Glacier National Park

This was a fun trip, but I messed up the planning portion and as a result, had to bail after one night in the park (was planning on doing at least two).

I'd be upset, except for the fact that is was really cool and there are many hundreds of worse ways to spend my days off than to hike around Montana for any length of time at all.


So, I decided on Glacier instead of Yellowstone for a few reasons.


1. Glacier has the reputation of being one of the best places to backpack in the country

2. I am currently working in Pinedale, Wyoming which is a rock toss away from Yellowstone and I figured I'd have plenty of time to checkout that park next time I got off. Do the difficult stuff first so you get it over with sorta deal.

3. Wanted to hike in Montana

4. I recently read a book that told me that Yellowstone is one giant supervolcano and it's  due to explode any century now so I wanted to stay as far away from it as I can for as long as I can at least until somebody is paying me to risk my life there.


 SO, as I drove past the numerous state parks and mountain ranges on the way to Glacier, I was trying to anticipate and plan for the two most prevalent dangers that I thought I would face. As it turns out, I did not have to fight off a horde of grizzly bears one-handed while dangling from a snow cornice, only attached to my ice axe by the fraying hand-loop that I had neglected to inspect for damage before starting out oh god dude you'd better slam on the brakes, pull over and check it now.

Only a few minor traffic pileups later, I reached the eastern park boundary and found the park itself and every single outfitter nearby closed for the winter. I'm from Virginia, so calling late September "winter" was (and to some extent is) a foreign concept to me, but here I was all the same. To add complications, the main road in the park was closed for repair, as well as several suspension bridges on the trails. So my planned loop which started and ended at the road, was a no go. I picked up some trail maps from the deserted visitor station at St. Mary's Lake and planned out 2 shorter trips ( 2 nights, ~ 20  or 30 miles round trip depending on how I felt). I went back to my car and started packing my pack, which was difficult because I had to rearrange everything to find items (I'll be living out of my car for a while yet I think) and also because the weather was cold, rainy and very windy. I forgot to hold onto my car at one point and the wind tossed it along the parking lot like a balled up newspaper. I was so embarrassed when I had to run along after it, but hey, I only got the one and it's not like I want to lose it.

Red Eagle Creek

Anyway,  went out on the Red Eagle Creek Trail, even though the suspension bridge over the creek had been removed for the season. Ended up tightrope walking ac
ross the creek on the remaining support wires because I'm an idiot and also because I'm an idiot. I knew I'd have to cross the creek somehow, but didn't want to ford the relatively shallow creek due to the swiftness of the water and the fact that it was cold and I always try for the dry crossing. Didn't take any pictures of the feat because by the time I reached the other side of the rope/bridge my hands were frozen (Steel cable+ cold+sleet).

View from St. Mary's campsite

Finally got across, and started to curl around St. Mary's, a gorgeous alpine lake that sits at the bottom of some BAMs (Big Ass Mountains). Rain and wind kept up and it was getting dark, so I broke one of my own rules and opted to camp on a rocky beach. Got a fire going due to some semi-dry pine, lots of Unsea and some really handy pine bark that was covered in a fine dust of resin. Had to use a capful of HEET to start it up but the fuel took over from there. Fire really helped, and eventually went to bed right next to the lake. Woke up a few times because I thought maybe the lake would rise up and take my tent out to sea, eventually beaching me on an island of starving bears, but that didn't happen THIS TIME.

I had been worried this entire time because it had taken me so long to reach the lake. I had planned for end the first day well past this point and figured that I would take my shorter loop option the next day, because I was clearly starting to make my inevitable physical decline at age 23 and slowing down too much. My pack was heavy, my legs hurt and every 3 and a half feet I would stop walking and initiate defensive maneuvers just in case a grizzly bear or cougar was silently stalking me and preparing to pounce at that precise moment. Got really good at quickdrawing my bear spray and only had to use it a few times. Let's just say that there's some really spicy squirrels running around Glacier National park right now, and it's not like they don't deserve it. Don't chatter at me, bro.

Moose prints

Next day was colder and I had snow instead of cold rain which is much better. Rain gets everything wet and wetness adds an element of danger to any trip that cannot be ignored. Clearly it's possible to keep on in any weather, but you have to start paying attention when you know for a fact that you will be getting wet in ~40 degree weather.

