Hiking and Eating

With Amber out for the week, and me with a couple extra vacation days to spend, we've hit a lot of park highlights. We hiked to Ptarmigan Tunnel at Many Glacier. I had been there last fall the day it started snowing, so it was nice to actually see Elizabeth Lake down below from the far side of the tunnel. It was a blazing hot day for this summer, which has otherwise been cool.

Tuesday, we went to Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta to hike the Alderson-Carthew (or Carthew-Alderson) Trail. It's definitely the best trail in that park but you have to earn it. Everything's in meters up there so I don't know exactly how far we had to climb up to the pass, but it was significant. I'd guess at least 2,000 feet. Awesome views along the way as we climbed up above Cameron Lake to Summit Lake, then did the ridgewalk over to the far side of the pass where there is a string of glacial lakes called paternosters surrounded by flowering alpine plants. We then descended down below a huge cliff face and along a bright blue lake (where a helicopter was delivering a new outhouse structure) and down into the woods before finally ending at Cameron Falls in the Waterton townsite. It was a long day but worth it. We ate at The Lamp Post, where I got the pepper chicken wrap but immediatly regretted not getting the wild game chili when I saw someone at the next table over with that dish.

Wednesday, we took a trip up to Bowman Lake with an obligatory stop at the Polebridge Mercantile (and Bakery) to get delicious baked goods. Bowman is nice and quiet; not many people make the journey down the bumpy gravel road. I think most people who know about it would like to keep it that way.

So we've hit most of the dining highlights already this week: Park Cafe, Johnson's Cafe, the Babb Press, Tien's Place, Polebridge Mercantile, and the Lamp Post. All that remains are the Cattle Baron Supper Club and perhaps a first-time visit to the Whistle Stop in East Glacier.

Off Trail Lakes

We took an off-trail adventure to Snow Moon and Falling Leaf Lakes in the Many Glacier Valley. They're pretty nice lakes accessible after a bushwhack through the woods and a climb up a steep scree field and then a traverse around to the backside of the mountain. They're small lakes like many others in the park and are only special because no one really goes there. Some dippers and goldeneyes lived there on the lakes and we met a group of bighorn sheep with two lambs on the way back down. There is one spot on the corner of the mountain that is a very nice view of Sherburne Lake, Duck Lake, and the forest below. You can even see where part of the forest burned at some point; it's all green as opposed to a mix of dead wood in the neighboring forests.

Also went on a trip to Cardston, where we discovered the barber shop's weird day of the week other than Sunday to be closed was naturally the day we were there. It took a while to find a place that would take us and then they charged us less than they should have. Dairy Queen was a mandatory stop. The Remington Carriage Museum gift shop was not very interesting, and I still have yet to develop any interest whatsoever in North America's largest collection of horse-drawn carriages. I was hoping for a t-shirt like the ones at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.

A Blow For Logan

Lots of snow at Logan, up to 8 feet high around the visitor center. People walking up the "trail" to Hidden Lake Overlook in flip-flops. Old people without motor coordination falling down. Vegetation trampling everywhere, a complete free-for-all whether I stood there and asked people to stay on the snow or not.

I had to stare down a bighorn sheep in the parking lot. He knows which one is the ranger and avoids me. We did look eye to eye for a few seconds and he actually started trotting awayI made like a bighorn and gave him a couple stomps to get him moving. It did not escalate to a kick to the undercarriage. People could literally reach out and touch its nose even with me standing there saying "Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that." Ticks. Fleas. Disease. Gross.

Up to My Belly River

An itinerary for the backcountry campground at Cosley Lake was cut short by persistent rain. We had waited around all day for the rain to clear before we headed in, but the rain came back after we were halfway to the backpacking destination. We stopped at the Belly River Ranger Station to say hello and to get out of the rain, but ended up staying in the Mount Merritt Mansion, a small cabin used for park employees traveling through the area on various assignments. Mosquitoes and mud were awful the entire time.

We decided to take a loop trip to Dawn Mist Falls, Cosley Lake, and Gros Ventre Falls, all nice features along the way. To cross the stream, however, required wading through waist-deep icy water. Totally soggy and miserable, we had another 8 miles of hiking and up the steep heartbreaker of a hill to get out of the Belly River drainage and to dinnertime at the Babb Press.

Humidity is high and thunderstorms are brewing, a sight unseen the past couple of years. Beargrass is nice and flowers around St. Mary Lake are peaking. Time to go back to work.