Glacier National Park: Part 2

Warning – get your coffee now – this is a long post. We loved Glacier NP. It was extremely hard to narrow down the photos to choose.

On a wet Thursday morning we left Whitefish and drove over the continental divide to the Two medicine area of Glacier National Park. We arrived and easily secured a campsite in the wet conditions. It was also cold, the temperature did not go above 10ᵒC for the next two days! The campsite was next to a beautiful lake and mountains, unfortunately the mountain were to stay behind the clouds. After the usual school work, we set off on a short walk to Appistoki Falls. It was nice to get out of the RV and stretch the legs.

Either get wet or cabin fever!

Next morning the weather had not really changed, but we set off again on a ranger led walk to Aster Falls then onto Aster Park. We shouldn’t have worried no one would turn up, we ended up having a group of over

Bear claw marks on the tree

ten. It’s not just the Wallers’ who walk in the rain!
Despite the weather it was a great walk, the ranger showed us the different flora of the Two Medicine area. We found learning about the edible berries interesting, particularly the

Lego is always a good option on a wet day

Huckleberries that were the most flavoursome. The other people on the walk were also great company. After three hours we wandered back to the Campstore and stood by the massive open log fireplace drying out.

Swiftcurrent Lake

The weather hadn’t improved the following day so we decided to move towards Many Glacier and secure a campsite while the weather was bad. First we had to drive over the Hudson Divide and we stopped in at the very interesting Indian Museum in Browning. We spent a night at St Mary’s East Glacier to charge the batteries, get propane and wash. We arrived at Many Glacier to a campsite that hadn’t been full the night before, very rare and reflective of the terrible weather. That day we walked from the campground around Swiftcurrent Lake, stopping in at the amazing Many Glacier Hotel. The weather was improving but the hills were obscured by low cloud.

A bull moose down at Fishercap Lake

In the evening we walked down to Fishercap Lake (this is what the Indians used to call George Grinnell who was instrumental in the development of the national park as he wore a hat of Fisher weasel fur) and were lucky enough to see a cow moose. We could not believe it – we did not have a camera! Fiona hiked back to get the camera and then returned hoping the moose was still there. It was – we have a LOT of photos to prove it. Symi was in her element.

We woke Monday morning and it was cold, 1.5ᵒC, looking out the window revealed a crystal clear morning, the first since we arrived in GNP. After a morning of school work and lunch it was off into the hills. We set off to Iceberg Lake and on the initial climb ran into four people we had talked to the previous day. One couple lives in Maryland and within ten minutes we had an invite to visit their farm (not a ranch as it’s in the east!) which will a great base from which to visit Washington DC. Two days later we had an offer to use a ski chalet in Colorado. It continues to amaze us how generous people are to us and they tell us how amazed and inspired they are by our trip.

The walk up to Iceberg Lake was about 5 miles each way. It was a nice steady gradient after an initial steep climb. This trail evidently gets closed at times due to large numbers of grizzly bears grazing on the berries on the side of the trail. We did not see any bears but did use our new found knowledge of berries to do some of our own grazing on huckleberries – YUM. On the way up we heard rumours of a bull moose.

We looked and looked but no luck. Soon after we arrived at Iceburg Lake. We had read that the Ice Burgs remained into August so we were hoping to see some. As you can see we had no problems spotting ice burgs. What an extraordinarily beautiful place.

We hung around taking pictures and then were amazed to see a man walk by with a snowboard on his back. Evidently we had just missed the man in our picture with the snowboard climbing and snowboarding down the chute of snow you can see at the top of the picture. What would his mother think? We as it happens she and his brother had come along!

We had a good walk down distracted by chatting to our new found friends. Barry the lady from Washington and Symi got on very well and to top it off we got a look at the bull moose we missed on the way up, although from a bit of a distance.

Very long legs!

When we got back to the RV Symi and Rob headed back to Fishercap Lake (less than a km away) to see if they could spot another moose. They returned triumphant with a moose and calf spotting – and lots more photos.

Next day we had booked on the ranger led tour to Grinnell Glacier. This was an 8 mile, 1600ft walk up to a Glacier. It started off well when we met another 10 year old girl called Thea (middle name Simone!). We had a pleasant boat ride across Swiftcurrent Lake, a short walk and another boat ride across Lake Josephine.

