JMT Day 1- Happy Isles to Clouds Rest trail junction

July 16, 2014

"Holy shit we're actually doing this!!"

Day numero uno. After nearly a year of planning, it's finally here! I can't believe it! Today is the day we start the JMT!

Our packs felt super heavy. "We test drove all of this at home before we left and it did NOT feel this heavy, what gives?? Damn this bear can stuffed with food is SO heavy! Dang, Imma fall backwards at the slightest imbalance. Or face plant. You got my spot? My pack is too heavy, I can't bend down to pick up my trekking poles, can I get an assist?"-- and on and on, poor Daveed had to help me so much! And through it all, with his bigger, heavier pack, with patience and grace, he helped me get my pack on every day, at every break, at every lunch n munch, at every pee stop. Never complaining, what a sweetheart.

Well....we got a late start. What else is new?! This would be a daily recurring theme for the entire trail :) I realized about 300 yards after we started hiking that I had forgotten to pack a contact case. Whoops. Back to the car! OK, lets get started for real this time. But after I use the bathroom at the trailhead, one last time. OK, ready Freddy.

Here we go! 211 miles to Whitney!

We joined the masses of tourists at Happy Isles and started up the Mist Trail. The Mist Trail isn't actually part of the JMT but it meets with the JMT at the top of Nevada Falls. The JMT skirts around the Mist Trail and rather than taking hundreds of steep stone steps up next to waterfalls, the JMT zig zags on switchbacks just to the south, making the hiking less steep, but more dusty and slightly more boring. Daveed wanted to take the Mist Trail up. OK. So we stomp along with our giant packs as the tourists bound past us carrying only small water bottles, if anything. It was already hot. I mean HAWT. My shirt was soaked through with sweat before we even got to the last treated water fountain, which is maybe a mile or 2 down the trail. We stopped to drink some cold water, I splashed it all over my face and soaked my shirt. Ahhhh, it felt good! Then the business started...up to this point the trail is pretty mellow with maybe 300 feet of vertical gain. Then BAM you start up steep stone steps. Last year we somehow did it without stopping to take a break...granted we had a lot less weight on our backs, but I still don't know how we did it. This time, I needed to stop at least 4 or 5 times and towards the top of Vernal Falls I was feeling dizzy! My trail journal said "We took the Mist Trail and it about killed me. Woof."

Daveed headed up the Mist Trail

Vernal Falls

Made it past Vernal Falls and then continued up, up to Nevada Falls. It was great to see the sights again: Half Dome, Mt Broderick, Liberty Cap etc. We trudged past LYV on the dusty, sandy, sun baked trail and then continued up, up towards the junction to Half Dome. The switchbacks seemed endless! My pace was slower than slow and I paused often to drink water from my camelback and would also try to suck in as much oxygen as possible. The sun beat down on us and I somehow managed to coat my entire shirt, and my legs in dirt... Dang it. I couldn't even stay sort of cleanish for a few hours! The dirt clung to the sweat dripping off me every where and the sunscreen made me sticky! This would be something I would get over and not even notice after day 4 on the trail :)

As we neared our destination for the day, Clouds Rest trail junction, giant, black, thundering, menacing looking storm clouds started to roll in and looked like they were headed straight for us. Crap. We hustled as fast as my cement boots would allow up to find the campsite. We set the speed record (only to be broken the day we did the Golden Staircase in a bad storm) for setting up our tent and dived in! And then we waited for the storm to rage. And then we were still waiting, and then some rain sprinkled for about 10 minutes....and then that was it! Turns out the gnarly storm started to go south of us as it approached so we barely even got sprinkled on! Hurray!

Hiding in the tent from the non-storm

After the storm passed we made dinner, I had the most delicious Backpacker's Pantry meal: Pad Thai!! It was so good Daveed bought a bag of it in Tuolumne! We passed the rest of the evening chatting with some duders nearby who were from out east, North Carolina I think. They had come from Tuolumne and were heading out via the Valley the next day. We suckered them into taking a bunch of our extra food, including the better part of an entire package of Daveed's MEGA stuffed Oreo's! We didn't have appetites and didn't have space for the extra food in our bear cans. I also gave away some of my precious gluten free snackies to a gal who was also gluten free. It pretty much made her year.

