Better Outside Than In: August 2017

8/28:
Yet another amazing hike. Triple Divide pass. Triple divide pass and mountain are in a unique spot where the continental divide meets another divide such that water flowing off different sides of the mountain go to the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic oceans. Another sunny day and another great hike mostly above tree line. About a 16 mile day. Talked to two people from Seatle for a few miles. They have done numerous hiking trips including a trek in Nepal to Aneperna base camp. Great trek but they got sick from the food off and on. They said the most dangerous part of the trek by far was the bus ride from Katmandu to the starting point. The whole ride was crazy but at some points they would get out and the bus driver would go alone across some of the worst areas and they would walk across! This trip they did on their own (no guides). Saw a number of mountain goats including one that ran up a mile long section of rock that would have taken me hours to climb. It took the goat about five minutes. Lots of Marmits and Pica. Also talked to two guys who ran into a bear on another hike on their way down a mountain. They kept backing up and the bear followed them until they were back up the trail about a mile. Eventually the bear wandered off and they could get down.
There was a Ptarmigan on the trail that must have been protecting a nest. When I went by it flew out at me and then flew back into the woods. I talked to two other people who were attacked by the bird. Pecked them in the leg before flying back into the woods.
There was a stretch of woods in the AM on this trip that I thought was perfect bear territory. I tried to make some noise before I got to each corner.
At the end of this day I moved to a camp ground in West Glacier. More of a real town over there and good food and nice camp ground. The camp ground had an amazing open air breakfast place. I had a sausage biscuit gravy egg thing there one day that was amazing. Particularly after all this hiking where it was difficult to eat enough food. Also good restaurant in West Glacier that had banana chocolate pies. West Glacier is better living but East (St Mary) is the place to be for trail access.

Killer Ptarmigan

Triple divide

Bear country?

8/29:
Highland Trail. This is one of the most popular trails and leaves from the top of the main road. It was a smokey day in the afternoon. I think the main road was smokier in general than the other areas I had been to. It is a long loop which got longer as I detoured out to the Grinnell Glacier viewpoint and Swift Current Lookout. About a 19 mile day. The Highland loop is mostly flat so the elevation was all on the two detours. Walked for half the day with the national lab couple I had met at Grinnel Glacier a few days before. They moved at he same pace as I did and interesting conversations about nuclear energy among other things. The Grinnel overlook was interesting since it was up on the top of one of the peaks that surround the Glacier lake. You could look down on the whole area although smokey. Swift current lookout was a side hike up a mountain that had 360 views and some steep drop offs on two sides.

Looking down at Grinnell Glacier - smokey

Granite Park Chalet

Sunrise top of logon pass

The trail

Another view of trail

Peak that overlooked Grinnell Glacier

Swift Current Lookout

8/30:
Last day at Glacier. Decided to move slowly today. Had another great breakfast at the camp ground. The camp ground restaurant was probably the best food on the trip. The hike was Scalplock lookout. 10 miles and 3K elevation gain which was significantly less than the other hikes so EZ. I did get in a little trouble early on. Two roads diverged in the woods. The sign was right in the middle of them so it was a guess as to which way to go. One was a horse trail and the other was the hiking trail. I picked the horse trail which I discovered when I got to a stream with no bridge. It was a large enough stream that you had to take off your boots and socks and go across bare foot. I knew how this worked so I got to it and went across. COLD. After a while the trails connected again right after the suspension bridge that I should have been on. Oh well, a little bit of adventure. This trail was a lot more remote than what I had been used to. I didn't see anyone the whole day except the ranger who was at the top of the lookout.
I ended up talking to the ranger for a while about ranger life and owls, birds, bears and other things. She lives at the lookout 10 days on and 4 days off. Her husband "Dan the bear man" works counting and managing bears. She told me that grizzlies eat cattle and her husband had been witness to that. He also tries to manage bear/human contact around the park where bears can get into barbage and become a problem.
This part of the park has almost no one visiting. You could look into new areas like the Flathead forest. Looks like there are a lot of places between West Glacier and the Walton Ranger Station where I parked where you could camp on the side of the road. Very different from the "main park" and nice relaxing day.
At the end of our conversation the ranger gave me letters to deliver back to town. So I ended up being a postman delivering letters from the top of a mountain into town.