Grand Teton N.P. & Cascade Canyon hike

Over Labor Day weekend we visited Grand Teton National Park. The Tetons are not a particularly large range, but they do jut up from the surrounding landscape and make for magnificent views. This was Tonya's first time visiting the Park. I have been through the Park a couple of time and did a backpacking trip into the Teton's with my sister many years ago.

The first full day we had there we decided to hike the Cascade Canyon trail from Jenny Lake to Lake Solitude. It's a little over 14 miles, but the trail is relatively gentle. We read the trail is also the most popular trail in the park. In the photo below, Cascade Canyon is the distant background.

We got a late start since it was Tonya's turn to be a slug getting out of bed (I usually take that role). We decided to take the boat shuttle across Jenny Lake to avoid adding 2 miles each way to our hike. However, the last shuttle of the day left at 6:00 and by the time we started hiking it was almost 11:00. We ended up talking all day whether we were going to be able to catch the return shuttle and how far up the canyon we were going to go, kicking ourselves for not getting an earlier start. The photo below is from the boat shuttle looking up Cascade Canyon.

The first part of the trail climbs ~600 feet relatively quickly past Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point. Then the canyon bottom flattens out as seen with the photo of Tonya.

Lake Solitude is a pretty lake below a ridge. The photo with Tonya at the lake is looking back down the canyon we hiked up. Grand Teton (highest mountain) is in the distance.

We didn't stay long to enjoy the view because we wanted to catch the boat shuttle and it became overcast. Just as we were leaving it started to rain and then it rained hard for about 10 minutes or so and then lightened up. When the rain stopped after 1/2 hour or so the view in the photo below opened up. The tallest mountain is again Grand Teton and the photo is taken looking down the trail.

As I mentioned earlier we were trying to catch the boat shuttle before they stopped running for the day to avoid an extra 2 mile hike. We made the shuttle with time to spare. Once we got to our car and started driving back to our campsite another storm front came through. The last photo shows the Teton Range and the dark clouds over the valley.

Holland Lakes

Near the end of August we did a day hike up from Holland Lake to Upper Holland Lake and back via the old Holland (fire) Lookout in the Seeley/Swan valley. It is a hike we have talked about doing ever since we came here and now we've done it. It was a pretty hike and we enjoyed the day.

It was supposed to be about 12.5 miles of hiking. But we took a wrong turn near the end of our day and added another ~1.5 miles to our day. We were tired, walking on a path we were somewhat familiar with and our feet ended up taking the wrong fork in the trail.

From Holland Lake on can see the most spectacular portion of the Mission Mountains to the west.

The hike up the canyon began eventfully. We can upon a pack train wreck! Two horses had slipped off the trail on the other side of the canyon and had rolled several hundred feet down to Holland Creek (with their packs). When we came upon them, the horses where standing in the rocky creek with their handlers who where trying to figure out how to get the horses back up to a trail. We felt very bad for the horses and wondered how they had managed the fall without breaking a leg or worse. We don't know how the handlers managed to get the horses out (we assume they did!).

Further along the trail we came upon a small falls where I took a photo of Tonya. Along the hike we also came upon some pretty purple flowers.

Upper Holland Lake is a pleasant lake. Many fish were jumping at bugs along the shoreline so it seemed like it would be a good fishing lake.

We stopped to pick huckleberries along its shoreline and the northern slopes as we hiked up to . We came prepared with 2 Nalgene bottles to store the huckleberries. We spent about 3 hours picking huckleberries. Huckleberries are in the blueberry family. Bears like them and we do too. We came across the best berry patches at the end. We would have been quicker filling up our 2 bottles if we had come across those patches earlier. At the end our hands were stained purple from picking berries.

After filling our bottles we continued hiking and climbed up to a old fire lookout station (since abandoned). From the old lookout it is approximately 4000 ft down to Holland Lake and the trailhead we started from.

Friday Pass & Wind Lakes Hike

On August 10th we drove into Idaho and camped overnight at HooDoo Lake and did a day hike into the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness. The hike we did was about a 12 mile loop. The first part of the hike crossed up and over Friday Ridge. The ridge from the approach is in background behind Tonya in the photo below.

From the ridge we could look down on the largest of the Wind Lakes chain (see photo below). To the right of the photo is Grave Peak. There is an forest fire lookout on top of the peak. It looked like a tough scramble to get to. The structure is listed on the National Historic Lookout Register and looks kind of cute from the web photos.

From Wind Lakes we headed south down Warm Springs Cr valley before turning east and crossing over Friday Ridge once again. The photo below is from on top the ridge.

The campground and Hoodoo Lake were pretty nice. The "lake" is pretty small, but there is a resident female moose that eats along the shoreline. At night she visited our campsite, we were also visited by mule deer. We took several photos of the moose, but she was really too far away for our camera to capture. The picture below is the best of the lot.

Rattlesnake Wilderness - cont.

Picking up from the last blog... we spent the 1st night at Carter Lake. Many of the lakes up there were enlarged through earthen dams many years ago. They act to delay runoff and serve along with Rattlesnake Cr as a backup to Missoula's drinking water supply. At Carter Lake, the only flat spot we found to camp on was the top of the dam. I tried fishing at Carter Lake, but it only had very small cutthroat trout. Their mouths were just barely big enough to fit over the hook, but they tried.

