Glacier National Park

Glacier is our favorite national park to visit. The second week of September we spent a 3-day weekend up in Glacier getting in what is probably our last epic hikes in of the year. The first day we puttered on up and stopped for a short hike to Hidden Lake overlook at the top of Logan Pass. Both times that we have gone on this hike we have seen bighorn sheep rams relatively close and mountain goats up close and personal.

Here I am at the overlook to Hidden Lake with a couple of the fluffy goats behind me and then a picture of Hidden Lake from the overlook.

The next day we hiked to Iceberg Lake from Many Glacier campground (~ 10 miles round trip). On the hike up Tonya got to see her first grizzly and cub eating berries above us on a mountain slope. They were pretty close to us (~ 100 m) and mama griz knew were we were, but she wasn't concerned and we weren't either with the amount of people using the trail. There was a lot of bear poop on the trail. You wouldn't want to go hiking in the dark by yourself.

The picture of Tonya is near the beginning of the hike and the bears were feeding on the slope to the right. The bushes were turning their fall colors making the hike even more prettier.

Iceberg Lake is a pretty little lake and much to our surprise there were still blocks of ice floating on the lake in September. It's located in a cirque (bowl) and receives little direct sun. Consequently, the snow remnent is able to stick around and the water is coooold. All of the glaciers in the Park are small/tiny, more like snow fields, and shrinking rapidly.