Since the COVID-19 pandemic is preventing me from getting out, I am resorting to blogging about events from years ago. I have selected a 2009 visit to Glacier National Park in Montana for this post. I accompanied two of my sons on this trip.
There are two entrances to Glacier NP, one on the west side and one on the east. Having never been here before, we did not know which side would be best. We selected the west entrance, since there were more choices of lodgings in West Glacier that were just outside the west entrance.
Even though our lodging facility was old, it had its advantages, with separate cabin like units. Our unit had two bedrooms with three beds and a small kitchen.
The big disadvantage to staying outside the park is the distance (as much as 50 miles +/-) one has to travel to get to sites within this really large park. Even staying in one of the lodges within the park would still involve considerable travel time to some locations. There was also construction on the main road, Going to the Sun Road, in the park. The construction was scheduled for night work to minimize travel disruption, with hours posted for closing and reopening the road. However, the actual work sometimes ran beyond the posted opening time, which delayed us early one morning, resulting in our not getting to our destination in time for our planned sunrise shoot.
The unplanned delay at the road construction point resulted in an interesting experience. We were not the only early risers there waiting for the road to reopen. Another photographer came over our vehicle and chatted with us. He eventually gave up waiting and turned around to go somewhere else. We asked the worker with the stop sign about the reopening time, expressing our disappointment that the posted reopen time was being delayed, explaining that we were photographers trying to get to a location before sunrise. That worker talked to the site supervisor, came back to tell us they would open a detour around the work for us within a few minutes and they did. So maybe the next time you are held up at a road construction site, you might try claiming to be an important photographer on a critical time schedule!
In the summer the days are long with early morning sunrise and late evening sunsets. We typically had to arise around 2:30 – 3:00 AM to get to our sunrise destinations. We hiked numerous trails during the midday hours, then were out late getting sunset shots, returning to our lodging around 11PM. So one can easily do the math and see that we only got a few hours of sleep each day. After a few days of this we were so exhausted, that upon trying to arise very early one morning, we all decided that we just could not continue at that pace and decided to sleep in one morning.
The trails within the park are through some amazing scenery. Most are not too strenuous, but any trudging uphill while carrying a load can be tough, especially for one 60+ years of age and accoustomed to walking on flat land at sea level. We hiked a total of 60+/- miles over the coarse of about a week here. Since there are many bears in this park and many bear sightings had been reported by hikers, we carried bear spray, tried to stay fairly close together and make noise to alert any nearby animals of our presence. We were told that bears tend to move away from human noises and we hoped that was true. We did not encounter or even see any bears on any of our hikes, so either they were not nearby or we scared them away.
I did walk by a very large female moose on one hike through a wooded area and would not even have seen it had not one of my sons alerted me to its presence, only a few feet from us.
We saw numerous mountain goats, which seem mostly used to human presence, not running away from either vehicles or foot traffic.
I was much more of a novice photographer back then, so many of my photos from this trip are not up to my current standards and I do not have any raw digital images from these early years to improve via editing. The images referenced here are mostly unimproved jpeg images as they came out of the camera. And one will have to follow the links to view them on my Flickr page.
I cannot recall all of the trails that we traveled, but I’ll reference a few with photographs.
The trail along Avalanche Gorge is mostly through a wooded area along a lovely, cascading creek. This trail is in the Lake McDonald area in the western part of the park.
The hike to Virginia Falls is in the St. Mary area of the park towards the eastern side.
I recall a humorous encounter along the trail past the Virginia Creek cascades. The trail was mostly an easy one and there was a group of teenagers hiking it. As we (all considerably well beyond our teenage years) rapidly overtook a couple of the female teenagers, they moved over for us to pass, commenting that they were getting out of our way, since they saw we were photographers and we were able to move much faster than they could, too. We noted that carrying camera gear with tripods got hikers’ attention and they tended to yield to us. I guess this is one benefit to lugging that heavy equipment on a trail hike.
Running Eagle Falls is on the west side of the park in the Two Medicine area. When the water level in the stream feeding the falls is high, Running Eagle Falls is a two level falls with water going over two levels. The second level is at the top of the rock face above the falls seen in the Running Eagle Falls image.
There are numerous falls and cascades that can be viewed just by driving along the Going to the Sun Road.
These views of Haystack Creek are from the Going to the Sun Road, where the roadway crosses over the creek.
It was a foggy, overcast day at Lunch Creek. This view is from the Going to the Sun Road.
Hidden Lake Trail is near the Logan Pass Visitor Center.
Grinnell Glacier Trail is in the Many Glacier Valley, with seemingly unending scenic views.
A short 1 mile trail leads to Apikuni Falls in Many Glacier Valley, but the trail is very steep, requiring considerable effort to hike up to the falls.
There are lovely cascades along Barring Creek trail in St. Mary Valley.
At Barring Falls, I found a way to get onto a ledge below a rock overhang to get this view of the falls. One can see by the wetness on the rocks in the foreground that the spray from the falls reached this location.
After shooting at the ledge, my oldest son took my place there. The second image of the falls shows the ledge location.
The trail to Iceberg Lake and Ptarmigan Falls are in the Many Glacier Valley.
I had to stand on a steep slope just above the falls to get this shot of Ptarmigan Falls. There was no (safe) way to get below the falls and even the steep slope upon which I stood was precarious.
One of the prettiest hikes in the park is the Highline Trail in the St. Mary area. It is also a long, almost 12 miles, hike oneway and is best done as a shuttle hike. Since we only had one vehicle, when we arrived back at the Going to the Sun Road at The Loop, we either had to hike a long way along the road or hitch a ride to our vehicle. Since we were all tired from the trail hike, we elected not to walk the roadway. Instead, my oldest son got a ride with other hikers to his vehicle.
This was an epic trip for me, yet there are many portions of this large park that I have not visited and this post does not cover all that we experienced in this stunningly beautiful national park.
Until next time and stay well and safe,
Ken
