Glad to be at Glacier (August 6-7)

Glacier National Park is not as big as Yellowstone or Banff, but it is not lacking in any other way. It is a gem. On Thursday morning we got a good start to the day and headed to Going-to-the-Sun road. This is the road that is only open halfway through the park due to the wildfire. I can’t imagine what it was like for people who were on this winding mountain road and were suddenly evacuated earlier this summer. Some were forced to leave their vehicles on the road. It must have been chaotic and frightening.

The farthest we could go was Logan Pass at the top of the road. We figured that the earlier we got there the better, since that is where lots of people would go, and the parking lot would fill up.

The drive up through the valley and up the side of the mountains is breathtaking. Glaciers, waterfalls, rivers, and trees dot the mountains looming over us. When we got to Logan Pass we went to the visitor’s center to get some suggestions. We decided on a hike on Highline trail. We would be hiking along a ridge that promised beautiful views and a good possibility for seeing wildlife. Everyone went to the bathroom and we went to our cars to eat an early bit of lunch to get us going down the trail. As we pulled out our lunches, the cloud that hovered over the mountain moved over the parking lot, and the rain began. We sat in our cars, convincing ourselves we could see light beyond this particular cloud. We chewed our sandwiches and watched it get darker, and pretty soon we had some snow mixed in with the rain. The light part of the cloud moved over us, and the rain let up a bit for a few minutes, then it began in earnest again.

We started up our minivans and started back down the road. The rain over the mountain top did not reach all the way down, so we stopped at the Trail of the Cedars trailhead. Trail of the Cedars is a boardwalk loop that goes through an old-growth forest and next to a lovely river. From there you can also hike to Avalanche Lake, which we decided to do. Avalanche Lake is about 2 miles out from the trail; it is a basin for the melting glacier high up the mountain. It is named for the avalanches that come down the mountain, leaving trees and other debris in the lake.

So in spite of the rain, we were able to get a 5-mile hike in to see some beautiful things. All in all, not a bad day. It got even better when we went into the fun downtown area of Whitefish and found a restaurant with pizza and pasta that satisfied our whole crowd. While we sat there, we heard someone at the next table say the words “Grand Rapids.”

Brian has been showing a whole new side of himself on this trip. When we hiked to Agnes Lake in Banff, we passed a group of strangers wearing Sea-to-Sea shirts. Sea-to-Sea is a bike trip that is also a fundraiser for our denominational agencies fight again hunger and poverty. My in-laws have been involved in all or part of the trip several times now. Brian stopped them on the trail and chatted them up about the trip, his parents, etc. I stood in wonder and amazement and a little bit of horror as he showed this new tendency, but soon enough we moved on.

Today I had worn my “Michigan Awesome” t-shirt, and a number of people had mentioned it as they passed on the trail, mostly saying they were from Michigan too. I would smile and say hi and keep moving. But I could feel Brian behind me just dying to talk to them. Somehow he restrained himself.

Now, at the restaurant, we heard someone at the next table say “Grand Rapids.” Brian looked over. He said “I know that woman, she’s a friend of my mom’s.” He held it in all through dinner, but when they got up to leave, he jumped up to go say hello and find out who they are. He was right, the woman was a friend of his mom’s.

As a naturally shy person, this is not what I signed up for when I married Brian. I have noticed a change lately—he’s starting to hang out longer at coffee time after church services, a crowded small-chat fest that leaves me stressed and ready to bolt as soon as possible. What is happening here? Brian is turning into one of those people, and I really just don’t know what to do about it. Soon he will be like my father, making friendly chatter with servers at restaurants and possibly asking complete strangers if they are finished with their dessert, and if they are, could he have the last bite? What is my world coming to?

But I digress.

The teens among us were anxious to get back to their wifi, and we all needed some sleep to get a good start again the next day.

Our second day in Banff dawned bright and sunny, and we got another early start to the day. We had thought that we’d go back up to Logan Pass in the sunlight to see it in a different light and to take the hike that had been rained out the day before.

But when we got to the park entrance, we found out that Going-to-the-Sun Road had opened to the other side for the first time since the fire. It was a no-brainer—we headed to the other side of the park.

After we drove past Logan Pass into recently closed area, we saw the fire damage along the road. Hundreds of charred trees in burned out smoldering woods lined the road and surrounded the lake. We could still see smoke rising from a number of places. All of the trails in the St Mary area were closed, so we continued out of the park and re-entered further north at the Many Glacier area.

Many Glacier is named, as you may have guessed, for the many glaciers in the area. They really are stunning when you start to get a handle on how big they are. They are disappearing quickly in recent years, and we heard that if things continue as is there will be no more glaciers by 2030. That would be a very sad thing for the beauty and the ecosystem there, because so much wildlife depends on the glacier melt in the spring and summer to sustain it.

We hiked part of the Swiftcurrent Pass trail, which took us past a waterfall over rocks that we could clamber up. There were fewer people on this trail than others we had taken, and it felt like we were really going into the wilderness. The people we did pass, however, almost all carried bear spray.

