Glacier 2016 Part 3 - Going to the Sun Road, East side waterfalls

Day 4 we left Fish Creek campground and moved over to the east side of the park.  The west side is forested with many mountains, the east side along the Going to the Sun Road is more prairie and flatter (not all of the east side is flat - just the bit we were camping at).  We packed up and started driving the road across the park - expecting to take most of the morning to do the 30 mile drive (there are a lot of opportunities to stop and take pictures).  As we got started, the morning was calm, so Lake MacDonald was reflecting the mountains beautifully.

The drive over the Going To The Sun Road is beautiful, showing different views of the valleys, small waterfalls, snow fields, and a view of Jackson Glacier on the descent.  Some pictures on the way:

The Big Bowl near Logan Pass

Valley on the East Side

Jackson Glacier

St. Mary Lake

Logan Pass was our preferred break point for lunch, and maybe a hike - but the parking lot was full so we proceeded past.  Again, we chose to just head for the campground and eat lunch there.  We had reservations in St. Mary campground, on the no-generator loop.  Again we found that the picture on Recreation.gov was misleading - finding that the tent pad would just fit out tent, but that there were a lot of exposed roots in the area we would be sleeping.  This took a little creative arrangement to get people positioned between the roots, so everybody would be fairly comfortable.  We also had a conflict between the screen room over the picnic table and the fire pit again, but left the screen room over the picnic table in this site.

After lunch we walked over to the St. Mary visitor center (about 1/4 mile away) and took the shuttle up to the Sunrift Gorge trailhead.  The gorge is a point where a creek comes down to St. Mary Lake, passing under the road, and has a deep, narrow gorge that it flows through near the road, along with some  waterfalls.  From this trailhead a trail goes down to the lakeshore, with a stop at Baring falls near the lake.

Sunrift Gorge

Baring Falls

St. Mary Lake

The trail then went along the lake shore to the west end of the lake, then crossed to follow the creek to another set of falls - St. Mary's falls.  The trail along the lake passed through an area that had a fire the previous year, so lots of burned trees, and not much shade.  It was interesting to see how much undergrowth had come in - grass and flowers were filling in everywhere.  We saw two bucks in this stretch feeding on the grasses among the burned trees.

We returned to the road after St. Mary's falls and returned to camp and dinner.  Along the way the bus driver stopped along a meadow where a number of other cars were stopped - apparently there was a grizzly in the meadow, though we didn't see anything.

In the evening we went to another campground for a presentation by Jack Gladstone, a member of the Blackfeet tribe and singer, who told some of the history of the area in song.  Returning from that I took a few pictures of the nearby mountains in the setting sun.

Glacier 2016 - Part 2 - Avalanche Lake and MacDonald Creek

Glacier is full of hikes to do - even though most of the park is backcountry and away from where cars can easily get.  We only had 6 days total in the park, so no backpacking, and we generally stuck to the areas that the shuttle bus ran.  The park has a set of shuttle busses that run from the visitor centers up to Logan Pass, with stops along the way at different trailheads.  Using the bus is much easier than trying to park (none of the trailheads have much parking) - but in July there also are crowds that overwhelm the bus system - we got off to a late start on day 2, and ended up with a 1.5 hour wait for a spot on a bus.  Once we were on the way, we got off at the Avalanche parking lot and ate lunch.  The parking lot was full, with a good number of people driving slowly to try and find a spot.  Since the parking area served a picnic area and two different trails there were a lot of cars in the lot already. The road to this point follows McDonald creek, so the kids worked on skipping stones for a little after lunch.

 

After lunch we started on the 'Trail of the Cedars' trail, which takes a short loop through a stand of cedar trees, and then connects with the Avalanche lake trail.  The trail to Avalanche lake is about 2 miles each way, and generally follows Avalanche creek through a valley to the lake.  At the point where the Avalanche Lake trail starts, the creek is going through a gorge about 40 feet deep and maybe 4 feet wide, with a lot of water rushing through and cascading over the rocks.  Some mist with rainbows, some nicely rounded gorge walls from years of water pouring through.

Even above the gorge, the water was moving pretty fast with numerous rapids along the way.  After 2 miles or so we reached the lake - the trail is relatively flat.  The lake drains a glacier and a number of ice fields in the mountains on the far side of the lake.  The water in the lake, like all of the lakes and creeks in the park, is a beautiful aquamarine color, from the sediment suspended in the water.

After some time skipping stones in the lake, we headed back and found our way back to the campsite.

The next day was a little different.  On the way out of the campground we came upon a doe and two fawns on the side of the road - not too concerned about our car.  One stood still long enough for a picture - Mom was already a ways down the road.

Wednesday we rented 2 canoes and went on an adventure across the lake.  Going out was easy - the wind was at our backs and we crossed in about 20 minutes.  The return trip, though, was a bit more challenging as we had to head into the wind, with 6-12 inch waves - the return was about an hour.

After lunch at the shore of the lake, we drove to the east end of the lake and started hiking up the creek a little bit, knowing that there were some waterfalls along the way.  This was about a 3 mile hike all told, with the promised cascades, and we turned around at a point where the creek widened out into a set of pools - complete with a swan swimming in one of the pools.

The rock, with its moss, almost matches the bark of the tree

Ancient waves fossilized on this rock

Wavy rock layers

Kris and I went out to Rocky Point to watch the sunset - the orange glow at the end of the lake was fantastic.

