Day 11 Sperry Chalet, Gunsight Pass to Going to the Sun Road

Miles hiked today: 13.7
Total miles hiked: 118.8

Boot Wash

Hikers Shelter

First Glimpse of Gunsight Lake

Reloading water for the last six miles

Gunsight lake shore

Early morning friend with her baby

First glimpse of Lake Ellen Wilson

Bear is somewhere in the land you can see in this photo...  Yo Bear!

There are no showers available at the Chalet, but you can get free ones on the trail!

Looks like the lake pours over the edge

Interesting stripes of agrilite

Nice trail

Jackson Glacier in the distance

Today we have another wonderful breakfast and share a story or two with two ladies who arrived yesterday by way of horse.  They were both retired teachers and long time friends.  In fact they were elementary school friends.  They get together a couple times every year and do something exciting. Their plan was ride the horses up, stay two days and hike down.  

We head off to pack up our items and hike out.  We had talked with a few people who had hiked in through gunsight pass and they felt it was safe enough to hike out on.  We know there are three questionable snow fields that will have to be crossed, but we have had practice crossing snow fields and have our ice stabilizers and poles ready to use.

We say our goodbyes and thank you's and head off on our Gunsight Pass adventure.
The last time we went this was up to Lincoln pass it was very snow covered.  At one point Kathi slipped and fell, landing on her butt and sliding all the way down into a little snow basin at the bottom.  Since the location of the slip and slide was not in any dangerous location, it was one of those laugh out loud moments.  Well in truth it was a laugh out loud moment for me, and after Kathi's pants and underwear dried it it was funnier for her too.  Or maybe she finally started laughing, because I could not stop laughing...moments like these give me the giggles for many miles!

We hike up and over Lincoln Pass and find we have gained the confidence of a mother goat and her baby.  Momma goat and her baby follow us for a long time.  We met a father and son hiking up out of the Lake Ellen Wilson camp ground.  They said watch out for the grizzly bear, who was hanging out over there.  Then we ran into a second couple who had spent the afternoon and evening hours with the grizzly yesterday.  The bear had wondered into camp did some fishing off of the shore, went for a swim and then meandered off.  They thought she might still be down somewhere around the trees down there.  I'm thinking to myself, how in the world did you get any sleep knowing there was a big ole Grizzly in camp by you all night.  I would have had the biggest fire burning all night that you could imagine.  But then I think I would have had to collect a lot of wood for that fire in the trees where the grizzly might be so maybe no fire for me.  Hmmm.  Ok I would be sitting with my head lamp on and bear spray in hand all night.... Yeah, that what  I would be doing.  

We hike down along the side of Lake Ellen Wilson with out seeing any bear.  We don't see any goats either, which might mean the bear is still in the area.  At any rate, no bear for us.  On the far side of the lake we see our first mountain goats, we feel pretty sure the grizzly is not in this area.  At the far side of the lake we are heading up the head wall of the mountain, you can see the trail switchbacks up to the first hanging valley.  On the way up the switchbacks we met the two trail crew guys who are responsible for all of the trail maintenance on this side of Gunsight Pass.  We try to talk both of them into heading over the pass and clearing up the snow fields so we can safely cross them.  They each chuckle and say that is another's crews responsibility.  Rats!

We make it to the top of the pass and are able to view into two valleys.  Really this type of views make all of the work of getting to the top so worth all of the energy required to get there.  Sitting at the top of the pass is a small hut building with a metal roof and thick stone wall.  the building is called Gunsight Pass hikers shelter.  And considering the location it would be a perfect place to duck into if caught in a lightening storm as tree line is a long way away no matter which way you head down the pass.  I will say that when ducking into the shelter, be prepared to share it with a friendly Marrmot as I saw he lives there!

We shoot a few pics and get on our way.  We come to our first snow crossing and find it long in distance, but if you lost control, you have a pretty good chance of saving yourself if you fall on the first two thirds of the snow field the far third is pretty steep with a rocky landing a short distance away.  Kathi blazed a cool track trail all the way across that one with no problem.  When we got the other other side it was easy to see what the trail maintenance guy we met in the Highline trail was talking about.  From the lower view you can see that one might  just take an indirect hike up to the far right around the whole snow field and be so much safer scrambling up the side of the ground next to the snow. Perhaps the trail crew responsible for this side could move the trail to this better location...  Second snow field was a snap.  The third was a steep fall out with a nice free fall a cliff if you lost your balance.  We met two people coming up the snow field, so we waited for them to go first before we headed down.  They boot stomped some excellent steps into the snow field in which we were able to walk across very easily.  Perfect!  In between all of the snow field we are audience to stunning views of the brilliant glacier blue water  of Gunsight lake against the red argillite rock of the surrounding mountains.  What a beautiful section of trail to hike!  The trail is sort of edgy and blasted out of the side of the mountain but never as thin as some of the trails we were on this week.  