We have noticed a lot of warnings about bears at Yellowstone, Banff, and Glacier, and we notice they also sell a lot of bear spray. We’ve decided it is a scam, a way to make money off unsuspecting visitors. A good number of them also wear bells on their backpacks. The idea is that if you wear bells, or make other noise, you will not surprise the bears. Apparently you do NOT want to surprise the bears, because then they might go on the offensive. But still, if the idea is to make the bear think he wants to stay away from the noise, wouldn’t something more intimidating than some jingle bells be warranted? In the end, the bear bells sound to me like nothing so much as dinner bell, announcing that dinner is served.

Anyway. A whitetail doe munched unperturbed as we passed her on the trail. There were two lakes farther out. As we headed toward them, we passed two groups of hikers coming the other way. They each breathlessly described seeing a mama grizzly and her two cubs in one of the upcoming lakes. We began to get both excited and nervous as they warned us to make sure that we kept a close eye on the woods to avoid coming into unexpected contact with the bears. They left us there, taking their bear spray back to the lodge with them.

That’s when we started making a bit more noise. Andrew, in particular, became loudly talkative about very small details in his attempts to let bears know we were on the move. Allison, strangely, did not seem so much worried about being an appetizer for a bear as she was worried that our noise would scare them away and we wouldn’t get to see them. We continued hiking in a slightly more hysterical mode.

At the next lake, which we couldn’t get right next to, Brian saw something moving in the lake. I shouted out “it’s a bear!” But actually it was a moose and her calf wading through the water. We had been told there was a good chance of seeing moose and I’d been very hopeful, so that was very satisfying! We kept going, finally finding the bridge that one group had mentioned as being where we should start being very vigilant.

If you look close, you can see the baby moose in the water.

We took tentative, timid steps closer to the next lake, all except Allison who was determined to see the bears. She strode ahead. I’m not sure what was in her sandwich today, but something was different! We got to the lakeshore and could not see anything. Another group came by, describing the fantastic pictures they’d seen from someone else who had just been there. Sigh. Oh well, we saw two moose.

Sitting down to rest, we took in the lovely scenery—a more close-up view of the glaciers, the waterfalls coming down from them, even the cute little Columbian squirrel that seemed to know that people sometimes come with food. A few of us went down and sat on a log right next to the lake. But Allison was quite disappointed that the bears were not there, and she badgered us to get going. She was tired of sitting there.

An older couple came by. They’ve been camping all around the country since March, and they hike 10 or 12 miles every day from the sound of it. They’d already been up to the glacier today. They stood near us for a while, talking about their experiences. Another couple came from the other direction. They also hung out for a while. The part of our group that was sitting by the lake came back to the rocks where we were sitting. The second couple then said “There they are!”

The mama grizzly and her cubs were coming around the lake edge, about 100 yards from us and headed toward the part of the lake where we were standing. We all high-tailed it back to the trail to give them some room. Suddenly the bear spray made a little more sense. The older couple who hike all the time had some, so we stayed right by their side.

The bears came at a pretty good pace but stayed next to the lake. The mother was massive and elegant. The cubs were playing and tumbling together, absolutely adorable, and the mom mostly kept moving but joined in the fun every once in a while. Then she started swimming around some rocks, and looked back at the cubs to make sure they followed her. We watched them continue to the other side of the lake, and only when they were out of sight did we step away from the people with the bear spray.

The bears were very fun to watch, and it is a spectacular sight. But it was also an immediate and intense feeling of vulnerability, because you suddenly realize this isn’t the zoo, and there is nothing keeping that bear from coming for you. We turned around to go back a bit humbler than before. On the other hand, somehow having seen those bears made us feel like the danger was past, like there couldn’t be any more bears in the area.

When we were getting close to the trailhead again, we encountered a man who was very excited to tell us he’d seen a middling sized black bear in the trail a minute ago. As we walked back, I spotted the bear up on the hill. Katy, Brian and I stood there taking pictures and waiting to see if we could get a better shot. The bear was coming down the hill, and a rather more experienced hiker behind us was telling us that the black bears aren’t much of a danger because they are so used to people. They would only get aggressive if, say, you were carrying a pound of bacon on you. We relaxed and watched.

Then the bear started running spiritedly right toward us, and Katy started run-walking away, saying in a voice that kept raising in pitch, “It’s coming this way!” Then when it didn’t come right at us, we were back at it, waiting for a good photo op. We humans are a ridiculous lot, thinking we have things under control, then suddenly getting a good fright when we realize we don’t, then almost instantaneously forgetting that lesson when the immediate danger passes.

With 6 miles under our belts we felt accomplished, and with an array of animals spotted we felt satisfied. We got one last thrill when a mountain goat sidled up the road next to our car. The long, beautiful drive back to our side of the park awaited.

And so does the three-day-long, sometimes beautiful ride back home.