Iconic Hikes!

Sorry it’s been so long since I posted anything; we’ve been busy working and having the kinds of adventures that I keep hoping to blog about when I get some free time. But today I’m here to bring whatever readers I still have left up to speed on one of those activities: hiking!

We’ve been fortunate to do two of the most iconic hikes in Glacier this summer: the Grinnell Glacier Trail, which we did in late July with some of our young friends; and the Highline, which we did two weeks ago on our own. Hiking in Glacier is almost always an adventure, because unlike Yellowstone, there are not too many mid-level hikes available–due to significant elevation changes, the trails are typically too easy or too challenging for us. But with the proper planning and recovery, we can occasionally take on one of the challenging ones.

The Grinnell Glacier is named after George Bird Grinnell, an early American adventurer and explorer whose advocacy helped Glacier to become designated as a national park in 1910, and is historically one of the largest and most well-known glaciers in Glacier. Although shrinking fast, as documented by these NPS photos, the Grinnell Glacier is very visible from some locations in the park, most notably at Upper Grinnell Lake, which lies at the end of the Grinnell Glacier Trail.

That trail, tho! I really thought I might not make it on this one. First, there’s the 1700-ft elevation gain, which gets steeper and steeper the closer you get to the glacier. The trail consisted primarily of 18″ stone steps for about a half mile before we reached the glacier and lake, but by then I was too tired to take any photos. At some point, I just told the 20-somethings to just go on ahead, I was on the “hike your own hike” plan. Because while everyone agreed that this was a challenging hike, the 40-year age difference really does begin to show at some point; the person who invented that “age is just a number” slogan was definitely under 45. But I was super-psyched to be invited, so did my level best to keep the complaining to a minimum! And hopefully, one day in the distant future, our young friends will also be in their 60’s and will look back on this summer at Glacier and wonder how the hell any of us ever managed to do this hike.

Additionally, we had to hike up the side of a waterfall on the way out, which was about three feet wide and slightly slippery so I had to use my hands to gain traction, because while the waterfall was on the right side, there was a 50-ft drop just to my left. There was no time for photos; the young folks had already run right up the thing and Rob and I had to catch up. Which was probably for the best, as there was no time for thinking about any of this either. Because if I had stopped to think, I surely would have ascertained that we would also need to get back down the waterfall on the way back, which was even more terrifying. I ended up doing this the same way a toddler goes down stairs the first time: on my butt, to everyone’s amusement. Getting totally soaked. Happily, this was quite refreshing in the July heat, which by that point had gotten up to about 85 degrees.

Since I didn’t have time for a photo, the waterfall shot above is from the internet, taken by someone named Eugene Buchko. I just really needed you to appreciate how completely terrifying this thing really is!

At long last, though, we made it to the glacier, where we all ate lunch on the shores of Upper Grinnell Lake. The Grinnell and Salamander Glaciers are both melting into Upper Grinnell Lake here, which feeds into Lower Grinnell Lake via a waterfall. To oversimplify a very complex topic, the landscape here was originally formed by tectonic shifts and overthrusts about 170 million years ago. Then glaciers have been carving out the U-shaped valleys for about the last 2 million years. One fringe benefit of the lake: we ran almost completely out of water on the first leg of this hike. Thankfully, one of our hiking companions shared their filter with us so we could fill our bottles from this ancient glacial lake for our trek back.

Feeling refreshed by my PBJ and an energy bar, I opted to get a head-start on the trail back down so I could take the steps at my own speed. The photo below highlights one of the giant cairns that mark the peak of this hike, just before your descent down to the beach. Rob and the rest of our group showed up once I was feeling rested and we made the 6-mile trek back to the trailhead.

This hike took a lot out of us, but like the masochists we are, we decided to do the Highline Trail just a couple weeks later, once the temperature cooled down a bit and some rain blew away the lingering smoke from wildfires in Western Montana and Spokane, WA. The Highline Trail is definitely one of the most significant highlights of anyone’s visit to Glacier, but is apparently a very tenuous thing: it opens late in the season due to snow remaining at its high altitude; it’s not very enjoyable when the air quality is poor and obliterates the view; and it closes periodically for reasons that no one could predict–this week it’s closed because of a mountain goat carcass on the trail that bears are fighting over. This one I at least understand. Having hiked the cliff that makes up much of this trail, I can definitely assert that I don’t want to be on it with bears duking it out over protecting a carcass from potential predators. Because bears think (wrongly) that WE are potential predators.