At one point in time there was a backcountry chalet at Gunsight Lake.  The chalet was a perfect stopping point as the horse hikers had a perfect stopping spot on their way to view Blackfoot Glacier.  At some point during its very first years the chalet was destroyed  by an a avalanche during the winter.  No attempt was made to relocate and or rebuild the chalet.  Although this is one story you can find published about the Gunsight Lake Chalet, I was also able to find a story and dates which indicated the chalet was still around one year after the park service said it was destroyed.  The story goes that the chalet was semi repaired after the avalanche, but then suffered a grizzly mauling the next year to the building causing the building irreparable damage.  In either case the chalet is no longer in the area.  

We hike down to the lake and are looking for a spot along the lake to sit down and have a lunch.  As we are looking we come across the hugest pile of bear poo I have ever seen.  And it is fresh.  Not sure if we are talking minutes or perhaps an hour, but no more than that.  It was fresh...  So after a few 'ho bears', we weasel our way into this small opening by the lake to share with a small family.  If there are kids I think the bear would choose to eat them first right?  

We head on out for the the last six miles we need to hike in order get up to the road and catch the shuttle to our car.  As we are heading out we have to step over the first pile of poo again only to find a second pile of pile a short distance away.  WOW, that bear must really eat a lot!  Or maybe there are two bear.  Ok, turn your mind away from these thoughts, just talk loud and hike.  Enjoy the sights.

Right enjoy the sights is not right.  For the first mile we have over our back side perfect views of the Jackson Glacier and its basin, but to see it we have to stop hiking and look to the back side.  The rest of the hike is in the forest and filled with cow parsnip and scratchy bushes.  Really this type of hiking is boring.  The miles don't seem to fly by when you hike like this.  There are a few spots we look for moose along the way, but since the temps are pretty warm, chances are pretty slim we will see any now.  Maybe if it were early morning or evening we would see some.  As we are hiking I told Kathi that we had to hike up about a 750 feet in elevation to get up to the road.  She did not remember that from the last time, I do, and the trail is right up next to a waterfall.  There is one spot you can get out to see the waterfall, otherwise back to the woods, but just heading uphill.  We are in ear shot of the road before we are in eye sight of the road.  We can hear the shuttle bus at the bus stop.  I told Kathi I had no desire to run up the trail to see if we could catch the bus.  She laughs as she was just thinking the same thing.

We finally see the road, but standing there is a flag man holding a traffic stop/ slow sign for traffic.  He informs us the bus just left.  Yes, we know, since it is a climb to get up the last mile of the trail, sitting on the bench waiting for the next bus is exactly what we are looking forward to.

Day 10 Sperry Glacier

Miles hiked:8
total miles hiked: 105.1

Climbed out of bed this morning and quickly put some warmer clothes on.  The temps are a tad chilly to not have heat.  We headed to breakfast to find a little personal checklist piece of paper this is what we will use to order breakfast.  Just need  to check what we would like for breakfast oatmeal, eggs of choice, pancakes, bacon or sausage,orange juice, coffee.  Yes, sound good, one of everything!  While we are over eating, I mean eating, we meet two ladies who are leaving Sperry today.  Both of these ladies work in the public school system in Austin, Texas.  One is a speech pathologist and the other a physical therapist. The kind of vacationers they describe themselves as is airplane campers.  They enjoy car camping, but have camped everywhere you can reasonably drive to in the Austin area, so now they have opened their world to jetting to a destination, renting a car, and then car camp.  Their best and worst camping adventure was Kodiak Island in Alaska.  Rather big grizzly live there.  Very hard to get a good night of sleep, when every sound in the night makes you think you are the grizzly's next meal...as we are talking two more ladies stop at the table to say a kind hearted good bye.  They are also hiking out today.  As we are talking all of a sudden two other ladies stop at our table and start chatting.  as we are chatting the question comes up if Kate is the bear lady?  We find we are chatting with Kate Kendall who is a famous bear researcher in the national park.  I think I have written about barbed wire placed on certain trees along a trail were bear are most likely to be walking on the trail.  The bear scratch their backs on the trees and the barbed wire snags the hair.  Then using a collection process the hairs are gathered and taken to the lab for DNA testing.  Without capturing any bear or grizzlies the researchers can identify each bear and where it has been traveling.  Please see for further information on this subject :http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/files/norock/products/NGSbearmon_Infosheet.pdf

Anyway Kate's research has made her quite the popular person and she finds people either love her research or they think it was a huge  waist of time and money.  I for one think what it was fascinating. She was most interesting to chat with and I wish we would have known last night as we could have all sat around the table and talked about that.

