Glacier – Part 3

Day 4

I refused to go near my hiking boots today.  The tops of both feet and most of my toes felt like they should be black and blue, but for some reason they were not.  But we were not deterred by foot pain or by discovering muscles that we did not use while biking.  With the help of Tevas and ibuprofen, we were back on the trail for another 12 miler.  We saw two great waterfalls today: Aster Falls and Twin Falls.  I don’t know what I was expecting to see in Glacier, but I was not expecting waterfalls, for whatever reason, so that was a fun surprise.

It was crazy windy during the day and throughout the night — the wind just howled constantly.  And in the midst of all that wind, not to mention the steep, curvy roads, the guy at the campsite next to us biked in!  On a bike loaded with camping gear!

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Day 5

Woke to continued high winds, so we scrapped the hiking the Dawson-Pitimakan Pass Loop (high elevations where a woman had been blown off the trail the day before) plan, and packed up camp to move Many Glacier.  This plan was thwarted when we arrived at 10am only to find the large camp ground already full.

As we drove back, hoping we would find an open site at one of the close campsites on the Going to the Sun road, it started raining to mock our misfortune.  We claimed a campsite at the Rising Sun campground, but opted to wait on setting up the tent since it was still raining.

We rode the free park shuttle up to Logan Pass and did a short hike to Hidden Lake, which was extra hidden due to the rain and fog.  On the upside, we saw lots of temporary small waterfalls and little streams that were running because of the rain.  We thought these would usually only be visible during spring snow melt.

Earlier in the trip, we discovered a friend of a friend of a friend connection with two Glacier park rangers.  When we arrived back at camp, we succeeded in finally getting one of them on the phone.  While filling him in on our trip so far, Matthew mentioned our unsuccessful attempt to secure a campsite at Many Glacier.  Our new ranger friend immediately offered to secure us a campsite there.  Score!

We made camp and ate dinner during a break in the rain.  Unfortunately, it was not a long enough break to dry our wet rain clothes and packs, so after dinner we walked over to the restaurant and shared a hot chocolate and a breaded mushroom appetizer so we could sit somewhere warm and dry while we made plans for our ridiculous hike the next day.