August 12: Gunsight Lake

We woke up just after 7:00 AM and began getting ready for our backpacking trip. I was a little miffed that all the preparation I'd done for a 4-night trip was going to waste, but was relieved to carry one less day's worth of food. Yumi's meals would be quite simple: Oatmeal, GORP and Minute Rice with Tuna and Salmon. Not my idea of great taste but exactly what she wanted. Meanwhile, I was content to eat granola bars, peanut butter and potato chips and a few left over Mountain House Pro Paks.

We had no problem distributing our gear between us: Yumi would carry her stuff and I'd take everything else. Anything to take pressure off her knee was a good thing. Her pack, gear and liter of water couldn't have weighed more than 11 or 12 pounds. Not surprisingly, since I was carrying the equivalent of 6 hiker days worth of food, my load was nearly as large as it was for my 7-day trip to the Winds a couple weeks prior, probably around 28-30 pounds.

We stopped at this set of falls to grab a bit to eat.

Once fully locked and loaded we tore down the tent and crammed everything into the truck. We'd planned on taking Glacier's free shuttle up to Logan Pass and then down to the Jackson Glacier Overlook. Since we would be getting off the trail across from the Lake Mc Donald Lodge on the Sun Road, we'd have to drive north a ways.

It took a quick loop around the parking lot before discovering the shuttle pick up was across from the camp store. While I pulled our gear from the back of the truck Yumi went to the store to get her last decent cup of coffee for a few days. I dragged our gear over to the pick up line which consisted of a husband-wife pair from Madison and now, us. As fate would have it, Jeff and Linda, along with their son Graham and family friend, Doug, would be doing the same exact hike as we were. Graham and Doug caught an earlier bus and were well on their way up to the trailhead. Jeff asked a few questions about the route while Linda and Yumi carried on, talking about what women talk about.

We were soon joined by a group of three mangy looking college-aged boys with bikes. I guess 7 weeks on a bike, stealth camping behind gas stations and road dust from NYC would tend to do that. These guys were biking from New York to Seattle without a lot of prior touring experience---and were having a blast. Now it was our turn to ask them questions while we waited for shuttles to arrive that actually had empty seats.

Jeff and Linda caught the 3rd bus, Yumi the 4th while I brought up the rear on bus #6. Knowing my lovely wife was directionally challenged, I told her to get off at Logan Pass and wait for me. The last thing Yumi needed was to get separated from me as she would have no clue where she was. Serious.

I can't speak for Yumi, but my ride up to the pass was a lot of fun. Across from me were a couple RV'ing who'd never been to Glacier before. I told them they had to eat an early dinner at the Park Cafe and some tips on shorter hikes on the east side, their eventual destination. Behind me was a group from Cincinnati who were friends with by buddy Greg from the Home Ranch Bottoms. Small world. The only downer on the ride was watching the smoke take over the scenery. I hardly ever get to play the role of passenger on the Sun Road and the smoke was ruining the view.

Our first good look at Gunsight Pass.

I finally made it up to Logan Pass at 11:30 and began looking for Yumi. Naturally, she wasn't at the shuttle stop and my mind began to race through various scenarios as to what might have happened to her. Did she shuttle down to the trailhead? Did she not get off the bus and was now heading west back towards Lake McDonald? Shouldered my pack and walked up to the visitor center. No luck. I walked down to the shuttle stop, thinking she might have snuck in behind me. No luck there, either. Back up to the visitor center...Bingo---in the ladies room (for probably 10 minutes I might add).

Reunited with my wife, we got into line and waited for the eastbound shuttle. And waited. Twenty minutes later a larger bus arrived and we boarded. Then we waited some more. Seems that if the shuttle isn't full they have to wait 15 minutes for departing. Great. We're sitting there with our packs on our laps while the driver is guzzling a liter bottle of Diet Pepsi. Eventually the driver shut the door and we were off.

Arriving at the the Jackson Glacier Overlook at 12:30, we trudged towards the trailhead and shouldered our packs. At this point Yumi thought it would be a good idea to test fire our bear spray since it hadn't even been carried since 2005. Since there was no wind to speak of I told her to go ahead if it made her feel better so she did, away from the road. While she was doing this I was adjusting some pack straps. After I was satisfied with the fit I noticed a slight burning sensation on the back of my throat and began to cough it out. As I breathed in, the burning became a bit more intense but never really to the point of severe discomfort. That is how my wife pepper sprayed me for the first time.

Convinced that Geisha Hiker wasn't trying to bail from the hike, we approached the trailhead. We hadn't even taken a step on the trail when a black bear scurried in front of us in the woods below. Holy shit! No more than 20' away the blackie continued through the underbrush looking for his lunch. I grabbed my camera and took a few cautious steps down the trail hoping to get a good photo, much to Yumi's chagrin. Luck was not on my side, however, as the bear was nearly totally concealed by the brush. I took a few anyway in hopes that he'd cooperate.

Jackson and Blackfoot Glaciers as we begin the short climb up to Gunsight Lake.

Once the initial excitement of our bear encouter wore off we started down the trail, making sure to take a few looks behind us lest the bear decided to backtrack. The first mile couldn't have been any worse for Yumi. She discovered she felt very little pain climbing, but downhills were painful---and this trail was going downhill. She'd popped a few Motrin before we started hoping to dull the pain, but they weren't working so good. Luckily Yumi was able to suck it up enough so that we were at least moving, but slow enough to make me wonder if we'd even make our 6+ miles to Gunsight Lake by 6 PM.

