Epic National Parks Adventure: Glacier Pictures and Stories

Posted by KSW July 17, 2017

Epic National Parks Adventure: Glacier Pictures and Stories

Glacier National Park has phenomenal beauty. While Yellowstone was crowded and felt overrun by people and cars, Glacier rarely felt that way. All we had to do was pick a trail and walk a bit, and we'd leave masses of people behind. The Glacier books all suggest that the best way to see Glacier NP is to hike it and, with 700 miles of hiking trails from which to choose, they certainly provide lots of options. There was no hike that we regretted doing and every one provided a view more gorgeous than the previous. If you like mountains, waterfalls, lakes, wildflowers, and/or wildlife, then you should get to Glacier National Park.

Whompton goals for Glacier:
1. See glaciers before they are all gone. Check!
2. Hike in mountains. Check!
3. See a pika in the wild. Nope. Still a life goal and one that I may never achieve, because climate change is reducing viable pika habitat. I will console myself with Sir David Attenborough videos for the foreseeable future.

Sunset at Western Inn, Columbia Falls, MT.
I snuck out in the middle of the night to stand in the parking lot and stare at the stars. So many stars.

We drove into Glacier and immediately stopped at the Agpar Visitor Center. Ranger Leigh was awesome and she recommended hiking to Howe Lake. The scenery was all wildflowers -- the names of which we didn't know then but excitedly determined later -- like bear grass, rose paintbrush, glacier lily, aster, clematis, columbine -- and ones that seemed similar like wild rose, a hydrangea, a miniature dogwood. The wildflowers were taller than Lola in some places and often spilled over into the trail. We did many wildflower hikes and successfully came away with no poison ivy (never saw it in Glacier) and no ticks!

The Whomptons did our one-and-only jump shot of the trip, which resulted in Raina breaking her water bottle. Sigh.

Our second hike in Glacier centered around Lake McDonald, which is as gorgeous as it comes. The bright teal color of the water comes from fine dust that has been ground up and deposited by glaciers. Additionally, the water was remarkably clear, as you can see rocks for multiple meters from the shoreline.

Spending time on the lake was absolutely required, so we kayaked and waterboarded the next afternoon. In addition to amazing lake and mountain views, we saw bald eagles in their nest and flying around!
Ruby unfortunately sacrificed her GoPro to this lake.

The mosquitoes were not as bloodthirsty or rampant in Glacier, so we actually spent time at our campsite with skin uncovered. Fish Creek Campground was well shaded and Ruby spent two nights sleeping in the hammock rather than the tent. The temperatures were substantially warmer in Glacier than expected -- we anticipated 50's and got 80's -- so sleeping in the hammock was a reasonable option.

Requisite family photo, Johns Lake trail.
Johns Lake is a must-see trail and we concluded the day with it. Oh my. Johns Lake itself is nothing spectacular but the trees and the cascades were astonishing. See below.

Sacred Dancing Cascades, Johns Lake trail.

Sacred Dancing Cascades, Johns Lake trail.
The trail has McDonald Waterfall too, which was lovely, but the Cascades stole the show.
No joke, parental supervision required. That water is so tempting, and it rushes fast and incapacitates quickly. We dipped fingers and skipped rocks and honored the beauty.

Avalanche Lake hike. This one was so crowded the day before that no parking spots were available so we trekked out really early the next morning to get there. Watching the sun rise and come through the trees was lovely, and this was our only Glacier hike that really required layers.

Avalanche Lake trail.
I love the perspective of how small we really are in comparison to the world around us.

For being such a popular hike, we saw few people on the way to Avalanche Lake but participated in a large crowd of ~30 people fleeing the lake due to the very large grizzly bear that was walking the trail with us. Individuals are supposed to keep a 100 meters distance between themselves and a grizzly bear. A ranger described it this way: if you stick your arm all the way out and your thumb blocks eyesight of the bear then you're a safe distance away. We were not a safe distance, as he was probably 5 meters away and still coming. Oh my, that bear was large and unperturbed by all of us. Eric TRIED to take a picture of the bear but in his panic got his fingers instead.

Evening Ranger program. Lola was called up to act like a tree during a fire.

Good evening, sun!
Sunrise occurred around 5 AM and sunset around 10 PM each day. It made seeing stars a challenging endeavor, but we managed to stay up for a star-gazing party. So cool!

Lola and bear grass.