Oh well, our brush with greatness.  We start out for Sperry glacier around 9:30 it is sunny, no breeze and we have finally hiked clear of  the cloud of mosquitoes that are hovering over the chalet.   We are on our way to one of those perfect days.  We have the very loud group of six from Alberta in front of us, but it does not take too long before we hike up and pass them.  Yesterday this group of six were hanging by the sleeping lodge.  They were drinking wine and having cheese and crackers.  I think they must have had a pack horse haul up their wine because the bottle were endless, which meant the noise was louder and louder.  I'll just say if they thought they were keeping quiet they are very mistaken.  

Anyway the trail is very well constructed and works it way back and forth up switchbacks rising up past a few waterfalls and onto a hanging valley.  Here there are several small pools of collected water, but also a wide view of the Lake McDonald area.  Just a wonderful little play land, but the pass still lies ahead.  It was in this area which we encountered a herd of Mt Goats.  We tried very hard not to disturb them, but they seemed very interested in following us.

As we get to the head wall we have to climb up and over a snow field to get behind it.  Then we have to skinny up behind there so we can get to the special stair way which has been blasted and picked into the rock.  There is a cable that is installed for those who might find it handy to grab on to something, however there are wonderful solid rocks to grab onto for assistance.  This little stairway is also a huge wind tunnel.  It was blowing really hard down through the slot.  Some of the steps were as wide as the stairway but were only three inches deep making it necessary to step sideways up the stairs.  When you emerge from the top step you are standing on the pass with the little madder horn straight ahead and the remainder of Sperry Glacier to the right.  If you follow the tall rock cairns to the right you get down to the official toe of the glacier where the sign indicates you are at the official observation point of the glacier.  When the glacier was first discovered it was 800 acres in estimated size, at the time of the sign placement the glacier  was shrunk to 300 acres, I would easily say it is considerably less than that now.

To get down to this point we had crossed several snow fields.  To hike out we just put our ice stabilizers on and walked right up and over all of those snow fields.  Easy.  I would think the task would have have been much more difficult with out those little gadgets.

On our trip back to the pass and down the slot we somehow gathered another herd of playful mountain goats.  I just don't want one of those guys coming down that rock stairway with me... We choose a good time to go and the goats are behind us and through it in short time.  Of course they do not need to us the stairway as their special hooves keep them well attached to the shear rock wall.

We watch the goats play games such as tag and catch me if you can.  A few of the are just frolicking on the snow.  One little baby is separated from momma and is bellering away.  Most of the other goats come to its rescue and the little guy gets reunited with his momma.  

Just a perfect day,  a great day to see what will soon only be a snow field.  This glacier is expected to loose its glacier status by 2015.  This will still be a special hike, but one less glacier to see.  As we are hiking today with out any special ordering of hikes or trying to manipulate the miles, we surpass over 100 miles hiked.  Wow.
 

horse train

goats on the move

Squeezing back behind the snow field

up through the rock steps

Sperry glacier

Goats hanging out on the mountain

Steep

View back down to Lake McDonald

Mountain goat standing by rock cairn

Glacier pools

Observation point

Out dated sign

Goats playing

A very rewarding day!

Day 9 LAke McDonald up to Sperry Glacier Chalet

Todays hike: 6.7 miles
Total trip milage: 97.1

Today we pack up and clean up our Duck Lake accommodations.  For the first time in forever I do not feel like I want to take a picture of our dwelling.  Although it had everything we needed as far as kitchen facilities, the lack of drinking water and toilet paper was a deal breaker for us.  One would think at 200 bucks a night, drinking water and toilet paper might be included in the package price.  As I mentioned before we have a trap line set for mice.  We caught another mouse over night making a total of three in two days. I set the trap line before we left, so the surplus population would equal out a bit.  I might not have even known the mice were there if I had not seen one in the laundry room while I was changing wash.  The little guy was trying to scoot under a shelf. Oh yes, and the decon and empty traps sitting on the shelf in the laundry room was sort of a heads up on the topic.  Any way, we vacuumed a bit and tidied up leaving the place cleaned, we