After 45 minutes of limping we found ourselves at a pretty set of water falls and decided to grab a snack and take some pictures. Maybe some GORP would get her going a little bit faster? There was a family with young children perched on the rocks upstream eating their lunch as well so I asked them if they'd seen the bear on the way down. They hadn't, but seemed rather cavalier about the possibility of an encounter.

I generally have noticed there are a few different types of attitudes regarding bears: some are deathly afraid and won't go anywhere near bear country; some, like us, definitely respect them and use all precautions when hiking in bear country; and there are others who are so ignorant (maybe stupid?) who know nothing about the inherent dangers of hiking in bear country. These are the same folks who ask who planted all the trees after a forest fire or at what altitude deer become elk. I gathered the clowns at the falls figured this was a national park and all the animals must be tame. OK, whatever.

Yumi enjoying the view of gunsight Lake and Pass.

After our break we continued along the St. Mary River, occasionally getting some decent views across the way. The hiking, while easy for me, was giving Yumi some problems despite the mass quantities of ibuprofin she'd ingested prior to starting off. At several points I told her we didn't have to do this and that we could turn back and spend the rest of the trip doing other things. I meant it, too. I couldn't stand watching her limp down the trail in obvious discomfort.

At around our halfway point we came across something I've only seen once before in Glacier's back-country: a back-country ranger. After checking our permit and some small talk confined to the piles of bear scat from his end and the black bear at the trailhead from ours we set off once again.

A break in the forest revealed Gunsight Pass off in the distance which seemed to give Yumi a small energy boost. Still, I thought if we made it to camp by 5 PM it would be a major coup.

Soon, the trail began climbing slowly above the St. Mary River valley. I'd almost forgotten about the nice views of Jackson Glacier on our left, though Yumi, seeing this for the first time, was pretty impressed. The trail heading upward was very brushy, rough, and teeming with thimbleberry's so we made sure to make a lot of noise for the next half mile or so but didn't manage to rustle up any more four-legged predators. We did find a guy with a humongous pack taking a bath in a stream, however. I figured he'd be spending the night at Gunsight with us and just moved on after a brief hello. Shortly after that we met a couple of day-hikers practically sprinting towards the Sun Road which pretty much blew Yumi's mind. Maybe now she'll believe me when I tell her some people actually do 20 mile day-hikes for fun!

We finally arrived at the Gunsight Lake campground without fanfare or even knowing we were there at 5:15. I walked through a small stand of trees and we were at the food prep area. The group from madison was already there as were a couple of guys from nearby Kalispell. Dinnertime was looking to be quite enjoyable with this bunch.
I told Yumi that I'd carry her pack up to our campsite and get things settled while she sat down and rested her aching knee. It didn't take me too long to get our camp set up and return to the food prep area with everything we'd need to hang for the night. The site, the same one Andy and I had back in '05 (INSERT LINK), was quite far from the food prep area and I didn't feel like making any extra trips.

When I got back proper introductions were made and then the inevitable comparison of cooking and food styles began. The Madison group would be eating high off the hog as young Graham was preparing some delicious looking back country pizza. I envied their stomachs but not their backs since the ingredients were quite heavy and numerous. The Kalispell boys were eating whatever they could get their mouths on: SPAM, cheese, trail mix, everything and anything since they hadn't eaten all day.

Meanwhile, Yumi was quite content with a small freezer bag of Minute Rice and a packet of Tuna while I boiled some water for a Pro Pak. Of course, no dinner of mine is complete without some instant pudding and a few potato chips for an appetizer.
While we were enjoying our various meals, another group of hikers strolled into camp. Turns out that this motley looking crew was another trio of bicyclists on a New York to Seattle tour, but had abandoned their bikes for boots for a few days. These guys, all architectural students, were quite the group. One was carrying a full bear canister full of rice which he used to beef up their Mrs. Grass soup mix. Massive beef or sausage sticks were consumed in three or four bites between the 2 or 3 batches of soup/rice mixture. I'd never seen anyone eat quite that much in the back country before.

Naturally, we all peppered the bikers with more questions which they graciously answered. One, another Graham (which confused the hell out of me for a while) was sort of keeping an online journal of their adventures. We'd later find out that none of the boys were avid bikers: they just decided it would be cool to bike across the country and were doing it. The last site was occupied by a college-aged solo hiker from Washington who didn't say much did manage to say he was building trails for most of the summer.

The bikers from NYC. You can see their bear rice canister on the far right.

As the rest of us were cleaning up after dinner, the fellow we saw taking a bath in the stream earlier that afternoon staggered into camp. He was here to catch fish and eat them, taking 6 days to hike the 20 miles to lake McDonald Lodge. The resident deer also started coming out of the trees at this time, looking for a handout. I wondered if these moochers were offspring of the doe that terrorized us (stealing one of my trekking poles) two years prior? Doug and I lobbed a few rocks in their direction to scare them off without much success.

Around 8:00 I decided it was time for Yumi to get off her duff and down to the lake. The fisherman guy was already down there doing his thing with mixed results. He was catching fish, but they weren't very large---maybe 10" max. Though the air was thick with smoke, it couldn't obscure what Yumi said was the most beautiful lake she'd seen in Glacier. I was glad that she'd at gotten something out of her 6 mile hike on a hurting knee and hoped Lake Ellen Wilson would also meet with her approval tomorrow.