Wednesday, 27 September, 2023
Approaching Glacier National Park
Hiking to actually see the Glaciers
Driving the Road to the Sun
Western Montana & Kalispell
Tuesday’s calmness was a welcome day of rest, and I was psyched for my upcoming visit to Glacier. I hadn’t originally planned to travel this far North, but distance is relative, so by the time I got to Yellowstone and re-checked my maps I decided “well, since I’m in the neighborhood….” My sister Karina was also an influence to hit up Glacier, since she’d worked in the park for a summer after she graduated college and had only superlative things to say about its majesty.
I abridged by morning yoga routine since despite the motel being fairly clean, I still didn’t feel like laying on the floor. Instead I went straight to the local diner—Big Sky Cafe—to fuel up. It’s really quite nice to know that you can find all the American breakfast staples like eggs and bacon and pancakes and plain black coffee nearly everywhere you go. The other cool thing about most small town diners around the country is the snapshot of the community they reveal, since they’re inevitably well-patronized by locals. Big Sky Cafe checked all the boxes, including being a wee bit dingy.
After breaking my fast I stopped back at the motel to use the restroom once more (hotel bathrooms will always be more comfortable than National Park public composting toilets) then set off towards Glacier through the Blackfeet Reservation. There’s not much to mark that you’ve crossed into Reservation territory and the landscapes and roads continued to be rolling ranchland, but the views of the Lewis Range grew ever more spectacular as I approached them. I kept having to slow down and pull over just to try to appreciate all the fractal jaggedness and variety of the mountains that rose from the golden prairie.
The road from Cut Bank to St Mary (where the main Eastern entrance to the park lies) passes through the community of Browning, Montana. It’s the headquarters of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, but the impression I got as I drove through the town was of desuetude. I felt equal measures of sadness and anger at what our country did to so many Native populations, and I wished there was more being done to support tribes across the country today. I would be quite happy for my tax dollars to go toward continued reparations. Two weeks in, and this trip was awakening new passions for me in areas that I’d frankly never given any thought to previously.
Reaching St Mary’s Visitor Center I was still quite undecided what to do in Glacier. The weather forecast wasn’t ideal—rain on and off with temperatures in the low 60’s (near 15°C)—and I’d hoped to get through the park on Going-to-the-Sun Road and was feeling a bit nervous about conditions in the passes. On top of all that, I remained a bit sore from hikes in Teton and Yellowstone and was still adjusting to elevation.
But despite all of that, while speaking with the rangers about potential hikes I realized that I needed to just Go For It. Who knew if I’d ever make it back to Glacier, and more importantly, who knew how much longer the glaciers of Glacier would actually be around given the quickening pace of climate change.
As soon as the decision was made, I was itching to move. I filled all my water bottles at an artesian well outside, hit the pisser, and then drove the 21 miles (34 km) up the road to the Grinnell Glacier Trailhead.
There were exactly the right number of other cars on the road. Any fewer and I would have gotten nervous that I’d be the only human on the trails, and any more would’ve annoyed me that people were invading what was clearly my space for the day :D.
When I reached the parking lot the mist had condensed into a light drizzle, so I took the time to put on some underlayers through contortions in my car, then set off at a brisk pace since I knew the Grinnell Glacier Trail would be an arduous 10 mile round trip.
The trail starts out fairly flat for the first couple kilometers, but I paced myself since I didn’t know how tough it would get later on. There was plenty to see all along the way, though. Moss-covered trees, gorgeous peeks of Swiftcurrent Lake and Lake Josephine, and even a train of pack horses bringing trash down from further afield.
The human eye is a fascinating organ (or rather, the human brain is). We easily pick out anything in our field of view that breaks the pattern—such as bright red berries on grey-green rock, caterpillars inching along wet stone, and of course the inevitable odd chipmunk. Those and more were punctuation marks in the steady pace I wrote up the mountain.
But it wasn’t just the little things that captured my attention. As I passed above the tree line the vistas gave me pause as well. The teal, milky sheen of Lake Grinnell was a gorgeous contrast to the verdant green pines, bright yellow of autumn foliage, and the sharp grey rock faces. If I hadn’t already been chilled to the bone and uncomfortably damp I would have sat and enjoyed the views for a while. As it was I kept moving as fast as I could while still maintaining my footing on the slick rock of the trail.
Towards the top, where the views disappeared within drifting cloud, two women who were heading down spread the word that they’d seen a bear up ahead. While they scampered down the trail I couldn’t help but pause pensively. I was still new to hiking out West and bears loomed large in my imagination. There was no way I was turning around so close to the top, though. After all, I was spry, and packing bear spray. Just to be safe, I picked up some rocks and clapped them together every few steps to make some noise for the last quarter mile.
Alas, I saw no bears at all, only a few other hikers when I reached the top. The glaciers themselves were…underwhelming. Not surprising, of course, given Grinnell Glacier’s gradually shrinking footprint over time. I was quite glad I had made the trek up to see it.
A part of me wanted to sit and savor the experience, and truly appreciate what I was seeing for a fleeting blip of time. But like so many things in life, it was no more and no less awe-inspiring than the caterpillar I’d seen earlier on the trail—a reminder that life is rarely as great or as terrible as we build things up to be in our minds.