Our first day on trail was tough! My feet hurt but my ankle felt mostly OK. We knew it would be a very physically demanding day as it's all up, up, up all day long. The elevation gains didn't seem to bother us apart from the usual huffing and puffing that happens even in WI at sea level when I walk up a flight of stairs. It was a great first day, we made it to our goal destination and in really good time considering we got a late start! We were so excited to finally be on the trail and starting our big backpacking adventure!

Camp at Clouds Rest junction, elevation 7237 ft

A Note About "The Dailies" from the JMT

I've decided to write one blog post for each day on the JMT. I know, it's a lot. You don't have to read them. Just look at the pictures if you want, I won't be offended, I promise. To me, I feel that I'm not doing the adventure justice by just glossing over it and summarizing it in a few, easier to digest posts. This backpacking trip was the greatest adventure of my life so far! It was RAD! I wanna share all the deets! And I hope to inspire others to do it, because it was really special. And beautiful. And simple. And satisfying. And physically demanding. And at times, mentally challenging. And it took teamwork. And when you put all those things together, you get a rad adventure!!

I will be reconstructing each day using 4 key sources of information: my trail journal, which I wrote in every night, the JMT Atlas we used as our map, the 1000+ pictures we took, and the most unreliable source of all: my memory.

I hope you all enjoy these posts, it's been so much fun for me to write on this blog as I get to relive all of these memories all over again as I try to put the experiences into words.

One small glimpse of the Sierra range

A lot of people have asked me if I'd do it again. My answer every time is YES! I will admit that the modern conveniences of being back in civilization are greatly appreciated and I have very much enjoyed using/having them again, but there is such beauty in the simplicity of trail life. You walk. Just walk. Every day. With everything you need on your back. There is something empowering about that to me. Food, water, shelter. Nothing more. You have no where else to be and nothing else to do. Just walk... Just take in those mountain views... Just walk. So would I do it again? Yes, please! I miss that simplicity even though I strive to live a simple life. I miss those views. I miss those mountains. I would live out there forever if I could.

Forester Pass

So with that long winded introduction, I give you The Dailies.


Hopefully I'll have the blog all caught up by the end of the year ;)

Yosemite: Abbreviated, and JMT Prep

We each took what would be our last shower for 10 days and left the motel early, headed towards the Motherland, Yosemite! We stopped in Oakdale, CA at a small, family owned and operated barber shop. Daveed wanted a haircut and a shave before we hit the trail. The barber shop had a mascot: Leia the fuzzy princess dog! Leia and I bonded while Daveed got his hairs cut. 

Leia the lap dog!

We stopped at another roadside fruit stand on our way to Yosemite and got some pie and fruit. We passed by many farms, orchards and tons of almond trees! 

Noms

We eventually made it to the Valley mid-afternoonish. It was SOOO great to see my old friends in the Valley again! The Capitan! Half Dome! Upper, Lower and Middle Cathedral! Royal Arches! Washington Column! Oh how I missed all of you! So wonderful to be back in the Motherland, even if for an abbreviated stay of only 16 hours.

Rainy day in the Motherland

We went straight to the wilderness permit office and picked up our backpacking permits and wag bags (more on wag bags in a later post, we didn’t have to use them until we entered the Whitney zone, our last 2 days on the JMT). Then we parked Soobs in the Curry Village parking lot and exposed all of her innards. We completely unpacked her. Everything out on the pavement! Group all of the food and smelly things together! We needed to pack our backpacks for the JMT and also gather, consolidate and store all of our extra food and smelly things in the bear lockers in the parking lot. It took 3+ hours. Woof. 