We hike about five miles in the deep woods before we have any sort of views.

have $100 security deposit on this place and we would like to get that back.  We also have to take the trash out and put it in an out shed.  This shed was already full of trash so we had to balance our 8 days worth of bags on top of the teetering pile and close the door fast before everything fell out.We drive away from the Duck Lake house and look forward to spending our next two nights at the Sperry Chalet back country lodge.  The lodge accommodations are rather primitive, but the staff at the chalet will provide all of our meals and take good care of us.  We are planning on driving up to Logan's pass to park the car for the next couple of days.  Our thoughts are to park at the Pass, take the shuttle down to the Lake McDonald side of the park to hike into Sperry Chalet on the trail we know is open with no snow issues.  We are hopeful to hike out of Sperry Chalet by way of Gunsight Pass and then take the shuttle back up to our car which would be about two miles away.  From what we have gathered in trail reports, Gunsight Pass has ice axe crossings at long standing snow fields.  We hope to give it a few more days to melt and then try to hike out that way when we leave.

Kathi is getting really good at driving to Logan's Pass.  She has memorized all of the spots she should slow down and does a really good job of keeping both hands on the wheels and her eyes on the road.  Either she is getting better at driving this portion or I have new standards for acceptable driving patterns on this road....  Ok, but we are still parking at Logan's pass to allow a seasoned driver to drive the more dicey part of the Going To The Sun Road.

Our shuttle driver is Ed. He has been driving this side of the road for the past six seasons for the park service  Ed looks to be around 130 years old.  As we are driving to the west side Kathi is busy looking out the window at the jaw dropping sights.  The road is just hanging 3.000 feet up off of the mountain wall. The west side of the road past Logan's Pass is by far the most scary portion of mountain road here at Glacier.  Since Ed is of the age where one might be thinking of turning his keys over to his family because he should no longer be driving, I thought it was in my best interest to inquire just how someone might come to have this job of driving shuttle on the west side.  For instance: do you have to take a driving test that might include driving this very same stretch of road?  How about a medical exam? Are there any written test involved?  And would there be any ride along drives with an instructor on board?  Do you have to re-certify every year or is your license still valid from six years ago?  While I'm busy collecting this information Ed is busy asking questions about the Packers and Lambeau Field. Ed who is lives in Montana, and is a Sea Hawk fan, has been to Lambeau Field exactly the same amount of times as I have been. Once. Kathi is elated to be seeing all of the jaw dropping sights without me saying SLOW DOWN.  Since there were only Kathi and I on this ride, we had lots of time to get everyone's questions answered.

Ed also filled us in on what he knew about the fella they were looking for yesterday with the helicopter.  They found the guy and were able to extract his body.  He had been missing for a week.  They were investigating the circumstances to his fall.  Was he climbing by the Loop, was he blown off, or was he pushed.  I guess we will have to check back on the Glacier Park new releases online to find out if they post any additional information.

We spend an hour with Ed as he safely drove us over to the Avalanche Lake bus drop off point.  Here we have to wait to board a bigger bus to take us the remainder of the drive. The entire shuttle ride trip from Logan's pass to Lake McDonald  took us 1 hour and 20 minutes.  Before heading out for our hike up to the chalet we thought we should check-out the gift shop at the lodge.  Same stuff as every one else had.  So we headed for the trail with very full packs.  It is 11:30 when we first step onto the trail.  Geeze it is also most lunchtime...

The trail is littered with horse poo and buzzing with biting mosquitoes.  All of the daily supplies up at the chalet are brought in by horse pack train.  A person could also choose to rent a horse ride up to the chalet for the price of $170.  If you ride back out the same day the price is covered, but if you want to ride horse out on a different day it will cost another $170.  We did meet a pair of ladies who rode horse up to stay for two nights and then will hike out.  Well, with all of this horse traffic on the trail, horse poo is a common trail dodging game.

The trail up to the chalet is 6.7 miles and, 3200 feet up in elevation.  Today all of the mosquitoes are very blood thirsty!  We had to re-apply the bug juice OFTEN!  The trip takes us 3 hours and 25 minutes.  It is 99% in the woods, up hill with nothing to look at.  I am sort of panicking that we might run out of bug juice!

