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Some habits are hard to break. I was
up at 0600 with nothing to do. I walked down to the lobby
hoping to find a newspaper, but learned they weren’t
delivered until 0645. About the only news we got in the backcountry
was about Lance Armstrong and a rumor that Laura Bush was
about a day behind us near Cosley Lake. I found a copy of
some magazine and started reading in front of the big window
overlooking Grinnell point.
The early morning desk guy, probably
a college student trying to earn next semesters beer money,
walked up behind me and simply stated “they actually
pay me to work here.” I called him a lucky bastard
and commented how beautiful the mountain looked. I would
have worked there for free at that moment myself.
After a few more minutes I went back
to the room and woke yumi up. The plan for today was to
get a fairly early start so that we could get a good campsite
at one of the west side campgrounds. We each showered at
went downstairs to Heidi’s--which is Swiss for convenience
store in the basement-- where we bought milk, coffee and
some danish.
Before we took the sun road over to the
other side, we needed to stop at St. Mary and pick up a
few things and some ice. I also wanted to check out the
backcountry office to see how the bear activity was near
Oldman Lake. Much to our dismay the campground was still
closed. Damn. We were probably gong to have to come up with
another plan.
We made it over Logan Pass and down to
Sprague Creek campground and were lucky enough to find a
site open right on the water. We snagged that site and set
up the tent quickly and jumped back into the truck to go
to Apgar Village.
Apgar was a nice little "community".
The road ran straight down to Lake McDonald and was lined
with gift shops, stores and a hotel. Neat. There was also
a backcountry ranger office here so I decided to stop in
to maybe find an alternative hike to the Dawson Pass loop
in case the bears messed up our plans. Turned out that the
ranger at St. Mary had bad information. Oldman lake was
open, but posted, meaning we had to be extra careful. Our
hike was back on!!!
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| Johns Lake |
We spent some time visiting all of the
gift shops and general store. Since it was close to lunch
time we stopped at Eddies and bought a few sandwiches before
heading out to West Glacier.
West Glacier is the rafting capital of
the area with trips down the Flathead River. I wanted to
check with the Montana Raft Company to make sure we were
good for the 23rd. We were.
Since we didn’t get pie last night
at the Park Cafe, we decided to try some at the restaurant
in town. Yumi tried the huckleberry pie with a scoop of
ice cream while I went with Rhubarb-strawberry a la mode
as well. Very Yummy.
Even though we had been off the trail
for less than a day, Yumi had the urge to walk. I think
she secretly like the way her legs were starting to tone
up from the work and wanted to keep going. We decided to
hike to Sacred Dancing cascade from the Lake McDonald Lodge---about
a 5 mile hike.
We had a lot of experience avoiding the
bear poop for most of our trip, but nothing prepared us
for this. The trail was used by a stable for trail rides...you
get the idea. For over a mile we walked through horse shit
until finally the trail to the cascade branched off. We
came to John’s Lake after awhile, took a few pictures
and discovered that we didn’t know which fork of trail
to take to Sacred Dancing Cascade. We solved that problem
by walking back to the Lodge and driving back over instead.
It was incredible to see what years and years of water could
do to smooth the rocks near the creek.
Back at the campsite we took a short
rest and then fixed dinner: Fettucini Alfredo with chicken
and salad. We topped this off by running back to the Lodge
and grabbing some ice cream. It was another beautiful night
in the park and it seemed a crime to go to bed at 2200 but
we were tired.
   
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