Starting to unpack Soobs

We met an interesting guy named Thomas in the parking lot where Soobs would reside for the next month: the trailhead parking lot at Happy Isles. Thomas was a Marine and had spent the past 2 months backpacking around Yosemite with a 95 pound pack. He would carry 2 bear cans so he could stay out in the backcountry for 8-10 days at a time. And he had all sorts of other gear, that when stuffed into a giant pack, weighed 95 pounds. Woof. We chatted with Thomas until it got dark, then we all 3 walked to the backpacker’s camp for the night. Yosemite's backpacker's camp would turn out to be my favorite as it had PLENTY of space for many many tents, pit toilets, restrooms with water nearby and a very straightforward system for registering for camping. Other backpacker's sites could not say the same.

We were up early next day to finish off the last of the prep before hitting the trail. We said goodbye to Thomas and wished him luck, then walked with all our camping crap (it didn’t occur to us to bring backpacks to carry our stuff back to the car) the mile or so to the Happy Isles lot. Once we got our camping stuff back into Soobs, I said goodbye to her, checking to make sure one last time that the sunshade was positioned correctly so she wouldn’t get too hot or sunburned on her dash. Made sure the parking permit was clearly visible so no Rangers harassed her. Promised I’d be back in a month to fetch her. Then it was the final packing of our backpacks (Crap! This stuff will hardly fit in here!), a quick breakfast at the bear lockers (how many Snicker bars do I have for the rest of the day if I eat one now?) and…..OMG.....are we really doing this?....did I bring a contact case?! crap! I have to go back to the car!…..OK I think I have everything now...OK...aaaaand, time to start the JMT!!!!! WOOT!!

Breakfast at the bear lockers, this is where we left all of our extra food and smelly stuff while we were on the JMT

South Down the Coast!

After leaving Portland, we headed south down the coast on Hwy 1/101. We drove past many roadside fruit/produce stands. Finally we had to stop! We picked out fresh Rainer cherries and blueberries and pretty much ate them all within a couple hours :) It was the first fresh fruit we'd had since leaving on our trip! Hwy 1/101 follows the coastline through many, many coastal towns. Some of which were very touristy, some of which weren’t. After passing through most of these towns over the course of several hours, the highway emerges right along the coast and makes for some very scenic views. We pulled over to check out the more dramatic coastline and happened to stop exactly where a pod of whales were hanging out off shore!! How neat is that!! They looked like big dark blobs under the water and would surface every once in a while for air, spraying water up. It looked just like it does on National Geographic.

Whales off the shore!

Southern Oregon coast

We decided to camp for the night in Brookings, OR which had a dumpy beachfront RV park/campground. It was neat to be right on the beachfront, but I was glad we were only there for the night. It wasn’t a particularly clean or scenic place. We first looked into camping at the state park up the road, which was much prettier, but they were full. We made the best of the place we were at and walked on the beach and did some exploring before watching the sunset.

Next morning we continued our drive south with the end destination of San Francisco! We drove on the Redwood Forest Parkway and stopped in the forest to check out the big trees! So much greenery!! The Redwoods were super tall and skinny. The Giant Sequoias weren’t as tall but were huge around their trunks! With all of the humid air coming in off the coast, I could see why these trees thrive! I had the song from grade school “This Land is Your Land” stuck in my head, “...from the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters, this land was made for you and me…”

We rolled in to San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge! How neat is that?! 

After snapping a few pictures of the bridge from Golden Gate park, we headed into the city to take a look around. We parked at Fisherman’s Wharf….sensory overload! It’s a big tourist trap. And it was really dirty and smelly. I grabbed some chowder (which was delicious!) and then we got the heck out of there. We had fun walking up Hyde street, watching the cable car trolleys and checking out the views of the Golden Gate Bridge from the neighborhood streets. We wandered around looking for nothing in particular. We happened to see 3 Teslas on the same block, that was cool as neither of us had seen one in person! The steep hills sure were different than what we’re used to! We passed a young woman walking with her groceries up some steep stairs, looking miserable, like it was the worst day of her life. We found it quite amusing for some reason. In retrospect, I feel kind of bad for laughing at her misery. But I mean, one of her armloads was a 3 pack of paper towels...was it really THAT bad...?