Glacier 2016 - Part 1 - Arrival and McDonald Lake

In July we took a family vacation up to a cooler place - Glacier National Park in Montana.  Instead of being shy of the Mexican border at home, we were just shy of the Canadian border.  Temperatures were beautiful - highs in the low 80s (or cooler on some days), much preferable to the hell that is Phoenix in July.  This is the first part of a few to discuss the trip and share some pictures.

We picked up the boys at summer camp on July 16 - they had already been camping for a week with the Boy Scouts - and started driving north.  The route was scenic through northern Arizona, Utah (stopping for the night in Beaver Utah), Idaho and Montana (stopping a second night in Butte).  Monday saw us driving from Butte to Glacier, going up a scenic valley between mountain ranges, arriving at our campsite around 1 PM to have lunch and setup.

On arriving, we quickly could see some deficiency in our campsite - namely that we had a relatively small (at least for our tent) flat area, with the tent vestibule basically over part of the fire pit.  If we setup the screen-room over the picnic table, that also was over part of the fire pit, and colliding with the tent.

Glacier has a number of campgrounds, but only 2.5 take reservations.  The rest are first-come-first-served, and fill up around 9-10 AM at peak times (like July!).  We had reservations in Fish Creek, since I didn't expect to be able to arrive in time to get a spot otherwise.  Useful information - two of the reservable campgrounds (Fish Creek on the West side and St. Mary on the East side) are also the only campgrounds with showers).  The reservation site shows little pictures of the sites, but it is hard to judge how much space is really available.  We use an 8-man tent to hold the family, so need a good amount of space.   In this site, we decided to move the screen-room down to the parking area (about 5 feet lower than the tent-pad and picnic table area) and put the camp-chairs in that, since there was no way to put the chairs around the fire-pit anyway (and with the tent that close, there wasn't going to be a fire.  This would be our home for three nights, then a move to the East side of the park.

Once all setup, and everybody had eaten, we headed to the visitor center and Glacier Village on the other side of McDonald Lake.

Kids skipping to the village

A little bit of looking at the lake, awe-ing over the mountains, getting souvenirs and ice-cream and we headed back to the campsite to get ready for dinner.

Near the campground is a point that extends out into the lake, I headed there to get a few more pictures and a panorama of the lake.

Many of our meals were pre-made and dehydrated at home, to take up less space and weight in the car and for quick preparation.  We've been drying leftovers from large meals (like chili and fried-rice) and made a few specially for drying.  We also brought along a dutch-oven to make sides and dessert (like corn-bread to go with our chili).   The first night had a ranger-program on the Native Americans who are in the area and the history of the area, and a discovery that the showers have no warm water in the evening.

Independence Day 2016 at Carr Lakes

Lots has been going on this summer, so there hasn't been as much interesting hiking/camping and some bigger activities that needed a little more time to setup posts for - so this is a little late...

For the July 4th holiday this year, Kris and I went hiking at the Carr Lakes trails on the Mogollon Rim.  The trailhead is on Forest Road 9530, near the FR9530 campground which is right on the edge of the rim.  This is about a 2 hour drive north from home, and about 30 degrees cooler than Mesa, so it was in the upper 70s that day.  The big draw was mostly level hiking, cooler weather and some woods and new trails to hike on.

The trail started off right away going into the woods - with a warning that the trails were undergoing maintenance and might not be clearly marked.  More on that later...  The Carr Lakes loops are a set of 3 trails with a common trial on the east side, and different turn offs to make loops of increasing size.  We ended up taking the largest outermost trail, which stays just inside the Rim Road, and returned along a portion of the General Crook trail that runs along the rim for about 60 miles.

Starting along Carr Lakes trail 151

The trail starts through pine forest with some meadows, and a clear trail.  Lots of wildflowers along the trail, especially along the meadows.

After about 1 mile though, the trail north became more of an old jeep road, and after about 2 miles we came across multiple clear routes, with no clear trail anymore...  We started down one trail, seeing a family of elk crossing about 150 feet ahead of us - no pictures, the noise I made trying to get to my camera scared them away.  This trail faded quickly, and after some consulting on the map and our location relative to the Rim road, we decided that we should have continued going straight, so a change to follow that we came to the intersection with the outer loop and the middle loop.  A good reason to have a map and a compass - the GPS showed where we were, but didn't show the trails, so we couldn't tell if we were on or off the trail - but working from the map we could identify that we had another mile to the intersection when we lost the trail.  Another reassurance was knowing that there was a road close to the east of us, so we would always be able to find our way back to the car at least.

Tree pose in the trees

A few breaks in the shade as we started south on the west side of the loop, eventually coming to a point right on the edge of the rim and a great view to the south, including being able to see Four Peaks.  The western side of the loop is more exposed and rockier, with fewer trees.

View from the Rim looking south

Turning back east on the General Crook trail, following a creek as it went through meadows and forests, headed back to an intersection near the trailhead.  At one point we scared a heron out of a small pond in a meadow.  (not this meadow...)

All told, 9.2 miles of hiking, very pleasant but a little longer than maybe was planned...  We saw only a few people on the entire hike.  Nice wildlife and flowers.  Not what people may normally think of in Arizona, but the high country can be very nice.  All of this hike was above 7500 feet elevation.