This hike we did on our own. Although we did have assistance! The Highline is one of the very few point-to-point hikes in the park, where you start in one place and end at another. In this case, the trailhead is up at Logan Pass, where I work four days a week and where they have a 3-hour parking restriction in effect for the summer. What the park would like everyone to do is to take the free park shuttle to Logan Pass, then hike the Highline down to The Loop, where you pick up the shuttle to go back down the mountain to your car. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful in obtaining tickets for the shuttle due to high demand. So we decided to drive up and park our car at The Loop and then hitchhike to Logan Pass. Now, we were both raised with admonitions not to hitchhike and certainly not to pick up hitchhikers. But really, what are the risks here? The road is only going to one place, and your driver is going 25mph max. Even in the unlikely event that we were picked up by axe murderers, we felt we could probably just jump out of the car and survive. So we gamely gave it a try. And predictably, the first few cars went by with no results. But soon, someone actually stopped for us. And amazingly, it turned out to be our friend Isabella and her girlfriend who was in town visiting! They were on their way to the east side of the park to do a different hike. No, they didn’t recognize us at first; they actually had done the Highline the day before and had hitchhiked the same way we did, and had decided they should “pay it forward” by picking up someone else who was hitchhiking that day. But as it turned out, we were the lucky beneficiaries of a super-fun 20-minute ride to Logan Pass with them!

I can’t say enough great things about this amazing trail, but I will say this: it’s just as terrifying as our previous hike. The Highline follows a cliff along a chain of mountains known as the Garden Wall for several miles. In the beginning there’s a cable to hold onto, helpfully coated with many lengths of garden hose. Later on, they presumably figure you’ve gotten the hang of hiking the cliff because this quarter-mile stretch of cable at the beginning is all there is. I believe the trail–like many trails throughout the US–started as an animal path and was later more clearly developed for human travel by Native Americans. But you really do need to be prepared for this hike. People have fallen to their deaths from the Highline, and people have also experienced significant injuries, dehydration, and hypothermia. We were, fortunately, the most prepared we’ve been for any of our hikes, thanks to our experience with the Grinnell Glacier Trail. The occasional rain showers helped keep the temperatures cool and the smoke largely at bay, and the clouds and mist lent an aura of mystery to the amazing vistas. Even so, I’d actually like to do this hike again on a sunny day when the view is even more spectacular.

Up here, you can see some of the U-shaped valleys that were formed by receding glaciers over the past 2 million years, leaving creeks, rivers, and in the photo above, Lake McDonald on the western side of the park.

Additionally, we were able to hike this trail at our own pace, so I was able to take photos of the waterfalls, which admittedly were not as terrifying or as slippery as the ones on the Grinnell Glacier Trail.

After about seven-and-a-half miles, we reached the Granite Park Chalet, a rustic, backcountry hotel that offers overnight accommodations for hikers with advance reservations. With buildings that were originally developed by the Great Northern Railway in the early 1910’s to attract visitors to the new national park, the Chalet has been largely unchanged for the last hundred years or so. There’s no electricity, just gas lights and a wood-burning fireplace. And no wifi–I overheard the woman working behind the counter tell someone that she hasn’t been able to check her email in two months!

After the Chalet, it’s all downhill–literally! The last four miles of this hike descend to The Loop with a 2500-ft elevation loss that left my legs largely unusable for the next five days. We tried to keep up with other hikers on the descent, but although Rob was doing a great job, I just couldn’t make it. Fortunately, we encountered some folks coming the other way just at the moment that we all saw a bear about 50′ off the trail. Although I had my bear spray and we were in a larger group, I kind of froze and didn’t get a picture of him until he was turning away. But the memory of this bear looking straight at me is still as clear as day!

This hike went on for a bit longer than we would have liked, despite being downhill–long after we had basically stopped caring about the spectacular vistas. About a quarter mile from the end (but of course, you don’t know that until you reach the end) there was a cute little footbridge over a sparkling little creek. But I couldn’t have cared less by that point, so didn’t even bother to take a photo. We made it to the car, kissed the ground, and lived to hike another day. And two weeks later, we are still patting ourselves on the back for doing it, and I am even trying to figure out some way that I can put myself through this again! And that’s the story of our recent life in Glacier National Park. If you’re one of the six people who still reads this, thanks for staying with me!