The biting flies (specifically the no-see-ums) were out in force along with the mosquitoes. We really haven't had to deal with these bugs (no-see-ums) much in Montana. The extra summer moisture and a cooler year has resulted in a pretty wildflower display and more bugs. We got fairly bit up before we began paying attention to the flies. They leave a bleeding hole in you, but you don't really feel the bite. In addition, we didnt' bring much bug spray (saving on weight) so we had to economize on applying the spray. As a result, we didn't spend as much time outside of our tent once we got to camp as we would have liked. However, the bugs didn't ruin our trip by any means, just added to our story :)

The next two days we packed up and hiked to Twin Lakes and Glacier Lake respectively. They were easy days, with only 2.5 - 3 hours of hiking each day to reach our destinations. On the way to Twin Lake we took a small side trip and climbed to the top of Stuart Peak. From the peak one can see Missoula and the valley floor as you may be able to tell in the photo below.

Glacier Lake is a pretty lake and a large one as lakes go up in the Rattlesnake. Below is a photo looking down on Glacier Lake from our lunch spot on the trail. I thought for sure that the lake would hold fish, but there wasn't a single fish in the lake. An old timer has told me that there were fish in it at one time, so I don't know where they went to.

There were many good spots to camp on Glacier Lake. We chose to camp near the shore since there wasn't any else around (we saw only 3 other people during our 4 days). It was a good spot, except that night a thunder storm rolled through. When the lightening was crackling, we didn't know if our exposed spot was so good after all, but we weren't going to get out in the poring rain to more the tent.

That night, the rain must have loosened the rock on the cliffs/avalanche gullies on the east side of the lake. We heard rock falling during the night and in the morning saw some rock fall actually make it into the lake. A good place for mountain goats or bighorn sheep, but we didn't see any during our trip.

We packed out from Glacier Lake on our last (4th) day. It was an easy hike back to our bikes (approx. 4 miles as a crow flies) and then the 18 miles on our mountain bikes back to our house. What a difference going downhill makes, it took us less than 2 hours to bike home, about 1/2 the time it took to pedal in.

Rattlesnake Wilderness

Ever since we moved to Missoula we have wanted to hike in the Rattlesnake Wilderness just up the valley from where we live. Well, last weekend we finally went and had good 4 days mountain biking and hiking up and down valleys, over ridge tops and mountains and camping along mountain lakes.

As you may know we live in the Rattlesnake Valley. About 2 miles further up the valley is the Rattlesnake National Rec. Area and even further up the valley is the wilderness area. I (Erik) have mountain biked in the recreation area quite a bit and wanted to access the wilderness area on our mountain bikes for three reasons. One, to pass quickly by lower and less scenic elevations; two, to get up to the high country easier than hiking up and three, just to do something new. I only had to convince Tonya of my infallible plan. :)

She agreed to the trip including the mountain biking pretty easily. Despite not having carried a full pack (25 - 30 lbs) on our backs while mountain biking before, I figured we could do it - assuming we put in some miles on our mountain bikes before hand. Tonya's not the biggest fan of mountain biking so I wanted to make sure she was ready for the effort. So we went on several mountain bike rides to build up our biking legs. As a fail safe (for me), she promised me that she wouldn't have a "melt down" on the biking portion after I expressed concern in early June that we weren't getting enough mountain biking miles in. Both were important, as our first day was a long day.

The picture below are of Tonya at the start of our ride and of me about 1/2 way into our ride up to the wilderness area.

The mountain bike ride was on an old forest road that is now closed to vehicles and involved approximately 18 miles of biking starting our from our house. It took us four hours for steady climbing up a gradual incline following the Rattlesnake Creek until we reached the wilderness boundary. Since you can't bring bikes into a wilderness area, we ditched our bikes in the woods and hiked about two hours to Carter Lake before calling it a day. It was a long and tiring day with about 3000 feet of elevation gain (2000 on the bikes).

Below left is Rattlesnake Creek at our lunch spot (about 1/2 way into our ride) and to the right is me (Erik) swiming in Carter Lake after dropping my pack and kicking off my shoes. The lake water was cool, but not cold, and very refreshing after a long day.

Below is a video of Tonya biking up a portion of the trail.

Ghost Towns

After our big trip to Glacier we took a couple days a little more easy on my parents. We went to the Missoula Farmers Market, Lolo Pass (those gorgeous camas that bloom every spring were up in full show. see it here from a coupe years ago), Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Missoula Alliance Church and Mom and I had a little gal time shopping! On Monday June28th I took them to Garnet Ghost town (see above link for the time I took Erik's parents.) and then we went to Phillipsburg (aka P-burg).

On our drive to Garnet we saw TONS of bear grass, a super showy flower

Here we are exploring the old town.

Finally we went and had lunch in P-burg, shopped at the Sweet Shoppe and checked out the Start Sapphire in the Sapphire Gallery.

After that lovely day my parents had to go back home! BooHoo! But, we all had a wonderful time together and have lots of good memories. Don't you want to come and visit? ;-)

More of the Carmean Visit

Here are a few misc. pictures from Glacier:

Beautiful Vistas:Snow Chute on the Road:

View of part of the road:Dad by McDonald Creek:McDonald Lodge and the Refurbished Tour busses:

We had a great trip to Glacier. The only thing we didn't see was a bear!

TP's Mom and Dad visit!!!

Yippee! What a fun week for me! Mom and Dad were here the end of June and I tried to show them as much fun and surrounding sights as possible. The first two days they were here we spent in Glacier NP. My parents hadn't been there for 20 yrs and when they were there 20 yrs ago they only were able to drive the Going to Sun Road. So we made the camp with us!!

Here we are ready to go in the am:

Mom and Dad hiking Avalanch Creek hike:

Avalanche Lake:

All of us:

The next day, June 26th, was the first day the Going to the Sun Road was open to Logan Pass due to snow and contruction. Here's some shots of us playing in the snow at the Pass!

A parting video of silly Erik:

.... a few more Glacier pics in the next post. It will be soon I promise!!