Kept looping around the lake and saw lots of bear and cougar sign, especially around the numerous springs and creeks that fed into the lake. Was reminded of why I typically don't camp on trail or near running water if I can help it; predators (and other noisy, if less dangerous animals) use the trail as a highway and hang out around water, so when those two things come together you get alot of bear poop in the middle of the trail.



 Found a particularly clear set of bear prints that were smaller but I'm pretty sure were grizzly, along with some really clear cougar prints.

Trip started to get really good when I hit the waterfall section of the trail, and I don't think I have to explain myself here.


It was also here that trail junctions started showing up and I realized that I had misread the legend on my map-my short loop option was close to 30 miles total, and the long loop was, well, longer.

So I did some math, did some thinking and decided to bail after one night. I had just gotten this job in Wyoming/North Dakota and didn't want to mess it up because my boss called me to come in early and I was out skipping around a forest with no cell service.  Way I figured it, if I keep the job I can just keep paying for gas to go back to Glacier, whereas if I lose the job I probably won't be returning for some time. Add to this the fact that even though I was making better miles than I had originally thought, I had no clue if I'd run into worse weather or snowpack or something if I kept going. My margin of error wasn't slim, but to me, this particular trip wasn't worth the risk I'd take to keep going.

So started walking back on the (closed) road, met a bunch of really solid construction workers. This lady KT gave me a ride back to my car after about 4 miles of roadwalking or so. I'll make another post one day and it'll just be 3k words of me bitching about how much I hate roadwalking so you guys will understand just how far I'll go to avoid it usually.

Saw 2 black bears on the road back, they looked a little bigger than the ones we have back east. Still cowardly though. Didn't see any other wildlife, probably because I was singing and making noise the entire time to make sure that Grizzlies could pinpoint my exact location at any given time, 

Overall great trip and I relearned alot about hiking in wet weather. Post about that upcoming, believe me. Will definitely be back, although it'll be a little more prepared and better executed next time.



Youtube video about the trip here

Theodore Roosevelt National Forest Trip

Hey,

Gonna start documenting my trips on this blog for posterity.

This was a spur of the moment trip. I had just gotten a job in Williston, ND working on a sputter rig and was off for the next 6 days.

I went to the Northern portion of Theodore Roosevelt NP because it was an hour away from Williston and boasted 10 dollar a night campsites. Once I got into the park, the badland canyons, rock formations, buffalo and sunny weather made me want to hike, so hiking I went.

Rangers/camp hosts were really nice people.

I got a late start on this trip so it was mostly a nighthike to start with. Before the sun set, had a tense moment with a buffalo but it turns out that I scared him more than he scared me so he trotted/stumbled away. In my experience with hiking and all the wildlife that goes with it, most of the time it's the hoofed animals that are the most ill-tempered ones, so it was nice that I didn't end up running away from this particular bison this particular time. I've had to run from cows and horses, I don't wanna think about how much meaner buffalo are than them.

Nighthiked past a prarie dog town that coyotes were hanging around, kept going up and up and stopped about 95% up a climb to a plateau, made a small illegal campfire and went to bed (coyotes woke me up a bunch that night. They're not dangerous, just chatty and loud). Was a short mile day, think I probably did 5.

I thought it was the hiking in the dark that made the trail difficult to follow, but it turns out that the trail was just pretty hard to track down. For one thing, it wasn't too obvious, not too upkept, had few blazes and game trails kept running in, out and across it. Problem is that the actual trail looked like a game trail most of the time, but I only got crossed up once. Just had to do alot of scouting. As I climbed higher and hit the plateau/plain, you could pick out the blaze markers from a ways away so the going got easier. Cruised through another prairie dog town, down to the river, paralleled the road all the way back to my car.

Was a short, 12 mile round trip loop but the views were nice, the canyons and rock formations were really cool and water seemed pretty abundant though it was brown.

The best thing about this park was that I got to finally hike in the prairie, which has been an aspiration of mine for years. Verdict-prairies are kinda like the Serengeti and other grasslands I think. Really sunny, and you can see forever but they have alot more water/wildlife than the desert. Still, you're not exactly tripping over water sources, so it's clearly best to plan out where to refill.

Dunno if there were any big lessons from this trip as it was a quick and easy overnighter, but it was nice to get back on a trail again for a couple days.

Youtube video about the trip is here