Also, I was pretty damn cold by this point, since I was totally soaked through and through and the temperature and wind hadn’t gotten any better, so I had to get moving either way. It was time to start the race back down!
It’s a truism that going somewhere new always feels like a longer trip than returning home, and that’s doubly true when one direction is all uphill and the other is all down. It’s also triply true when you trudge uphill but run back down, which is exactly what I was drawn to do! Here’s a short video I took jogging down a portion of the trail (no video will do the scenery justice):
And other quick video showing a bit of the disorienting motion parallax that I saw in my peripheral vision which caused me to slow down quite a bit:
Eventually I made it down to my car, where I promptly and stiffly stripped down completely, put on fresh clothes, and turned the heater on full. Hike stats:
| Stat | Imperial | Metric |
|---|---|---|
| Total Distance | 10.2 miles | 16.4 km |
| Elevation Ascent | 2175 feet | 663 m |
| Total Time / Moving Time | 2 hrs 57 minutes | 2 hrs 13 minutes |
As I drove back down past St Mary’s Visitor Center, basking in the endorphin afterglow of the cold & wet hike, the weather kept drawing my attention more than the scenery. Seeing the wind and rain pummel the mountains from afar looked much more raw than it was while actually in it. The rainbows shone intensely above wind-whipped lakes. And the road ahead was hidden in dreary mist.
I pulled over briefly at Logan Pass Visitor Center to use the composting toilets and see if I could get any intel on the road ahead. The parking lot there offered abundant views of foggy nothingness, with a few lonesome vehicles idling creepily. I didn’t stay long.
A little ways up the road from Logan Pass I happened upon a beatifically smiling person slowly walking up the road with his thumb out in the universal signal for hitchhiking. I trusted my gut and picked him up—especially since the vibe seems to be that our National Parks are the last bastions of the trusting, communal hitchhiking culture of yore.
He only needed to get a couple miles up the road to his car, but we spent the time trading life stories and bonding. Kichang is from South Korea and had taken a month to travel and hike from Teton up through Yellowstone and Glacier to Banff (which would be next for him). He was doing dozens of miles of solo hiking each day in each of these wild places, and all without bear spray. In fact, he’d double-timed it down off his trail to the road since he got a little too close for comfort with a grizzly.
In the spirit of camaraderie that our wild Parks inspire, I gave him my bear spray—he would definitely need it more than me, as I was heading further West out of the Rockies, but he would be going even deeper into bear country. I still think about Kichang every now and again, both jealous and fearful of his more extreme adventures.
West of the pass after Going-to-the-Sun Road began to gradually descend, the weather was much more pleasant. Still damp, but a big brighter and less windy. I passed a happy couple gleefully running into and out of the center of the road to have some gorgeous photos taken, and I stopped at a number of turnoffs to admire the lively wilderness.
Truly, the landscape of Glacier brought to mind many of my favorite fantasy settings. The verdant vibrancy and vertical vistas made me imagine parties of adventurers questing along all the valleys and passes in sight. Indeed, what I was seeing and feeling makes me wonder if fantasy artist Paul Bonner has spent time in Glacier….
The feeling of being immersed in a fantastic setting multiplied tenfold a bit further down the road, near Logan Creek. Here, the forest crowded in on the road, blocking what remaining light filtered through the low-lying clouds. The wind died away completely. The trees grew ever more massive and tall, and hosted moss that veritably glowed compared to the deep, dark greens and browns of the needles and bark that nearly appeared black. This was truly a primeval sylvan cathedral.
Even just a handful of steps off the comfortingly bright road was like walking back in time and across worlds. The elves and dwarves I’d playfully imagined earlier were now replaced in my mind by larger, wilder beasts of the forest. The trees themselves revealed their personalities and age as they hung heavy above the silent weald.
The photo you see above barely does the dark depths of the scene justice, even after I manually adjusted the photo to capture what I saw in person—modern cameras try to normalize and brighten scenery, erasing uniqueness.
The rest of Going-to-the-Sun Road still offered beauty, but nothing compared to what I’d already seen. In fact, I could barely pay attention to much of the scenery for the last 7 miles or so since the road was decidedly unfinished, with an endless series of water-filled potholes that jarred and scarred both my car and me. Hopefully it’s finished and paved eventually!
It was around 7pm when I finally exited Glacier and sped Southwest toward Kalispell and society. Even on Rt-2, however, mountains carpeted by deep green forests stood silently to the East, and thunderheads pregnant with rain blocked the setting sun. Western Montana is truly beautiful!
It had been a very long day by the time I got into Kalispell around 8pm, so I put as little thought into my accommodations as possible, which meant I crashed in a cheap room at a Super 8 Motel. I wish I’d had more time and energy to explore a bit of Kalispell (warning, popups), but I simply needed calories and sleep. I wandered in a daze through empty streets to Hops Downtown Grille as a likely place to grab a burger and brew. Their trio of bison, elk, and yak sliders with complimentary toppings was certainly a fitting way to end the day.
Day 13 Distance: 194 mi (312 km)
Total Trip Distance: 3,492 mi (5,620 km)
Next Up: Visiting the Garden of One Thousand Buddhas and driving into Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
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