Golden Gate Bridge from Hyde Street

We stumbled upon Little Italy and enjoyed some gelato and people watching. We wandered around some more looking for a place to eat dinner that had some gluten free options for me. That was difficult as most places served pizza and pasta! :)  We stumbled upon an Indian restaurant! Kind of out of place, but we were psyched on it! We enjoyed a yummy dinner and then called it a day. It’s been real San Francisco! We headed out of the city by way of the Bay Bridge and saw another Tesla! We drove about an hour inland and crashed at a cheap motel. We thought sleeping in a bed before we hit the JMT would be nice. Oh, and a shower too.  Next day it was only about a 4 hour drive to the Motherland! Yosemite!

Portlandia!

After leaving Glacier NP, we headed west towards Portland! We had a very scenic and exciting drive through the Sawtooth Mountains in northern Idaho! And before we knew it, there was Mount Hood! BAM! That means we’re getting really close to Portland!

Mt Hood! As seen through the bug covered windshield

Portlandia reminded us a lot of Milwaukee. It’s situated on a river, has lots of micro breweries and lots and lots of hipsters! Milwaukee hipsters WISH they were as hipster as Portlandia hipsters. Get on their level people. I mean the coffee shops had decoupage mustaches on the tables. And there were pinball machines at the “beer gardens”. Everyone and I mean everyone has full tatted up arms and legs, hair every color of the rainbow, the ugliest summer dresses you've never seen and they all ride a bike- even their dogs ride along. Level up Milwaukee.

We stayed with The Bears while in Portland, thanks for the hospitality friends! We rolled into town around 8:00 pm and enjoyed a nice night of catching up! My journal says "...super luxurious to have a bathroom, tap water and a couch to sit on!" :) Next day we were up early and had homemade cherry pie for breakfast when T got home. It was the best pie I've ever eaten! We walked to REI to pick up a few last minute items for the JMT, it was awesome to walk there! It was only about 2 blocks away! We met Josh for lunch and ate way too much at a delicious Indian restaurant whose buffet was SUPERB! 

We went downtown to check out Powell’s bookstore- the largest used bookstore in the world!! And holy cats was it big! And we didn’t even go into the main store! The main store is one full city block and 3 floors chock full of any and all books you could imagine! We spent our entire parking meter time across the street from the main building, in another city block sized building that was all math, science and engineering. Nerd Alert! Daveed had fun looking through all the math, physics, architecture etc etc books! I had fun looking through the neuroscience and psychology books. We both walked out of the store with a few new books and Daveed even found a cool antique book for his dad that was a sales book for an old coal furnace company. How neat is that?

We also checked out the rose gardens. Roses. Everywhere! My mom would have loved these gardens as she is a flower lover and especially loves roses! Over 70 varieties of roses! Who knew there were so many?! Daveed definitely didn’t as he told me there were exactly two kinds of roses: "old world and new world". Well, we both got schooled. We had a nice time strolling around the gardens and finished our tour with some sno-cones!

Later that night we went out for some din with Josh, we went to some fun hipster places. A Mexican place with cheap food and no service. And right next door a “beer garden” (outdoor picnic tables) with pinball machines! The beer place had an impressive selection of I think 50+ international beers plus big glass front refrigerators with tons of bottles to choose from! Then we met my cousin Alani and her boyfriend Mitch for a drink. I hadn’t met her squeeze yet so it was really great to finally meet him!

Alani!

Next day we went to the coast! We checked out Ecola State Park and the surrounding beaches. 

Ecola State Park

T wanted to fly kites on the beach so we stopped at a kite shop and picked out kites-- I haven’t flown a kite since I think preschool, it was SO fun! Lots of smiles and giggles as we all enjoyed flying our kites!

Flying kites on Cannon Beach

We went tide pooling at low tide, which was a first for me! Starfish, muscles, anemones! So cool to see them all up close! We went exploring down the beach climbing up and around on the exposed boulders. We found a cool cave that had a GIANT metal thing stuck all the way in the back. It looked like a piece from a ship or something. It was hollow and huge! We wondered how it got stuck way back in the cave!

Starfish!

Muscles!

