Glacier National Park

July 31
We had a pretty relaxed day post-RATBOB. I was happy to do some yoga, while Rudy went to bike Sawmill trails with Christi and Ethan. Did a little swimming at a nearby state park, then put together a scrumptious dinner of chickpea burgers, taco salad, and corn on the cob. A nice, mellow final evening with our Missoula buds! Also, formulating plans for meeting up with Sam and Kyle for some Glacier National Park fun...

August 1
I spent the morning catching up on internet stuff - always takes way longer than it should! Rudy and I ventured down to Blue Mountain and I was delighted to find relatively short, easy trails - bikeable for me! More wide open, less mountainy 'big sky' views here.

Blue Mountain Trails, options for flat...

...some little hills available too!

After my short ride, I met up with Sam for a little trail run while her husband, Kyle, disc-golfed nearby - they are on their way to Glacier National Park, then the Elkhorn 50 mile run. So fun meeting Minnesota friends on vacation!! After the run and bike, we took a dip in the Bitterroot River at Maclay Flats - shallow, but fun to lay in the little riffles. Sam and Kyle headed north, and Rudy and I did a little shopping (new running shoes! and food!) before going the same way. We made it to Flathead Lake and found a nice little trail just off the road to camp out at.


August 2
We found Sam at Glacier National Park and us 3 went on a hike/run adventure while Kyle met a friend in Libby for more disc-golf. We started at 'The Loop', which started relatively flat, so we did some jogging. Within one minute of starting I kicked a rock with my shiny new shoes and went down hard, putting a big gouge in my palm and scraping my knee - so frustrating!! There was a creek nearby, so I cleaned up my wounds (picking out some little rocks - argh!), applied some bandaids, and luckily there wasn't much bleeding and everything held up for the day. It helped to be constantly distracted by all the amazing scenery....

Heavens Peak - I'm standing on a rock by the road that I'm sure a billion pictures have been taken from!

obligatory slope of wildflowers shot

bear grass!

 

We mostly hiked up to Granite Park Chalet, then added on Grinell Glacier Overlook - pretty much 7 miles of uphill.

A little fancier than I expected to see 6+ miles from a road - that's what mules are for!

The trail ahead - going up to see the glacier, then headed along Garden Wall

Seeing Grinnel Glacier was worth the extra climb and descent!


This was followed by 7 mostly jogging miles down along the Garden Wall to Logan Pass to catch a shuttle back to the Loop. How do they pack all these mountains in here?!?!

Find the ptarmigan!

Plenty of people along the trail, but we still managed to see marmots, ptarmigans, and a mountain goat - oh, and a little black bear along the road. On the drive back we stopped at McDonald Creek for a refreshing dip in the glacial stream. Since we didn't start until afternoon, it was dinner time by the time we got back to camp - we actually did some cooking! Black bean burritos were soooo gooood.






August 3


Today was cold and damp - a drastic change from the sunshine and 80s that has been going for weeks. Sam and Kyle headed off on a big hike to Sperry Glacier, Rudy and I were interested in something a little more mellow after a relatively big day yesterday. And Rudy likes to sleep in! With my extra morning time, I watched some super-tame pileated woodpeckers search for breakfast by the van.




I also checked out the little Rocky Point Nature trail nearby, a nice little stroll.


Rudy and I headed up to the Camas Creek Trail. It was cool seeing a different side of Glacier - this was actually a pretty flat trail through a little woods, but mostly open meadows - not at all like the impressive mountains landscapes of yesterday! 

But it was pretty nice to chat and mosey along, although the cool temps and overgrown trail had our legs pretty damp and chilly only an hour in. So, we turned back and put some energy into picking some saskatoons!

Can't have too much foraging!

We drove up to the Trail of Cedars, a nice little nature trail with haikus and informational signs describing the cedars, black cottonwoods, yews, rocky mountain maples, and hemlocks we saw - some touristy stuff is alright!

 
A few more stops along the Going to the Sun Road on the way back to camp. It was pretty much bed time when Kyle and Sam returned - sounded like the hike was pretty cool - being up in the clouds and even getting some snow! Sam made it sound so epic, Rudy thought it might be worth a try...

August 4
Sperry Glacier adventure! Mostly telling this one with pictures - so spectacular! A few miles of climbing through cedar woods.

The woods eventually opened up to more rockiness and seeing mountains everywhere!
 
Then a few more miles going up through rocks, including a rock staircase blasted into a cliff.
 

Rudy headed down later

 
Some goats surprised me at the top of the stairs!


Then some big rock slab and snowfield crossings for another half mile before finally getting to the glacier.

Attempted a panoramic, I wasn't super steady, but you get the picture!

I love these folds at the top of the glacier

More mountains upon mountains

Pretty impressive, but the journey definitely made this hike. I was geeking out over all the rock - I think mostly shale, in cool purple and green hues, on the way up. Saw what I believe the be schist as we got higher. Then more sandstone mixed in near the top. 

schist?

shale?

sandstone showing up with the other rocks

We ended up taking 3 little detours for mountain goats - they just weren't interested in running away from the trail, and we weren't interested in getting too close.
 
So we took a little over 7 hours for the 20 mile hike, with plenty of jogging on the way down. We left glacier and headed to the Whitefish area for some biking for Rudy - he was missing his biking :)