Sara stopped into the field camp to pick me up at noon so that we could drive ~5 hours up to Glacier National Park country. To fit Glacier into our schedule we would have to drive about 10 hours for only one full day in the park. This seemed excessively gluttonous but with all the park's glaciers forecast to be gone in fifteen years, time seemed to be of the essence so we would take what we could get. We were challenged to make the most of a one-day run through the national park. We quickly wished we had several more!
We took the direct route through the surprisingly unmetropolitan state capitol Helena, and much grassland east of the Rockies. We stayed the night on the plains outside of Browning in a canvas tipi. It was quite spacious and I can better appreciate the design after a clear and cold night in one. I think it was partly low quality wood but I struggled to get a fire going without smoking us out too much. The whole experience certainly had novelty value and thankfully was tactfully done.
I managed to convince Sara to mobilize for a reasonably early start, getting us into the Many Glaciers entrance just after 8am. We hit a deflating snag when we pulled up to the small ranger station to find a posting saying that the trail to Iceberg Lake was "closed due to bear activity." Ugh national parks...With the little research I had time to do on Glacier, this seemed like the best way to spend it. Now suddenly denied that option we poured over the park map in search of a plan B. Though the map showed the terminus lake at Grinnell Glacier to be small than Iceberg, I suspected that the dying glacier would also have some interesting icebergs. We parked a little before 9am at an already nearly full trailhead parking lot and packed for adventure.
The hike was pretty, if clogged with slow, plodding tourists, including a ranger-led group of about 20 people (what hell). A young couple carrying little more than water were the only others that could keep pace and we repeatedly crossed paths from our different choices of photo and water breaks. After the first two motorboat accessible lakes things finally started to feel a little more remote. The trail switchbacked briefly above Grinnell Lake past lush green slopes and meadows and then traversed the Archean rocks into Grinnell's cirque. The trail crossed briefly over very young moraine deposits to reach a view of the lake and glacier. I was delighted (if somewhat saddened) to see the glacier had retreated considerably since the USGS topographic map was made, revealing a much larger Upper Grinnell Lake full of hundreds of icebergs. Here the lakeshore was crowded with people enjoying a mid-morning snack, and a few out of boredom that stripped down to take a two-second plunge in the icy lake. Here we unfurled and inflated our secret weapons, our trusty Alpackas. After a quick snack we pushed off away from the mortals and began paddling through the intricate maze of icebergs.
What great fun! We got to enjoy the many sculpted shapes of the icebergs as we weaved through the narrow gaps between them. I enjoyed some of the metamorphic textures and cave-like alcoves. In some cases I had to push or prod man-sized icebergs out of the way to allow us passage. The icebergs glistened with melt from the already warming day. The wind was strong enough to push the icebergs around which was highly disorienting as the geometry and pattern of recognizable landmarks would change. With the tourists relegated to the role of tiny ants on the furthest shore, it was like we had the whole lake and glacier to ourselves. Paddling around the icebergs was an easy highlight of the whole road trip. It was quite unlike anything I had done before.
After many photos and Ooos and Ahhs, we
paddled over to the collapsing face of the glacier. In just a few
minutes we saw several large boulders collapse off the melting front and
splash into the lake. It was amazing to see how active it was in the modest sun, and easy to picture the glacier being gone in fifteen years as forecast. To the side of this collapsing cliff face was a considerably more stable looking ramp that we could beach our packrafts on and explore the glacier. Since the side of the glacier nearest the trail is heavily crevassed, here again we had a distinct advantage of being able to access the easiest approach across the glacier, and once again we had the glacier 100% to ourselves. We walked up the ramp and across a few deep but narrow crevasses to the wind-sculpted shadows of the accumulation zone. Here we took turns butt-sliding down the steep but bumpy slopes. Sara seemed particularly entertained, and was entertaining to watch. The view down the glacier and across the iceberged lake was quite agreeable.
Once back at the boats we found the icebergs to have drifted across the lake, effectively cutting off the way we had approached the glacier and forcing us to forge a new route through. We found a mostly clear route along the base of Salamander Falls, though I did have to use force to move a couple very large icebergs blocking our path. Once through we explored the icebergs a little more, if only to delay our return to the crowded shore with families and smokers. We saw a bald eagle swoop overhead and perch itself on a ledge of the cliff- we were pretty sure we were the only ones that saw it. Now early afternoon time was catching up with us. We beached, quickly deflated boats, and took off.
With Sara leading the charge we made excellent time back down the trail, passing countless people walking at painfully slow paces. Several seemed to have looked on at us kayaking across the lake with more than a ping of jealousy. I would be too- kayaking the lake and walking across the glacier was the best possible way to spend this portion of the day. Kudos to Glacier NP for having one of the most unrestrictive and logical policies on packrafting of any national park.
After a quick stop in St Mary we drove back into the park along Saint Mary Lake and drove west on the famous Going-To-The-Sun Road. It was certainly quite impressive and must have been quite the feat of engineering and sweat at the time. Although I could easily spend a week or more in Glacier's backcountry if given the chance, I felt satisfied that we had made the most of the one day we were able to spend before heading back for home. We drove through the park on dusk and stayed at a nice enough campground in West Glacier. Thanks to Sara for a memorable day.
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