Anemones! 

Sea Arch

This is the cave we found the big metal thing in

Next day, Sunday, it was already time for us to leave :(  We wanted to stay longer and hang out, the Bears are just the best! We had to move on though if we wanted to make it to Yosemite in time to start the JMT on our assigned date. So we got up early on Sunday morning and we all went to meet Alani and Mitch for breakfast. We had a great time chit chatting and then it was time to say our goodbyes. Thanks for the hospitality and fun, til next time Portland, put a bird on it.

Glacier NP, post dos

Here is a summary of our time in Glacier!

We hiked every day we were in Glacier, below is a summary of each of our day hikes. Each lake won its own award in accordance to our very complicated and official rating system.

Day 1- St Mary and Virginia Falls. So day 1 didn't really include a hike to a lake, but it wins for the most crowded day! Woot! It was the 4th of July, which is one of the busiest days in all national parks. We hiked to see St Mary falls, which was a quick 2 miles. Lots of families with kiddos there having some lunch and whatnot. We carried on another few miles to a nice view of Virginia falls and stopped there for a lovely snack break. Then we continued all the way to the base of the falls and the "splash zone"! We walked out to the base where the freezing cold spray soaked us! It felt awesome to cool off, especially while hiking in the hot sun! Then we drove west on the Going to the Sun Road. WOW. Beautiful! So much to look at! Mountains and beautiful cascading falls everywhere. Without a doubt the most scenic road I've driven on. And that's saying something considering I've been on the entire Alaska Highway (twice!) and through the Canadian Rockies, American Rockies and the Sierras. We took the road all the way to the other end and stopped at Lake McDonald to dip our toes in the lake. We looked around the lodge at Lake McDonald, which reminded me a bit of the Ahwahnee hotel in Yosemite: old, historic, gorgeous and rustic. Then we headed back east on the Going to the Sun Road and saw everything that was behind us when we were driving west! Taken again by the beauty of it all! We headed back to camp and made some dinner then watched fireworks all around us. Later in the night the last hurrah of fireworks were visible from our tent! It was fun to watch them.

St Mary falls

Virginia falls. Look at how small Verde, my backpack, is! There was nothing really in her in this pic, she was level with the top of my head on the JMT!

Splash zone of Virginia falls! Brrrr, it was super windy and the spray was SO cold!

Going to the Sun Road

The last section of road to be cleared before the road can open is the area of this snow drift, at times it can be 60 feet tall! Here it's melted a bit and is only about 10 feet tall.

Trunk lunch on the Going to the Sun Road, talk about lunch with a view!

Dipping our toes in Lake McDonald

Lake McDonald

Adventure is Out There!

The beautiful cascading Bird Woman Falls

Day 2- Iceberg Lake: Most Adventurous- Iceberg Lake would turn out to be the most adventurous hike of our week spent in Glacier. The trail was mostly exposed which allowed for uninterrupted views of the surrounding mountains! Just beautiful! After a few miles we came to Ptarmigan Falls, which was a pretty waterfall with a super narrow chute that the water funnels through before cascading over the edge. The bridge to cross the falls was partially down; part of the bridge had washed out and the rest of the trail to Iceberg Lake was “closed”... whelp, we went ahead and crossed the bridge anyways. There was only a gap a few feet wide to get onto the bridge. Daveed went first, then took my pack for me. We figured if the bridge would hold him, it would hold me. We crossed with no issues and continued on. About 2 miles from the lake small snowfields started to cover parts of the trail. We crossed them with no issues, I was glad to have my trekking poles for balance. Then about a mile from the lake, the trail was covered by a snow field that would end up taking us all the way to the lake. We lost the trail a couple times, Daveed broke through a thin part of snow and post holed up to his knee which resulted in his shoes getting wet. I followed Daveed up and over a ridge and we came to a small lake, with icebergs floating in it. This must be it! Iceberg Lake!...but it’s so small...I thought it would be bigger...and it’s not butted up against the wall of the mountains...and there’s no glacier running into it like in the pictures… Turns out it was not Iceberg Lake! We continued up and over another ridge, finally finding a trail in the snow. When we crested the ridge, there it was! The real Iceberg Lake! It was almost completely frozen over, only the first few feet off the shoreline was water. The wind off the lake was cold so we put on our layers, had a great backpacker’s lunch and took in the scenery. We rested for an hour or so, then after drying out our socks and shoes as best we could, we packed up and headed back. The hike back was rather uneventful, we were able to find the trail back across the snow with no problems. The beautiful scenery surrounded us again as we hiked back!! When we got back to the car there was a crowd of people around a pair of binoculars that a ranger had set up--- mountain goats! Up on the mountains above the parking area there were 3 or 4 white mountain goats hanging out. That was neat to see.

