Glacier Backpacking

We left the Cascades in Washington and head East for the first time to get to the Northern Rockies and Glacier National Park. This was almost 3 weeks ago.... whoops. Nico and I both think that if we were to do this again, we would try to slow down a little bit, as in those three weeks I had just a bit of internet time to only unload some photos (previous post) and not nearly enough time to actually write. So here goes.

Based on how things were going with snow this year, we were thinking that we would not be able to do a whole lot at Glacier. In typical Dave and Nico style, we showed up at the backcountry office and asked, “What's good?” An hour later we had a 4 day itinerary and a permit beginning the following morning.

Glacier National Park

We were not able to be in the heart of the mountains, but we did find a couple of valleys that we could walk up to be in and among some mountains. We started about 200' from the US-Canada boarder and head into the Belly River Valley.

Hiking into the Belly River valley on Day 1

The short version of our itinerary:

Day 1 – Hike 10.3 miles up one fork of the valley to Glens Lake.

Tons of wilflowers

Day 2 – Hike up to the end of the valley, above the waterfalls, to Margaret Lake. Then back to camp and move camp 2 miles back the way we came to Cosley Lake.

Margaret Lake

Day 3 – Ford a river, and then hike over to the other fork of the valley to Elizabeth Lake, then wander around that area.

Fording the river

Day 4 – Hike back to the car.

Elizabeth Lake

Highlights – Hiking up past Mokowanis Lake to Margaret Lake.  This was a place that way fewer people make it out to and had awesome views of the head of the valley, and we gained a bit of elevation and the best views of this 4 day trip. Also there was a herd of bighorn sheep there that were just an interested in us as we were of them. Also, I am very proud of Nico for fording that river, since she is so afraid of the water and also a weenie when it comes to cold water :)

Bighorn sheep staring us down

Other interesting things to note of varying quality...

1. Because so many people use this backcountry, you have to specify the exact campsites that you will use each night on your permit. Each campsite has a shared area for cooking, and so it is a surprisingly social atmosphere for a backcountry experience.  I quite enjoyed this, as Nico is an awesome travel partner, but it was nice to meet some new and interesting people.

Amazing that the bears cannot get this food.

2. Wildlife, cool. Bears... interesting. Being a national park with all wildlife protected, it means that there is a whole lot of wildlife there. There are lots of Grizzly bears in the area, and so we had to be loud constantly so that we did not surprise a bear which is the best way to get attacked. Being loud in the backcountry constantly is totally not our thing, and is actually tiring for someone who does not normally talk constantly.  Also kinda funny was the camp deer that hung around each campsite, occasionally stealing people's clothing (for the salt) and just hanging out within 15' of us.

3. Lots of mosquitoes... On the bright side, I have a feeling that the Adirondacks will seem very tame in comparison.

More Glacier NP photos can be found here.