Tent city

This is tent city, were camping here with 500 of our best friends. ☺

Bon ton roulet 7 day bike tour

Today is the third day of a seven-day bicycle tour in the finger lakes of New York. Very challenging hilly ride. We feel very accomplished at the end if each day. Sunday was 60 miles, Monday 64 miles, and today 57 miles. Muscles are hurting!! Had a very rainy night in camp last night but we were dry riding tonight and tents are set up and dry.

Dawson Pass

The hike to Dawson Pass was one of the longest and highest elevation changes we experienced in Glacier. It was quite remote too however the people we did see we became friends with. The young men in the last picture are from Wisconsin, they caught up with us going up to the pass and they decided to hang with us and learn from us. We took them across their first snow crossing as this was their first hike in the park. They ultimately made it to the top of Dawson Pass which we did not. I decided I didn't like the snow crossing very close to the top and decided it wasn't a good move for me. The boys did fine and loved the adventure.

After lunch on a rock ledge, Randy and I headed to "No Name" lake. That's its name really! The boys caught up with us there and stayed with us back into camp (we had bear spray, they didn't). It was a long hike (14 miles); we all basically collapsed at the mouth of the ICY cold Two Medicine Lake in camp and soaked our feet and talked some more.

We parted ways after giving them mole skin for their blisters on their feet and helping them with more info on hikes in the park.

Iceberg Lake hike in 3 posts

We decided to do this 10 mile hike to iceberg lake with a ranger. There were about 40 people in the group; a little too large but our young ranger made it very interesting. It was clear she was a geology geek. We learned about glaciers, we saw recent erosion from a heavy rainfall that exposed new rocks, and she pointed out black bear markings on trees. Just a great day with beautiful sites. It also was our last hike in Glacier; definitely a stunning finale. I have another fun day to get caught up on and then I might be saying hello to you in person soon as we are saying goodbye to the west for another year!

Iceberg Lake

This is iceberg lake, my favorite mountain lake this week. The hike to get here was beautiful (10 mile round trip day today). There are floating bergs in the lake. One picture in this set shows a young boy who made it out onto the ice. The last picture in this set shows a patch of snow on the mountain in the shape of a cross. We sat and watched a CRAZY guy using crampons and ice ax to climb that snow bank 3/4 of the way up so he could ski down it. It took him an hour and a half to make the climb. Hoards of people stayed to watch. Finally he strapped a big American Flag on his back and successfully skied down to the base of the lake with many people clapping and cheering. Really an exciting event on top of the great scenery!

Finish hike to Iceberg Lake

Again, I'm working backwards. These are some sites as we finished our hike out of Iceberg Lake. Can you see the grizzly bear in the photo to the upper right? This is one of 5 grizzlies we've seen this week. All of them were from the safety of our car.

Upper Two Medicine Lake (part 2)

More pics including the suspension bridge we had to cross with the strict load limit.

~enjoy

Piegan Pass - Glacier NP

The Piegan pass trail starts at going to the sun road, and climbs uphill for five miles to a mountain pass. The trail starts in a lush forest of fir trees, cris-crossing the river many times. Like our earlier hike, the trail was about 65% snow covered.

When we got to the pass you could look north down one valley and south down the valley we hiked up. The two panoramas below show the two views from the pass. Beautiful vistas all day.

Reunion at Deception Pass

(Randy is posting today)
When I was six years old we moved to a new subdivision in Southfield Mi. That first summer I met a boy down the street named Brad Davies. We remained best buddies all throughout our school years, but had not seen each other since be was home on leave from the Navy 36 years ago.

He moved to Seattle after leaving the Navy with his wife Tessa, and last Saturday the four of us spent the day together. Amazing how little we have changed in 35 years. Was so wonderful to see them and spend the day at Deception Pass, and later hanging out at our campsite. Hopefully we won't wait so long to meet up again.

3 posts here from Logan's Pass

On Friday we thought we'd beat the crowds of tourists and drive to the top of Logan's Pass and do the hike up to the Hidden Lake Overlook. The pictures in this post show you how much snow there was getting up to the overlook. We've done this hike several years ago and loved it so much that we had to do it again. Usually we've heard it called the march of the penguins because every tourist in the park likes to do this snow covered hike. Not so much this year as many people had sandals on. It was a very warm day so sandals were appropriate but not for hiking in this amount of snow.

The two posts that follow this (I got smart and worked backwards so you'll see these pictures in order) are of the vista looking down on Hidden Lake which was frozen and then some of the hike down to the lake. It was an epic day for us, so beautiful.

Our bodies hurt a lot today so it's a day off in camp to recuperate, maybe a bike ride later when the famous "Going to the Sun Road" is less busy from car traffic. Heading home soon, Glacier is our last scenic stop before we hit the road.

Hike from vista to hidden lake

After climbing 1.5 miles through the snow covered incline, these pictures are from the vista to the hike down to hidden lake.