Day 4 Piegan Pass, This is a recovery day :)

Piegan Pass
This is a recovery day.
Miles hiked:  9.1
Total miles: 37.3

We woke to very gloomy, low hanging, thick clouds . It looked like rain.  We drove to the St. Marys Ranger station, which was officially closed but the doors were open. We snagged the weather report and read that thunderstorms were predicted by 2 pm. We walked to the Shuttle bus stop and waited for the first morning shuttle to take us up to Siyeh Bend.  The road maintenance crew has started to move to the east side of the park. Wait times can be up to a half an hour.  The road crew were suppose to be working on the road by Siyeh Bend where our hike was starting from.  This would greatly limit parking, so we took the free shuttle and because Kathi has to follow my special Going to the Sun Road driving directions. The list has grown through the years so it seems better to allow a bus driver to shuttle us up there. Then Kathi can sight see all she wants with out me telling her to move over, slow down and get your eyes back on the road! Seriously if you have never driven this road you have not lived a full life! It is a heart stopper and breath sucker! 

We arrive at Siyeh bend in a half hour. We had a small wait in construction on the way up, otherwise the ride was very nice as Kathi and I shared the bus with only one other passenger. Ok personally I was elated the other passenger was going up one more bus stop as he had issues. Or as Kathi noted, he was not quite right. He sat in almost every seat on the bus on the drive up except for the bus drivers seat and the two we were using. He was producing body sounds that generally people do not produce in the company of other people. And he shouted a glory hallelujah when Kathi and I got off of the bus. Well buddy I could not agree more. I'm thankful you are not getting off at this stop either.

At the sign board we learn about locomotive bells which were installed by the Great Northern Train company and Glacier National Park in 1926. The bells were installed on top of Piegan Pass, Siyeh Pass, Swiftcurrent Pass and Henry Pass. The idea was that visitors to the park would enjoy ringing these bells as their horse trail ride passed up and over these grand mountain passes. This bell ringing idea was borrowed from the tradition practiced in Switzerland. In 1943 the bells were turned in to the World War II scrap metal drive. All that remains from these bells are the cemented rock pillars which all of these bells were installed on top of.

Well, that explains the cemented rock pillar up at the top of Swiftcurrent Pass. When you pass that pillar, people have over time added a rock to the pile and created rock by rock a massive pile. But you can still clearly see the cemented  rock pillar. Cement in the back country out in the middle of nowhere is a bit unusual. So without us even knowing it we have hiked past half of these historical markers.

Back to the hike. This trip up to Piegan's Pass is a steady up that seems rather tame after yesterday's epic adventure. The trail is actually soft under your feet and for the first part you are in the woods yelling out to scare the bear, but having the opportunity to have a good smell of fresh spruce. We have nothing to really look at for the first hour as the clouds are hanging very low and it is hard to see anything except what you should be looking for and that is bear.  

As we hike, we begin to see the faint outlines of what must be the mountains to either side of us. We would every once and awhile get a feeling that the sun was trying to poke through. Slowly we began to see more and more of our surroundings. It seemed suddenly the sun had burned off all of the cloud cover just as we got into view of the long last switchback up to the pass. What a view. We could see a long skinny line up to the pass.

There were three snow fields we had to walk over, but with a good pair of hiking boots and hiking poles it was no problem. We shared the pass with one other couple.  As we both shot some pictures and ate lunch. We were able to go over the pass and look down towards the Many Glacier valley.  Many people will hike this as a point to point hike from Siyeh Bend to a trailhead in Many Glacier if they can arrange transportation. As we were sitting and eating the temps started to drop and the wind picked up. Time to head on back down. 

On our return trip we met several other hikers who got a very late start on this hike. They must have not have snuck into the rangers station and read the weather report. There are suppose to be thunderstorms at 2. We clumped our way down towards the shuttle pick up the bus with me in the lead. As the leader I had to pass the quick draw test on pulling the bear spray and getting ready to unload it in two seconds. Yep, I used up three of my practice lives before Kathi would sign her approval in my bear spray fast draw technique. 

For the first time in forever, my toes are blister free and Kathi is suffering a pinky toe problem. I think she will be losing her toenail, and it is pretty beat up. It is bothering her.  I understand her pain, but when I tell her to think of the bright side which is it only hurts every other step she finds little or no humor in my bright side comment. I'll see if I can doctor up her toe later. I have lots of experience with these things.

During our trip down we find a young man who has gained the confidence of a white tail deer. The deer followed him closely for about a quarter mile, but stopped at a creek crossing. I'm suspecting the little deer's mom told him to never go across the creek bed.  No matter what the young man tried the deer stayed put.  Further down the trail a group of six trail maintenance crew were working on a creek crossing bridge. Inspecting their work was a female elk. We watched her for a bit until she crossed the creek.  

We made it all the way back down to our starting trailhead. We had only to just crawl up the last twenty feet of embankment when the shuttle passed by. We missed the shuttle and the next shuttle was an hour wait. We had wanted to take the shuttle up to Logan's Pass to look around, but now had a hour wait ahead of us. We had nothing to do, but sit on the shuttle bus bench and wait. 

While sitting there we were able to people watch. A bunch of people who were driving the going to the sun road had parked their cars and walked up to a snow field which had a waterfall entering the top and rushing out the bottom. It was sort of like watching to see who would kill their self first. The Darwin Award can be awarded for anyone who kills them self doing something that any sane person should deem foolish. Really they were doing very foolish things.

After sitting there we made the decision that we would not take the shuttle to Logan's Pass, but should really take the shuttle down to where we parked the car.  After waiting for almost an hour for a shuttle to Logan's pass just to look around and then most likely having to wait another hour to catch a bus down was not in our best interest. We moved to the going down shuttle bench. This was by far the best idea of the day. As we sat there and waited for the bus,

Clouds hanging low

Can't see much

Zoom in and you can see the long final switchback to the pass.

My favorite flower Purple with little tiny yellow pin heads.

Up at the pass looking over into many glacier valley

Kathi is standing next to the old bell tower.

looking down Piegan Pass

Friendly deer

Friendly female Elk

storm clouds were gathering. We pretty much drove the 18 miles down from the bend with the rain on our tails. Yes, the thunderstorm did arrive. But not till 2:30.

It rained on and off most of the afternoon and evening.