Going-to-the-Sun road views

Logan Pass is the midpoint of the Going-to-the-Sun road and its roads had, three days prior, been cleared of snow. The trails themselves, on the other hand, were overrun. The hike we wanted to do at Logan Pass was closed, so we audibled to the Hidden Lake hike, which still involved trekking up a mountain of snow. The snowy trail continues well past the line of people shown here. It was a challenging hike, for sure.

Hidden Lake hike, at the top
requisite family photo

Hidden Lake hike, at the top

Hidden Lake hike, on the top where there was limited snow and great views.
We hung out with mountain goats -- including some baby goats -- and lots of ground squirrels.

Looked for pika. Didn't find any. :(

When hiking, we often say that you have to "earn the view," which means that getting to the gorgeous parts should require some hard work. We earned the views and they were lovely. Additionally, this hike was exceptionally unique, because we never anticipated hiking in deep snow in July.

I climb steep snowy inclines so that I can sled down them, NOT so that I can gingerly walk back down again. We took bets about how many people would fall down the mountain on the descent. Lola tumbled multiple times, Raina only occasionally, everyone else made it unscathed. Even so, that's not an experience I need or want everyday.

Beaver Lake trail was near the St. Mary's campsite and seemed an easy wildflower hike for the afternoon.

St. Mary's Lake

At about this point in the trip, I started wearing everyone down with my ever pressing need to go on more hikes, always more hikes. That evening saw our last evening hike, which was to St. Mary's and Virginia Falls.

St. Mary's Falls

Virginia Falls

St. Mary's Falls, return trip, at sunset.
We were so tired that we could have sat there the rest of the evening and been happy.

Hikes in Many Glacier were the plan for the next day and, rather than do a series of short 3 - 5 mile hikes, we planned on doing a 10 miler in the morning and then see how we felt for the afternoon. Iceberg Lake was the chosen hike and it was Stephanie's favorite.

Views from Iceberg Lake trail

Still on Iceberg Lake trail

Animals were on the trail, including a mama grizzly and her baby. All those people are staring at the bears and probably taking pictures. Eric took a picture of his fingers again. :)
We saw a moose on the descent.

Lots of bear grass on this hike

Iceberg Lake!
Apparently it's a thing to jump into the lake, which some lunatics did while we were there. Generally, though, the brave dipped their toes in and then regretted their decisions because, you know, there were icebergs in the lake. We enjoyed the view, looked for pika again, saw mountain goats, and scowled at ground squirrels.

Lola caught a small iceberg, so she actually touched an iceberg in Iceberg Lake. She was super excited about it.

The Iceberg Lake hike destroyed the Whomptons. We decided to take a break at the Many Glacier Lodge for an hour or so .... and that turned into an entire afternoon of butt-sitting. I couldn't convince anyone that we should do more, so we headed home for the night. We were headed to Canada in the morning!

Driving from Glacier NP to Waterton NP, Canada, involves going through some reservations with free-roaming cattle. We stopped frequently to stare down some cows.

Canada on July 4th!
The Canadian border agent thought I was a little kooky and we're lucky he let us in without too much complaint. Our first stop was at the Ranger Station, of course, to find out which hike to do. We chose Bertha Lake, which looked to be pretty, moderate in difficulty, and not-very-buggy.

The Bertha Lake hike was listed as a moderately difficult 10-ish mile hike. We were confident that we could knock out that distance no problem and we set out with enthusiasm. You should know that a "moderate Canadian" hike was not the same as a "moderate American" hike. The Bertha Lake hike was our most strenuous by far; Lola even broke down in tears on the trail. But we made it up to the top and were rewarded with the exquisite view.

Oh no, that wasn't the last switchback!
Around this point, we started singing every patriotic song in our arsenal -- including the Hamilton soundtrack -- as a way to distract ourselves from the tired muscles. I effectively dragged Lola up the last half-mile.

Bertha Lake

Bertha Lake. Everything about it deserved to be a postcard.

Last Bertha Lake photo, I swear.
On our descent, we encountered many people trying to make it up the mountain and felt pretty terrible when saying "um, the steepness doesn't get better from here, sorry and good luck." Earn the view!

We enjoyed the descent a lot more than the ascent. Canadian Rockies, you are so pretty.

Bertha Lake hike. I thought these plants looked like hydrangeas but the Rangers didn't know what I was talking about when I asked them.

Looking down on Waterton Lake

Another view of the Rockies and Waterton Lake, I believe.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon hanging out at Waterton Lake. It was gorgeous, the breeze off the lake was chilly, the water itself was downright frigid, and the beach was all rocks.