Backpacking in Glacier National Park

The first weekend in August Erik and I finally made it to Glacier National Park to do a backpacking trip. We left on the evening of Aug 2nd and stayed over night part way to the park. It only takes about 3 hours to get there from our house but we got a late start after Erik got home from work so we camped on the way up. There was a really nice couple at the spot next to us that were biking the whole continential divide trail from Canada down to New Mexico! We enjoyed talking with them and before we left in the morning we had tea and chatted some more. We got to Glacier around 9am and headed to get our back country permit and watch the bear video. Those are always exciting. Basically they had a great campsite set up in Glacier to protect not only the people but the bears. There are tent sites that are separated from the food prep area and then there are latirines separate from all of that. Plus they have bear poles for you to hang your food from. Works well to keep all the smells away from the tent. The route we chose was in the northwest corner of the park and the start of the route went along a long skinny lake about 7 miles. We decided that t would be fun to canoe that part of the hike. It was smoky from the fires that day. Here's a picture of us at the start of the Bowman lake:

It only took us about 2 hours to paddle to the end of Bowman lake and we didn't have to carry anything. Here's a picture of our canoe on shore and Thunderbird Mountain. It's still a little smoky at this time.

We shared a campsite with two other couples and a group of high school kids and their two leaders who were doing trail work through SCA (Student Conservation Association). They were on their vacation before heading home. There was a lot of lively talk around the MSR campstoves that night. (fires were, of course, banned)

The next morning we struck out on the trail about 9am with the big group of SCA's. It was nice to hike with a bunch of people for a change. Ok, I'll admit it I was a little bear wary and with a big group of noisy people I felt a little better. However, we did meet up with a bear! (must have been deaf!) I was the last in the group but the first to spot it and had to holler to get everyone to stop! It was a huge black bear. He looked at us and then just ambled on into the forest. We took a break of about 15 minutes and then headed on our way. At the next break spot Erik and I separated from the big group because they were taking a much longer break. Here's a picture of Boulder Peak from our stopping spot:

From then on we hiked alone. Then next part of the trail we started to climb the 2, 000 ft we were to climb that day up to Brown Pass and our campsite. I didn't like this part of the trail that much as we were climbing through waist to chest high thimbleberry and other bushes. The Trail was there but fairly over grown and it was hard using my hiking poles. (I should have put them away but I'm still trying to get my knee strong enough that I don't have to worry about poles) Here's a clear spot where we stopped to have a bit of lunch:

About 1:30 we made it to our campsite at Brown's Pass. Here's a pic of the tent set up:

Then we unloaded whatever we could so we could hike farther to Hole in the Wall campsite which was supposed to be the best in the area. I guess you have to reserve it in the spring. That was the best part of the day because the sights were so beautiful! Here judge for your self:

Thunderbird Mountain and Glacier: In this shot you can see Bowman lake where we started!Here's Erik on the trail. Some very interesting terrain we were covering! Here's the mountains and some fireweed. It's our new computer wallpaper: Here's our tired, dirty but happy feet that night! All miles added up to about 9-10 miles that day.

Our last day: Sunday. We wanted an early start because that lake that we had to canoe back on gets a terrible wind blowing the wrong direction after lunch so we wanted to be on it in the morning. So we had 6 miles back to our first campsite and then 7 miles to canoe that day. But here's Erik at the end of the canoe! Ahh, what a way to live!

We're so blessed to be able to expore so much of God's country! It's a beautiful place to be. And we're so glad to be heathy enough to push our selves to these places that many people don't ever get to experience. If this isn't Heaven then I can't wait to get there!