So, Iceberg Lake wins for most adventurous hike. The snow the last mile or more of the trail slowed us down a lot and made finding the trail difficult. I will say that it was unexpected but fun to hike in snow in July! The backs of Daveed's legs got sunburned from the glare off the snow :)

Snow!

Iceberg Lake

Too cold for anything more than a toe dip!

Day 3- Wild Goose Island- Most Scenic. Wild Goose Island wasn’t actually a hike, you can see it off the Going to the Sun road. I have been looking at pictures of Wild Goose Island for nearly 20 years. There is a picture of it in every naturescape calendar I buy, every year. Well, I finally got to see it with my own peepers!!! The road where Wild Goose Island is located is under construction, so the look out/trail to go see it is closed. Well….I didn’t drive 2000 miles to Glacier NP to not see it...so… after some recon, when no other cars were around, I pulled over in a no parking area and we sprinted up the road to the lookout. I had just snapped a couple pictures when Daveed said, ummmm, there’s a ranger… GAH! Busted! Where did he come from!? Was he hiding in the bushes or something?! From the time we parked the car to when the ranger appeared, no more than 2 minutes had passed: 1 minute to sprint to the lookout, 1 minute to take 2 pictures on the camera and 2 pictures on my phone. Crap. So the ranger walks up and I’m expecting us to be in big trouble and he says “would you like me to take your picture?”. I say “ummm, yes please?”, then he says “great, cuz I’m about to kick you out of your parking spot”. Word. He took a couple pictures of us, then escorted us merrily back to our car. He reminded us that the area was closed due to construction and that “monkey see, monkey do happens pretty quickly around here, we don’t want other people to think they can park where it is clearly marked no parking”. Right. Sorry about that. And the lookout/access point is also marked with a “No Public Access” sign and is closed… Right. Sorry about that... So although my viewing of it was rushed, I’m so glad I got to see Wild Goose Island!! It’s no wonder it’s the most photographed spot in the park- it’s beautiful!

We took the rest of the day to relax, shower, do some laundry and eat our first piece of huckleberry pie at the Two Sisters Cafe. I thought about going swimming in the campground’s super clean pool, but ended up getting lost in the guidebook and maps, picking out some more hikes while Daveed took a nap.

Wild Goose Island. YESSS!!

Thank you nice Ranger Man for taking our photo!

Day 4- Otokomi Lake- Best Weather- Otokomi Lake wins for best weather, it was mostly overcast and cooler on this hike- which was a relief as my skin had already had enough of the sun already. I have been diligent with putting on sunscreen as the exposure and slightly higher elevation seems to make the sun stronger. My shoulders are super dark and crispy! I’ve been hiking with a baseball hat on to help keep the sun off my face, which has worked nicely. ¾ of the trail was in the woods, passing many small creeks and meadows with the prettiest wildflowers! There were also a lot of skeeters in the woods... A couple in front of us on the trail saw a small momma black bear and a cub, they made some noise and encouraged the bears to be on their way, then double backed to find us as they didn’t want to hike through that section by themselves :) They had been told that a grizzly was in the campsite at the trailhead that morning, so they were already a little spooked. We saw all the hubub with the grizzly as we pulled into the parking lot: many rangers, flashing lights etc etc. Only one thing could cause such a fuss: a grizzly. Anyways, we hiked with them through the bear section, making plenty of noise, but their earlier encounter had already scared the bears off, there was nothing to see. Daveed was disappointed as he would have liked to see the bears, but they were gone.

