 |
| Mileage |
7.6 |
| Elevation
+/- |
735
/ 2225 |
| Fatigue |
 |
| Camp
Rating |
|
| Meals |
|
| Breakfast |
Oatmeal |
| Lunch |
Clif
bars & Pepsi |
| Dinner |
n/a |
| Water sources |
No problem |
NOTES:
It looked like the trail had been re-routed
fairly recently in some areas... |
|
|
Waking up at 6:50 to sunny skies
was not the way I wanted this hike to end. Had it been rainy
and crappy I would have felt much better about leaving the
trail. Like I was thinking last night, this could be the
last few hours on the trail in Glacier National Park until
next summer.
 |
| A look back at Granite Park Chalet. |
For what seemed like the 5th time
in five mornings I ate oatmeal out of a ziplock bag. I found
myself longing for the good old days when I would have brought
some pancakes or something else for a little variety.
We quickly packed up, said goodbye
to the Atlanta pair and were on the trail by 8:30. Just
as the night before, it took us 20 minutes to make it up
to the chalet. We each took a few more pictures and talked
with some chalet visitors for about 10 minutes and began
our climb to Swiftcurrent Pass. To our left was the Swiftcurrent
fire lookout. Now that I was in shape the climbing posed
no problems and at 9:25 we crossed the continental divide
for the third and final time on the hike. We would have
both missed it had there not been a giant shrine-like cairn
at the apex.
I guess we were both looking forward
to the view of the Swiftcurrent lakes a bit further down
the trail because we almost missed what might have been
the view of the trip. I just happened to glance over to
my right...Hello Mr. Swiftcurrent Glacier.
 |
| Standing near the Swiftcurrent
Glacier. |
My you're close, aren't you? I
called up to Mike and told him to take a look. We had to
take a break and investigate this a little more in depth.
We probably only walked 70 yards off trail and were rewarded
with a tremendous view of the glacier, and about 2000' of
air straight down to the valley floor. Not only did we have
the glacier, but tremendous views looking down into the
swiftcurrent valley and the chain of lakes: Bullhead, Redrock
and Fishercap. If ever there was a perfect place for a Pepsi,
this was it. We each took probably 10 photos of the area
and were totally in awe of the scene as we snacked.
As much as we would have liked to
stay right there for the night, we needed to move on. The
views continued to impress even though the 2200' drop was
taking its toll on my aching knees. We stopped again at
another scenic point overlooking the valley for another
snack about halfway down. It wasn't fair I had to live in
Wisconsin instead of the mountain west.
After a a half hour of hiking we saw our first dayhiker
coming up from Swiftcurrent. A few minutes later we met
a group of older ladies asking us if we saw the bear and
two cubs. Whoa! Following a brief discussion with the ladies
it was determined that we may have been very, very close
to the bears at our last break. To say we felt a little
spooked and lucky would be an understatement
 |
| A view of the Swiftcurent
Valley lakes. |
As we continued our way down to
Swiftcurrent we met more and more dayhikers indicating our
trip would end shortly. There were still some tremndous
views to be seen, however. Swiftcurrent Creek provided us
with a few beautiful emerald green pools and pretty waterfalls
despite the low water levels. There was even a large bull
moose taking a break near the shores of Redrock Lake.
All too soon the trail widened and
before we knew it stepped out of the woods about 30 feet
from my truck. We were done.
We both took a few minutes to call
home and I decided I just had to have a frozen huckleberry
yogurt before lunch, which he had planned to eat at the
Park Cafe.
I pulled the truck into the cafe
parking lot at 2:30 and were seated immediately. My chesseburger
wsn't the best I've ever had, but it was darn good. Since
Mike wanted to get home we quickly paid the bill, re-entered
the park and began traversing the Sun Road. We stopped at
Sun Point for a more reasonable $1.25 shower which felt
like heaven after accumulating 6 days worth of trail dust.
The weather continued to be perfect which prompted me to
stop for one last photo near McDonald Creek.
By 5 PM we were back at Polebridge
and continuing on to pick up Mike's car at the Bowman Lake
campground. I managed to navigate the rustic road without
incident and arrived at the parking lot shortly. We had
decided to meet up at Polebridge for some more bakery and
say goodbye there.
It wasn't a dramatic departure.
We shook hands, said we'd keep in touch and that was it.
I hung around Polebridge for a few minutes to call my mother
just to let her know that I survived and to let her now
of my plans for the next few days the best I could.
I figured to camp at Apgar that
night as it was closest to the Apgar backcountry office.
But before setting up camp for the evening I decided to
stop at the Home Ranch Bottoms store just south of Polebridge
to say hi. I wound up spending close to an hour talking
with Greg, husband of the owner but the managing general
partner. Turns out he knew of me and Yumi, who he called
"yummy", from the Glacier chat page. We had a
great time and I bought a few cold Coke's while Greg checked
out the photos on my cameras display. I promised to come
back out and visit the next time I was out there.
By the time I left the store it
was beginning to get dark. I didn't have anything to eat
other than a few of the breads purchased at the Merc a few
hours earlier, nor did I have anything for breakfast the
next day. Oh well, those things would take care of themselves.
I managed to make it to the campround without crashing into
a deer and quickly set up camp in the dark. I noticed that
the pay phones were a mere 50 yards away from my site and
gave Yumi a call, letting her know what my plans were for
the next few days.
By 9:30 I was ready for bed and
made sure I had my watch alarm set for 6:20 as I wanted
to be at the backcountry office by 6:30. If that wasn't
early enough to get my hike, so be it.
|
