Take the High Line

2023-07-05
Glacier National Park, MT

Glacier National Park is really beautiful. Everywhere you look, the scenery is wonderful and with my proclivities I could easily spend a month here. Of course it's just a stop on the way out west, so we have only a couple days to enjoy.

Last night I learned that people stay in a campground just so that they have enough cash left over to buy fireworks. There were quite an impressive array last night and since it doesn't get dark until after 10:00 PM, we didn't manage to get to sleep until 10:30 or so. We knew from the weather forecast it was going to be chilly overnight, and it was 48 F when we got up around 7:00 this morning. Our sleeping quilts are good for these temperatures, but we did need hats and warm wear when we used the lavatory. Today is supposed to be similar. There are even fewer tent campers than yesterday, although our meadow of five again has two sites used; the other one is a different group of four people. I hope they brought warm jammies.

Today we planned to hike the High Line trail. It's a popular trail that starts from Logan Pass Visitor Center on Going to the Sun road. They have a shuttle from the St. Mary's Visitor Center which is only a mile away from our tent, but after taking shuttles at Rocky Mountain the parking lot seemed a bit small. Thus I asked a ranger about how quickly the lots at Logan Pass and St. Mary's fill up. For Logan Pass he says he gets there by 6:00 AM and may struggle, but that hour is challenging for us when staying in a cold tent with late fireworks. His suggestion was to catch the second segment of the shuttle at Sun Point. So rather than stopping at St. Mary's to get in line for the express shuttle at 8:00 AM we went on up to Sun Point, arriving just after 8:00 when the shuttles are supposed to begin. After a while we found the sign saying the first shuttle was at 9:20 (and he ended up 15 minutes late). It goes to show you that it's best to take a Ranger's advice with a grain of salt when he's talking about things he wouldn't do himself. Perhaps he just wanted more spots available at Logan Pass for him. With some time to kill, we found Sun Point which was terrific at this time of day.

We wouldn't have seen this if we understood the shuttles correctly.

We eventually got a shuttle to Logan Pass and hit the trail. We did the trail as a seven-mile out-and-back going up to the overlook. This trail is a bit more challenging for those who dislike heights; much of it is a long path on the side of a mountain. Beyond the ledge there are large snow patches which cleaned off the last of the mud from Theodore Roosevelt from our shoes.

It's sort of a goat path hung on the side of the mountain

In addition to the beautiful mountain scenery, today turned out to be a good day to see wildlife, with appearances from ground squirrels, hoary marmots, mule deer, mountain goats, big-horned sheep, and after we got off the trail we saw some foxes. I took so many pictures that I killed my camera battery during the hike. This is a rare occurrence.

Ground squirrel says: "Did you drop some food? I think you should drop some food...."

Take my picture! I'm an attention Hoary Marmot!

Goats still sit down to supper together.

Mule deer can hear you talking about them.

Butterflies always seem indifferent to humans, not just in national parks.

Most of the wildlife is pretty indifferent to people; if they ran away from every person they wouldn't have time to eat. However, this sort of came to a head with one goat. He decided to follow the hiking trail, and we were following him. Eventually he encountered people coming the other way. Now, we had shared the trail many times today, and when the path was narrow one group of people would stop on the side and the other would pass. I'm not sure how goat etiquette differs. However, he was stuck between us on one side and an ever-growing crowd on the other. His first solution was to furiously eat whatever was on the side of the path (like he hadn't been nibbling stuff all along). When that didn't work, he eventually moved about six feet off the path upslope and us humans quickly dispersed in our previous directions as to leave him no reason to be upset. Although before the goat moved, a few people in the stuck crowd started talking about how goats liked human pee. I'm still not sure how we should have used that information.

It appears we have reached an impasse...

We caught the shuttle back down to our car where we had a late lunch on a nice shady bench. We then opted for a short 1.5 mile hike to a close waterfall. We ended up sitting there for quite a while watching it in the cool shade. Neither of us has taken any waterfall pictures this year, so there was a bit of finagling when we actually tried to take some shots. The results are what they are.

Brought to you by melting snow and the cotton industry.

Who wants to play red rock / green rock?

This evening we reset all our warm clothes for another chilly night.