The last mile of the hike the views open up, there is a nice waterfall to the right and you can see the chalet sitting in the hanging valley up to your right side.  As we are making our final push for the chalet we pass a husband and wife taking a break.  We find out they are from Chicago and this is their 20th wedding anniversary.  It is also their first hike ever!  They had watched a tv documentary on Sperry Chalet and thought it would be a great way to spend their 20th.  They both were very excited about what they had seen, but thought their 25th might be on a beach somewhere as this was a lot of work!

At supper we sat with Phil and Marie, who are from Oregon, and now I have forgotten what city...  They wanted to take the train out to Glacier, but for what ever reason the train was delayed so they ended up flying and renting a car.  They still have high hopes in taking the train back home, but only if the train was running on time.  I guess the train from Glacier to Oregon has a bad rap of getting off its schedule.  Phil tried to explain it all to me in fine detail, but sometimes,,, my brain files items like that as unnecessary spam and deletes it :).  We chat all through supper and sit right at our dinner table and chat the night away until 10pm when the dining hall lights get shut off.  10 pm is officially quiet hours until the next morning.  We make it back up to our room to fetch headlamps and toothbrushes.  We have to go back down the hill to the pit toilets and sink to brush teeth and make last call.  That's right there are no sinks or toilets in the sleeping lodge.

The walls of the sleeping lodge are very thin.  You can hear everything.  And I do mean everything.  I will just say that ear plugs are a provided convenience to staying in the lodge.  Also there is no heat, but thankfully there are three wool blankets on the bed.
Now that I think of it, the drinking water at this place is drinkable, toilet paper is provided, and the signs on the wall say to hang your back pack up off of the floor so mice can not get in.  I feel better about this place already.

Welcoming committee Momma and baby Mt. Goat

Momma and baby meander around freely by the pit toilet and sink.
As a side note, when you have to get up and go in the middle of the night, this is what you have
to walk through.  Better bring a flashlight and expect to see many goats.

Chalet is sitting up in the hanging valley.
You can see a rock formation called cowboy and horse riding up on the ridge line.

Dining hall.
Last time we were here, there was six feet of snow all around this area, so only the roof line stuck out. and you had to go through a tall dug out snow path to get into the dining hall.

Cowboy and horse with setting sun shining on it.

Day 8 Highline trail also called the Garden Wall up at Logan's Pass

Total miles today 13.2
Trip total 90.4  miles

This picture adds some perspective to the size of the snow field

Behind the snow field

Some steps are skinnier than others.  This was not the skinniest, but one which I felt I could stop and take a picture of.  The green is about 100 feet below my foot!

Snow field the trail crew blew out from behind.  Also same snow field the young man tried to cross in his crocs but failed to make it...

Trail as it hangs above the going to the sun road

When we first arrived here in Glacier we found the Highline trail closed due to a snow drift of sorts around Haystack mountain.  The trail is very exposed in this area so if you would fall on the snow field that crossed the trail, you would have about two seconds to get yourself under control using what they call self arrest techniques.  One young fellow felt he was confident enough or dumb enough to give it a try and fell on this snow field, slipped off of the edge to his death.  He was wearing Crocs.  Seriously I would not even wear crocs to walk down the driveway to pick up mail in snow.  This unfortunate accident happened the day we arrived in Glaicer.  

          Yesterday after finishing our hike we headed over to the St Mary Visitor Center in the                  hopes of getting an update on this trail. We have asked about this trail several times at the ranger station and they are probably getting sick of us coming in there asking about these above tree line hikes that still have snow.  We had heard that the trail crew started working on the trail a few days ago trying to clear the snow to make it safe for everyone to hike. Believe it or not, they use explosives to remove snow from the dangerous snow fields and then shovel the snow from the trail. When we asked for an update on the Highline trail, they told us that today would be the official opening day of this trail. We were really happy to hear that news!

Today on our drive to the park we watched a bald eagle soaring above us.  Now that is a great way to start a day. We arrive at Logan's Pass and are hiking by 8:12. It was a very winding cold start.  Put on long sleeves, wind jacket, headband and gloves.  We struck out for the trail and did not see any critters other than ground squirrels and marmots.  Usually this trail is loaded with mountain goats, in fact they are usually out looking for food handouts which people are not suppose to provide.

