Avalanche Lake

It’s hard to believe we’ve been here a whole month already! Glacier still feels brand new to us, and with the weather being as wintry as it has been, and many roads and trails being closed, we hadn’t gotten a chance to explore much. To be honest, the conditions had really been impacting my whole feeling about the place, which was kind of a shame but perhaps to be expected. The co-workers we’ve met so far are just wonderful–really fun, active people–but I was really missing our co-workers from last year. And the dorm, as you saw in my original post, was pretty cushy. But it was too cold to stay in the trailer, which was starting to wear on me. And even when we were finally able to get in the trailer, I was really missing our intrepid Trailer Cat, Tilapia, who passed away over the winter of kidney disease at the age of 18, as we knew she eventually would. Going to Yellowstone last year had been my dream for so long that even though our situation here is even nicer in many ways, I kept negatively comparing everything to last year and coming up short. Fortunately, all my grieving came to an end this past weekend!

Saturday morning, we awoke to find the weather working with us, for once: the sky was blue, the sun was out, and the temps were headed into the low 70’s. A perfect day for a hike–AND a very special bike ride!
Going-to-the-Sun Road is the main road through Glacier. A 50-mile scenic drive over mountains, through forests, past waterfalls and glacial lakes, GTTSR is one of the highlights that everyone talks about. Unfortunately, the road typically doesn’t open until the beginning of July due to heavy snowfall at the highest altitudes that takes months to plow. But the spring weather provides an additional highlight for cyclists, as the road crews take a break on weekends and open the portions of the road that have been plowed to bikes and hikers. We were able to drive about 8 miles up the road to a parking lot near Lake McDonald Lodge, where we suited up for a 5-6 mile bike ride up the closed road–kind of like Bike the Drive in Chicago, only uphill!

Once we reached the first stopping point–Avalanche Creek Campground–we locked up the bikes, took a quick snack break, and set out for the 2+ mile hike out to Avalanche Lake!

The trail starts as part of a handicap-accessible boardwalk trail through an old-growth forest of western red cedar, black cottonwood, and mountain hemlock, which winds in a loop toward Avalanche Creek–one of the most photographed locations in the park, partly because of its stunning waterfalls, and partly because of the highly colorful rocks that line the bottom of the creek.

From the creek, the trail continues to wind through the forest in a less-accessible manner, with a 600-foot elevation gain. Although our day-hike book described it as “easy,” this was really our first hike of the season, and coming from the flatlands of the Midwest, we would describe it as “moderate.” There were a few areas where the trail was completely blocked by fallen trees–while this is totally typical for early spring, the federal government’s cuts to the national parks mean that the wilderness rangers who typically come out to repair the damage caused by winter’s snow and wind are no longer working. So hikers before us have created unofficial trails around impassable areas, and we had to climb over or shimmy under trees in some places.

One big surprise for us were the animals we encountered, who hardly seemed fazed by our presence. Deer, in particular, were abundant along the trail and almost completely unconcerned with us. A couple times they actually began to approach us before moving back into the woods. And a Celastrina Lucia butterfly near the lake took such a liking to me that I could barely get it to leave.

After about an hour’s hike, we finally reached Avalanche Lake, which sits in a narrow valley created by the retreating glaciers about 12,000 years ago. The lake today gets much of its water from nearby Sperry Glacier, and undoubtedly gets its name from the snow-covered mountains you can see in the background, which have markings from small avalanches visible across the face.

Two hikers near us decided to take a dip. Funny story–they overtook us on our hike back to the bikes and Rob recognized them and asked how the swim was. They said it was bitterly cold–no surprise there! And they said they took a bunch of photos but forgot to take one capturing their swim. “I’ve got a photo of you!” I said, and out in the middle of the wilderness with no cell service we were able to do an Air Drop of the photo below so they now have proof that they went swimming in Avalanche Lake in the beginning of May!

Our trek back to the bikes was otherwise uneventful, and we finished the rest of our lunch and biked back down to the car. While the trip out (uphill) did not seem as strenuous as we had expected, the trip back (downhill) was similarly not as easy as we thought it would be. But with a 12-mile bike ride and a 4.5-mile hike under our belts, we felt we’d more than earned our tired legs. And I’m starting to think this place is going to turn out to be pretty great!