After 5 miles of mostly wooded trail, we reached the exposed mountainside where we crossed a few small snow fields, then dropped into the valley where the lake was. The outlet stream of the lake had trout! They were just hanging out in the current, so perfect looking! We got to the lake and met the same couple again, took each other’s picutres and then they headed back. We ate lunch on the tiny shore and enjoyed the views. The lake was calm and provided an awesome reflection of the mountains behind it! We bundled up as the breeze off the partially frozen lake was really cold, and then relaxed for a while and rested. The hike back wold have been completely uneventful but… as I was rock hopping across a creek, both of the rocks each of my feet were on dumped me off at the same exact time and into the creek went my feet. The water went up and over the tops of my boots completely soaking my socks and shoes. Oh boy...so I hiked on a couple more miles with super wet feet, hoping the blister on my right foot wouldn’t get any worse and that no new blisters would form. We stopped to rest on a log bridge where I took off my socks and shoes and tried to dry them out. We realized after 15 minutes that this wasn’t going any where, thankfully Daveed had packed a couple extra pairs of socks, so I wore his socks and we hiked the rest of the way out. My socks finally dried overnight and it took my boots 2 days to dry out, even after leaving them in the sun for 4 hours! Gortex is great except when you get the inside of your boots wet!

Otokomi Lake wins for best weather as it was probably only 70 when it was overcast, the sun makes all the difference when at higher elevation! There was also a nice cool breeze the entire day.

Otokomi Lake

Lunch on the shore

Day 5- Trail of the Cedars and Avalanche Lake- Most Beautiful Backdrop- Avalanche Lakes wins for most beautiful backdrop as the half dozen or so mountain streams flowing into it make for the most beautiful scenery! The color of the lake was a pretty turquoise, as are most of the glacial lakes. The silt in the water from the glaciers refracts only blue light, so that’s why all the glacial lakes have such a bright blue/green color.

We were tired from our previous days hikes, so we decided to take it easy. It was really hot and Daveed wanted to go swimming in Lake McDonald, so we headed west on the Going to the Sun road and stopped to hike Trail of the Cedars and Avalanche Lake. The guidebook warns that this is the most popular and crowded trail in the park with more “bear bell bedecked tourists” than you can shake a stick at. Well, it was right. It was super crowded and most of the children had bear bells tied to their shoes! The easy 5 mile trail only gains 500 ft of elevation and the view of the lake at the end of the trail is incredible. The trail is incredibly wide too, making it family friendly for everyone to string out and hold hands. I swear the trail is 5 or 6 people wide at some points! We had a very enjoyable stroll to and from the lake as we didn’t carry anything except a 1 L camelback. I even wore my trail running shoes, partly because my hiking boots were still wet inside but also because I wanted something lighter on my feet. We flew up the trail, feeling light as feathers! The Trail of the Cedars was a short boardwalk through the woods with pretty greenery and lots of big cedar trees. After hiking it was time to swim, it was nearly 90 degreez and sunny- lake time! We drove the short distance to Lake McDonald and “swam” up to our knees… the water was a bit chilly to really swim in but it did the trick- we cooled off and felt refreshed!

On our way back to camp driving east on the Going to the Sun road, we stopped at Logan Pass to eat a snack and as we pulled into the parking lot, several big horn sheep came up and over a ridge, walked into the lot and right up to our car! It was a bit scary as they have really big horns! We talked to a ranger who said they have been having a lot of issues with the sheep coming into the parking lot looking for salty foods. These particular sheep found some almonds on the ground and were headbutting each other over them. Someone’s car got dented before the ranger could shoo them away. She picked up the almonds and put them in the garbage… A good reminder to everyone around to be mindful about food prep and eating- clean up well and do not eat food around wildlifes!

So, Avalanche Lake wins for most beautiful backdrop, just look at all those pretty cascading mountain streams!

Avalanche Lake

Lake McDonald

Sheeps!

