees, but we weren't slowed down too much and we then had a really nice cruise on dry trail for a few miles to Poia Lake, where we had lunch. The rest of the day we climbed over Swiftcurrent ridge with only a little snow and then descended to Many Glacier Campground, where we took showers at the lodge. Joel knew some people that worked at the restaurant, so we got free beer and free pizza. A fourth thru-hiker, E.T., joined us late in our dinner. The evening was again very windy and I didn't get much sleep, but Liv slept through it all as always. The total for this day was 18 miles.

The third day we went up the valley of Cateract Creek and over Piegan Pass. It was to be a short, 13 mile day to the Going-to-the-sun Road, but the pass was not easy. About 5 miles of the approach were completely snow bound and we could not find the switchbacks up the pass, so we just went straight up a snow slope for about 1200 ft, which I thought was the easiest option but Liv did not enjoy do to the fear of falling and sliding all the way back down. At the top of the snow slope we again found the trail and ran into E.T., who we had somehow passed and who had found a better way up through the trees than our open slope. The four of us climbed the rest of the pass together and had a few scary snow crossings, including one that Liv and I scrambled around for fear of falling on the steep, hard-packed snow. After we finally reached the top of the pass we all decided that the best way down was straight down the valley and out to a bend in the GTTS Road, as the rest of the trail was completely covered in snow and would have involved a lot of side-hilling in the snow with nobody's tracks to follow. The descent involved a lot of sliding on our butts (or feet) and then a rather easy walk almost completely on snow down the middle of the creek valley to the road. We reached the road about 2 and had a late hot lunch (left over dinner from the free pizza night) and then roadwalked to where the cars were allowed to drive to before hitching to Rising Sun Campground (minus E.T., who walked on the trail further).

We camped at Rising Sun even though it was not on the trail because when we obtained our permit the ranger said that a section of the trail was closed and that we would have to roadwalk around through St. Mary's and the Rising Sun CG was halfway through the roadwalk. The trail turned out to be open when we got to the road, but we went to Rising Sun anyway because our permit was for that campsite. That night, the three of us decided not to go over Triple Divide pass the next day as planned because it would have been a very big day with a pass at the end of the day and we had heard reports that the pass was scarier than Piegan Pass, which had scared us.

So the fourth day we roadwalked to St. Mary's in the morning. At St. Mary's, Joel left us to hitch-hike into E. Glacier due to a knee injury. Liv and I continued roadwalking south on hwy 89 and 14 miles and then walked the Cut Bank road to Cut Bank Creek CG (24 miles total roadwalk). The road was fast walking, but the cars were annoying and the shoulder was skinny. We also both have worse toe blisters after the roadwalk and we had very sore feet by the end.

The fifth day we got back on the trail (with 2.5 extra miles from Cut Bank CG to the trail versus our planned itinerary) and then went over Pitamaken pass. I think this was our best day in the park. We had nice weather and a good trail to start with and then when we hit snow, Liv had some excellent navigation and we made good time on the first snow in the valley to Morning Star Lake and then on the climb up to Pitimaken Lake. The last 1000 feet of climbing to the pass was partly snow and partly exposed talus with the trail switchbacks pretty easy to follow. I hiked up a little higher to CutBank pass to get some photos and then met Liv just below Pitimaken for the final snow crossing, which turned out to be nice soft snow with good footprints from previous hikers. The top of the pass was beautiful and not windy, which made us linger a little longer than the other passes. The descent was unfortunately very scary, as we lost the trail and I mistakenly led us down a slope I thought the switchbacks were on but we ended up having to down-climb through a short cliff band and then we had to kickstep down a steep snow slope for about 50 yards before finding a good run out to safely slide the rest of the way down. The 1.5 mile descent ended up taking well over an hour and being the scariest part of the day, especially because dark clouds moved in while we were trying to safely descend. Once we made it down thoug the rest of the afternoon was easy hiking first on snow then on dry trail down another river valley and over a small spur ridge to Two Medicine CG, where the hiker/biker sites were situated at the far end of the campground from the trail, both in the evening and in the morning. In all we hiked 17 miles on the fifth day.

Today we hiked 10.5 miles over Scenic Point and down to the town of East Glacier. The morning's climb to Scenic Point was long, but well graded, and the hike to town was easy, mostly dry and snow-free, and had great wildflowers and views of the plains. We are now in town and have beds at the hostel for tonight, we've both showered and laundered clothes, and we found Joel, who is debating what to do about his knee. We are hoping he enters the Bob (Marshal Wilderness) with us tomorrow.

Overall we had a great time in this section and Glacier National Park is definitely a beautiful place. We saw a moose the first day, two black bears the second, one black bear the third, a bald eagle, elk, deer, marmots, pikas, chipmunks, lots of scat from many animals, and a great ranger talk on the illusive wolverine, though we didn't see any wolverines. We also saw a lot of wildflowers, many of which I don't know the names of. We haven't seen any grizzlies yet, and I think we both are ok with that. We got along pretty well and besides the rain the first night and the constant wind the first three days, our weather hasn't been too bad. The last three days have been warm and sunny and the weather is supposed to continue. We are looking forward to entering the Bob, where the elevations are a little lower and hopefully more snow-free, but we are worried about a number of big creek crossings that will not have bridges like in the national park.

Blister update!: Liv's heals are healing (one of her favorite jokes) and have not regressed at all. We have discovered 2nd skin, which she has been using every day and it seems to be working, though it does come off sometimes in the afternoon when feet are wet from snow melt/streams. She has bet me a fig newton that they will be completely healed in 2 more days, and even though I am looking forward to eating that fig newton I do think that her heals will be like new within another week. My little toes are about the same as when we finished our shakedown hike, still blistered but not awful. Liv's toes are also blistered, but she hasn't lost any toe nails yet! The balls of my feet are a little blisted from the road walk but they haven't gotten any worse and I expect them to be better tomorrow. Other than that, no injuries to report!