Day 9 of our grand tour of the country. We woke up to the sunlight (as I said before, I’m not sure the sun ever sets in Glacier National Park!). There were two options for our morning: 1) a 3 mile, ranger-led hike 2) and 11 mile hike to Grinell Glacier. Scott, still getting over his pneumonia, wanted to go to the glacier. I, knowing he was still much too sick to handle an 11 mile hike up a mountain, decided we would do the ranger led hike.

Ranger-led hike can be either really awesome experiences, or they can be semi-awesome experiences. No matter what, a ranger is going to lead you through a cool trail and give you tons of information about the park, wildlife, and scenery around you. The only thing that can damper an experience is if you are with a hard group. We ended up with a hard group. For the most part, the people in our group were park-lovers who just wanted to experience nature. There were a couple people in our group who made our 3 mile hike take 3 hours, as they constantly asked to stop to take breaks. It was a little frustrating, as we didn’t necessarily plan on it taking so long. However, we stuck near Ranger Julia and asked lots of questions and got way more information than she probably planned on telling us.

We hiked the Beaver Pond trail that was just outside the St. Marys entrance gate. The ranger that led the hike was named Julia. Julia was seriously so cool. She is from Wisconsin, and has been coming out every year during the season to work as a ranger for Glacier because she loves it so much. She was incredibly knowledgeable, and was pretty funny as well! She had us play Marco Polo to make sure we kept the bears away, and then told us how she is way more afraid of moose than she is of bears. She kept calling moose “dopey-looking” which made Scott and I laugh. She talked a lot about the species of plants and animals in Glacier. Ranger Julia told us that there are something like 29 species that are solely found in Glacier National Park, and nowhere else in the world! She talked a lot about the Douglas Fir and Lodgepole Pine trees. One of the gentlemen on the hike told us an Indian folklore of why Douglas Fir pinecones look the way they do. Here is a link if you want to read the folklore:  http://livingwilderness.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-legend-of-mice-and-douglas-fir.html

 

We finished up the hike, then went back to the camper to eat some lunch. After lunch, we decided to take the main road through the park, Going To The Sun Road. We visited pretty early in the season at Glacier, so the middle section of the road by Logan’s Pass was closed due to snow removal. We were definitely bummed, but nothing you can do about it! We took the road all the way up to Jackson Glacier Overlook. There were so many beautiful sights to be seen: St. Marys Lake, Jackson Glacier, mountains and rivers and waterfalls….do I need to go on? We also saw a male moose in the woods!

 

We then headed up to Many Glacier. In the little town of Many Glacier, there is a hotel, restaurant, and tons of bighorn sheep! Not to mention a big lake! We parked the truck, walked around a little, then went to the path that started the hike to Grinell Glacier. Fun fact, Grinell Glacier was named for one of the major contributors to the conservation and national park designation of Glacier National Park. We hiked along Lake Josephine and Swiftcurrent Lake, which were seriously beautiful views! You wouldn’t believe the color of the water and the rocks that come down from the mountains. It’s unreal.

 

We then started heading back toward camp. We pulled off on the side of the road at Akupuni Falls. Scott bought us a National Parks guidebook, and it said it was an easy 2 mile roundtrip hike to a cool waterfall. Boy was that book wrong! I think the entire mile to the falls was straight uphill! It was so hard! The waterfall was definitely cool, and there were several others on the trail who huffed and puffed with us. This also helped keep my fears about the bears down 🙂

 

We headed back to the campsite, made dinner, and had a nice fire. There are ground squirrels EVERYWHERE in Glacier National Park. If you get too close to them, they make the funniest sounds! They look just like a combo between squirrels and prairie dogs. One even came right up to us! I tried giving it a tortilla chip, but it wasn’t interested!

Overall, it was a seriously awesome day spent in Glacier National Park! This has been my favorite national park thus far, and we have marked down the things we want to see next time!

Next post: Day 2 of Glacier National Park, and we head to Coeur D’Alene, Idaho on our way toward Washington!