We head on out on the Garden Wall portion of the trail, which is high above the Going to the Sun Road.  And just like the road, the trail is cut out of the mountain.  There is a cable installed for people who need to hang on through the exposed parts, but basically you have a three foot wide path notched out of the side of the mountain.  Sometimes you have less than three feet, but for sure there is always room to step.  I was thinking there is always at least two choices in your steps here... Do I step on that skinny ledge with my right foot or should I use my left foot. At one point I got a great idea to take a picture of what this might look like.  I had to wait for a step that I was willing to stop and take out my camera and take a picture.  Kathi was wondering what the heck I was doing, when I told her she thought I should have taken the picture up on some of the other stetchy stuff we had already passed.  I told her I was busy trying to make good choices in my passage and was unwilling to fall off just to get a really  cool shot!

We take a few photos of the snow field which the young fellow decided to cross in crocs.  The park system has since shoveled and blasted out a very nice passage behind the snow field which is quite safe to walk behind.  You might be thinking why didn't the park service shovel this out before the kid fell?  The answer is they had the trail closed due to dangerous conditions and the kid went anyway.

After this point in the trail we met up with two young men who were trail maintenance guys.  They stopped to chat with us and if you could have seen what thin ledges they were standing on to do their work, you might have fainted.  But they stood there and happily told us about how to get up and around the major snow field on the way to Gunsight pass.  We would like to take this epic park hike into  Sperry lodge tomorrow.  Oh, yeah he tells us, you just go up to the second switch back and head on over and climb down and around the snow field then scramble up into the meadow above to rejoin the trail.  It dawned on me as he was standing on a whisp of the cliff, that perhaps his tolerance for sketchy stuff was different than mine!  

It was perhaps a half and hour later when both Kathi and I had some time to process what was all involved in that bit of communication.  Yes, it is possible to get around the snow in past years, but he had not seen it this year, and he lives on the edge as we saw from him standing where he was.  For our hike into Sperry lodge tomorrow, we decide to park at Logan's Pass and take a shuttle down to Lake McDonald and then hike in on the horse trail.  If while we are at Sperry someone hikes in the Gunsight Pass way, we will consider taking that hike out.  That trail is 13 miles long,mover two passes, with lots of good sights to see.

As we continued down the trail, we gained sights of Granite chalet. Granite chalet is another back country lodge, but you have to bring along your own food and bedding or you can pre-order some dehydrated meals which will be there when you check in and rent bedding.  With Granite chalet in sight we take a side trail up to get a birds eye view of Grinnell Glacier.  It is .8 mile up 1000 feet.  So basically it is a very steep climb, but once at the top it was very windy.  We had to tuck down behind a boulder at the saddle and eat half a lunch.  While we were sitting there we were able to spot 2 people down walking by the glacier.  That trail was also closed, so either they had stepped over the closed sign or they were rangers checking out the danger of the trail.  It is one trail we have never been on and really would like to see Grinnell glacier from the toe of the glacier rather that looking down at it from the top of a saddle.  We are hoping to drive down from Waterton to take that hike later next week.

We head on down that steep trail and then climb back up the approach trail to the chalet.  We. stopped in and asked a few questions and then went out to eat the second half of our lunch. We shot a few pictures and continued on down the trail to the loop.  Here we picked up a shuttle back up to Logan's Pass to get our car.  The walk down this trail is down 2,400 feet in four miles.  Again it is down! We are walking down through the burn area from the Trapper Creek Fie in 2003.  The trees are just starting to get serious about taking over the forest. Many aspen and other deciduous trees and a few pine trees are coming.  Tons more than the last time we say it.

Right when we were within the last two tenths of a mile from the end of the trail, we encounter a helicopter flying and searching for something.  It was hovering out in front and then would go and fly lower, and then follow the river a bit.  When we got out to the road, it was shut down and buzzing with rangers and special search and rescue people all decked out in climbing gear.  They had just gotten back without finding anything, and were going out again.  One ranger we talked to said it was an active investigation and could not say anything else.  So I suppose we will read or hear about another death soon.

Hike up to the Grinnell Glacier overlook is .6 mile and 1000 foot elevation gain

We are up at the Grinnell Glacier over look peaking down at what is remaining of the glacier

From the GArden wall trail LAke McDonald is visible way in the distance

Helicopter searching for body

Road is visible as we look up to towards Logan's pass

Trail crew

Nice pose, until...

This guy screamed at me

Beautiful

Granite as we hike up to it.

It is a Historic Landmark 

Front of Granite Chalet.  In all of Glacier NP there is no granite rock, but it  sounds  important  so they named it granite.

This was really deep blue!

walking through the old burnt section new growth is over our heads !