Glacier National Park
Today was a no-travel, or at least very limited travel day. We only moved 20 miles or so from the commercial campground at St Mary to the Many Glacier Campground a little farther north and approximately 12 miles up the Swiftcurrent River valley. This is a large Park Service Campground with over a hundred dry campsites, set in the trees alongside the river at the end of the road. Besides the campground, there is a ranger station, a lodge of sorts with a small store and restaurants, and, just downstream, the historic Many Glacier Hotel. Perhaps we’ll stop by the hotel tomorrow on our way out and check it out.
We were uncertain if we were going to come up to Many Glaciers today or tomorrow; it would depend on whether our Tiger would be within the vehicle size restrictions for the Going to the Sun Road, a narrow, winding road that crosses the park from east to west by traversing Logan Pass on the Continental Divide. So our first order of business was to go down to the St Mary Park Entrance and verify that we could drive over the road. The ranger at the entrance gate asked how long it is and if we were over eight feet wide. Since we’re 19 feet long, which is under the 21-foot length limit, and do not exceed eight feet wide, he said we’re OK. If we were not to be allowed, we would take one of the tour buses today and go to Many Glacier tomorrow. But because we will be able to drive the Tiger over, we’ll wait until tomorrow. This will get us over to the west side of the park which will be closer to our next destination, Missoula.
So we rushed up to Many Glacier to secure a campsite before they totally filled up with the weekend crowd. The access road is a narrow, two-lane ribbon of asphalt. Overall, it’s a fairly decent road, but is generally a bit bumpy and there are two or three pretty rough patched areas, so the driving is slow. We averaged about 35 mph overall. It was around 10:00 or 10:30 when we arrived, and to our dismay the sign at the campground entrance said “Full.” We drove in anyway, and stopped at the campground host’s trailer to ask if it was really full or if there were any sites still available. He was unaware of the Full sign, and said yes, there are a few sites still open. It’s a first-come, first served, no reservation campground, so any site that was not physically occupied or obviously occupied with camping gear in sight, and which did not have a fee ticket on the number post, was available for the taking. We quickly found a site and got ourselves registered.
Because we hadn’t done any real hiking since Denali Park several weeks ago, we were anxious to get our boots on a trail. Several trails of varying lengths and degrees of difficulty radiate out from the campground, and we chose an easy one since we’ve let ourselves get somewhat out of shape with all the driving we’ve been doing. Our chosen trail was the Swiftcurrent Trail, which follows the river up the valley all the way to Swiftcurrent Pass, another pass over the Continental Divide. To go all the way to the pass is a hike of 6.6 miles each way, with an elevation gain of 2300 feet. We didn’t feel like we were up for the whole distance, so we elected just to hike up to Redrocks Lake and Falls, about two miles each way and a much more modest couple of hundred feet of elevation gain. That was perfect for our current level of conditioning. We actually added another half mile or so because one of our cameras’ memory cards filled up as we were photographing flowers just a short way up the trail. This meant returning to the motorhome to get another memory card. That gave us a good excuse to eat lunch and change into shorts before restarting the hike.
The trail is well-maintained the entire way. It starts from a large parking lot right outside the campground and almost immediately crosses a small creek on a sturdy wooden bridge. About a quarter mile up the trail is a side trail down to Fishercap Lake, a small lake from which there are some nice views of the surrounding mountains. For the most part the trail continues in the shade of the fir and spruce trees that make up the overstory vegetation in this valley. Just before reaching Redrocks Lake, there is a small waterfall pouring over the edge of a steep cliff up a side valley. I never found out the name of that waterfall.
Redrocks Lake is a beautiful alpine lake about a quarter of a mile long and a couple of hundred yards wide. It sits at the foot of Grinnell Point, a long ridge that extends from Mount Grinnell, and Mount Wilbur. Redrocks Falls is a series of cataracts at the head of the lake, dropping in three or four stages for a total distance I’d estimate to be forty feet, fed by the snowfields on the pass high above. Again, this is a beautiful setting, with forested slopes leading up to sheer cliffs of jagged rock reminiscent of those that lined the Icefield Parkway through which we passed a few days ago.
Our hike lasted probably twice as long as it should have because we kept stopping to take photos of the scenery and particularly the flowers and berries along the way. It’s getting late in the season for flowers, but there were two or three that we hadn’t seen before so Jeanette was busy with her flower books, trying to get them ID’ed. However, the berries are starting to come out in force, and this presents a whole new challenge. Ever since our Denali hike with all the different berries, identifying berries has become a new passion for Jeanette. The neat thing was, on the way back down the trail we ran into the camp hosts, and Mrs. Host was busy picking berries for a mixed berry pie she planned to bake. Being therefore something of a berry expert, we spent the rest of the way down with her picking her brain on all the berries along the trail – what kind were they, were they edible or poisonous, which made the best pies or jellies. It was quite an education.
It was about 2:30 or 3:00 when we got back to the campground. Off came our boots and out came the comfortable folding chairs. We spent the rest of the afternoon just chilling in the shade, catching up on our reading. We did wander over to the ranger station around 4:30 pm, where we learned of two programs for the evening. One, an astronomy program was to be held up at Logan Pass. That would have been interesting, but it meant a 35 or 40 mile drive each way, with the drive back being after midnight. And because parking up at the Logan Pass Visitor Center is limited, it would be necessary to drive all the way in to St Mary just to get one of the limited number of tickets to access the program. So instead we just stayed here in the campground and listened to one of the rangers give a short, but interesting presentation on plants and animals in the alpine zone of the park.
Tomorrow our plan is to go to 11:00 Mass at the little Catholic Church in the small village of Babb, where the Many Glaciers Road joins the highway, then take the drive over the Going to the Sun Road. We’ll camp over on the west side of the park tomorrow night and head to Missoula on Monday.
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