Little Chief Mountain

Day 6- Cracker Lake- Best Color! Cracker Lake wins the prize for the best color, drop dead gorgeous turquoise! We had seen many pretty lakes by this time, but Cracker Lake made us both say “oh wow!” when we first saw it! And it saves its view until the very last moment: you don’t get to see the lake unitl you come up and over several ridges that seem like they’d give you a view, but don’t. You finally get to see the lake when the trail comes up and over the final ridge and comes along the side of the lake. Wow. The color was just stunning! The hike to Cracker Lake was the longest we did, and we did it on our last day in Glacier, starting at noon… We spent some extra time in camp to repack the car to get it ready to depart early the next morning to head to Portland.  The trail was just over 12 miles. The first 3 or 4 miles are in the woods, with lots of skeeters and flies...the first couple miles of trail are shared with horses, so all the manure dodging and flies got really old really fast. But, once you clear horse country, the trail cleans up and crosses a couple of big creeks. We had to rock hop to get to the log bridges, which after my boots got soaked, I was a bit nervous about, but had no issues :) Feet were nice and dry apart from my own sweat :) When the trail emerges from the woods you are rewarded with amazing views of the surrounding mountians. The tallest vertical alpine wall in the lower 48 borders Cracker Lake, someone said it’s around 9000 sheer vertical feet!

We took a nice long break at the lake and enjoyed some lunch along with watching some curious but not rude ground squirrels. You could tell these guys didn’t get fed people food like some of the other rude squirrels we had met. They watched us from a distance rather than coming up to us and running on top of our packs. We took off our shoes, aired out our feet and dried our socks in the sun. This has become one of the things I look forward to the most: taking off my boots. My feet still hurt, on every hike. Our backpacking friends have assured us that it will go away, but man it’s a buzz kill! Everytime we take a break I feverishly take off my boots and socks.

On our way back from Cracker Lake, we met a ranger who said there was a “pretty sizeable bull moose off the trail about a half mile back, laying in a snow field...so just be aware”. Daveed and I looked at each other and said “YESSS! A moose!!”.  Seeing a moose was the last and only thing left on our wildlife viewing list! We so badly wanted to see a moose, and a “sizeable bull moose” at that! So we tip toed up the trail trying to be as quiet as possible so we wouldn’t scare it off. We came to the first snow field and looked around...no moose. Then we came to a second, larger snow field: no moose, but there were moose tracks! And you could see where it had been laying down in the snow! So we tried to track it! Haha, we followed it about 10 steps and then its tracks went into the deep brush and that was the end of our “tracking”. Dang. We missed seeing Bullwinkle by like 15 minutes! Bummer!

Our goal was to finish the trail in time to go to the Two Sisters Cafe for dinner and more importantly hucklberry desserts. Given our late start time, we thought the timing would be tight, but it was no problem! We finished the trail a lot faster than we thought we would and made it to the cafe by 8! Plenty of time to feast before they closed at 10! We ordered 3 or 4 desserts and had big ol burgers. I wouldn’t mind hiking 12 miles a day with 2000 feet of elevation gain and loss in order to keep eating like this! Nomnomnom! Eat all the huckleberry things!

Cheesin on the start of our hike near Many Glacier

Alpine Forget-Me-Not, my favorite flower in Glacier! There's nothing in this pic for scale but these flowers were tiny, this cluster was smaller than a dime!

The most sturdy and stable bridge we crossed on the trail

Over Daveed's left shoulder is the tallest alpine wall in the lower 48!

Cracker Lake

We headed west on July 10 with the autopilot set for Portland! On our way out of the park, once again taking the Going to the Sun Road all the way west, we saw some trail workers clearing a section of the Highline Trail. They were several hundred feet above the road clearing snow. The Highline Trail was on our to-do list, but it was closed due to heavy snow still on the trail. It's the most rad trail in the park. You basically ridge walk from Logan Pass to Many Glacier. It's about 15 miles and breathtaking! AND you are pretty much guaranteed to see baby mountain goats on this trail! I will be back and will do the Highline Trail! Til next time Glacier, keep it real.