Monica telling us all sorts of things

Then it was a short steep uphill followed by a long slow ascent up a less steep gradient. The views were spectacular and Monica the ranger kept us entertained with the never ending pieces of interesting and educational information that all the national park rangers seem to have. We got to Grinnell Glacier about lunch time.

Symi and Monica

We had a short talk on the 1.5 billion year old stromatolites (we were told that the best ones in the world are in Shark Bay at 3.5 billion years old!) The Glacier is slowly receding but it was interesting to hear that there was mini ice age from 1500 to 1850 and the glaciers have been in retreat since. Prior to that there was no glacier here. 10 000 years ago the glaciers were 3000 ft thick. We were able to see 3 glaciers from where we got to Salamander, Grinnell and Gem.

Band of rock starts at far left of big glacier

The scale is difficult to see in the pictures but if you look at the thick black line (compressed magma) in the rock face and realise it is 100 feet thick  may get some idea.

Bighorn Sheep

Our walk down was enhanced by a very close encounter with some big horned sheep. Still no grizzly bear! Then it was back down to the RV for dinner and a rest. Symi and Rob headed out to a fantastic bear talk (Fiona decided she had already done one bear talk and that she had an appointment with a book).

Trying out the high life at the hotel

Next day we decided to give our legs a rest and catch up on some school work. In the afternoon we went on a very interesting ranger talk around and through the Many Glacier Hotel. The buildings in the National Parks have fascinating back stories. It is interesting to imaging the tourists nearly 100 years ago coming here.

Symi and Fiona topped off the day with a VERY close encounter with moose (yes more than one). We have no photos because it was not that sort of experience. Frankly even if the camera had been out we were shaking too much to take one. We were watching a female moose by the lake when another female and her calf approached. Then a bull moose appeared. The females and the calf were running along the lake edge towards us and the 10 or so people who were watching near us. We all stepped up into the trees to give them clear passage. They then decided they wanted to come up into the trees too but balked when they saw all the people. One young girl was separated from her mother and screamed. One of the moose became very startled and was darting around. By the way a moose close up is VERY large. Fiona had hold of Symi as she was trying to run. A man near us pulled out his bear spray and told everyone to be quiet and stay still – which we did except for shaking. I would say the moose was about 6 ft from us when it finally saw an escape route and left. Not an experience we would like to repeat.

Next day saw us back on the walking trail. We increased the walk length to 11 miles and the elevation gain to 2300ft to climb to Ptarmigan (silent p) Tunnel. The first part of the walk was a gradual climb. Then the gradient increased up to Ptarmigan Lake, luckily the climb was eased by the numerous huckleberries we ate on the way up.

Berries - Yum

From the lake we could see our final ascent up to the tunnel, though the rock face and out to the next valley. We watched another walker climbing and decided it did not look too bad. About 30’ later we were at the top, through the tunnel and looking down on another world.

View back down to Ptarmigan Lake

The walks in Many Glacier are so stunning is it hard to conceive how amazing each one is when you are doing them one after another. We had been told the valley on the other side looked like something out of Lord of the Rings and so it did.

Through the tunnel and looking into the next valley

We could just imagine someone on a quest climbing up the path. The walk down was a quick one. Rob decided he wanted a coffee and therefore needed to be down before the 2pm generator cut off time to make it. First world problems! We made it.

The next day was our last full day in Glacier. We decided to do an out and back towards Swift Current Pass. We had thought about doing the pass but enthusiasm was lacking from the female members of the party. We hiked up to Redrock Falls and were just past it when we heard there was a bear up ahead which had charged some hikers. We were reassured that it was now a safe distance off the trail to look at. We headed on although some people (Fiona) were feeling a bit nervous and took out their bear spray. Turned out there was no need to worry.

We came around a corner to find a group of people watching a gorgeous caramel coloured grizzly bear about 300m away. It had not charged any walkers just startled them as it crossed the path right in front of them. We were entranced and sat watching and taking photos for about an hour. There is nothing like seeing an animal in its own habitat. We were glad we had finally seen a grizzly as we had been told plenty of stories of encounters by other hikers.

With a grizzly sighting ticked off the bucket list we managed to escape the clutches of Glacier NP for a mountain bike top up. Ever heard of Bozeman, MT?