Day 7 - Glacier hikes

 4:45 a.m. Up and packing for a big hike today. Leaving at 5:15 a.m. just to get a highly-coveted parking space.  Drove up Going to the Sun Road again to Logans Pass in the dark.  Better this time because it wasn't raining.  Constant line of traffic marching up the mountain.  We got there at 6:45 a.m. and got a parking spot.  It was cold and SO windy up there that Mike got in the back of the van and took a nap while I took pictures of the sunrise and then joined him to warm up.

We slept for a couple hours, hoping the weather would get better.  We woke up to a full parking lot, people driving around in circles over and over trying to get a spot, and the guy in the spot next to ours selling his spot for $20.  We sat in the back of the van and watched the chaos and ate danishes. We thought about holding an auction, selling our spot to the highest bidder, and leaving, but we decided to hike instead.  We started with the trail to Hidden Lake, instead of our planned route along Highline Trail, because of the wind. The trail to Hidden Lake was pretty, but lots of steps and a constant incline that made it hard for me to breathe at this altitude, so I really didn't enjoy it much.

The highlight for me was seeing this little cutie and petting him.  He stole half my sandwich!

I gave Mike my hat/scarf because he didn't have a hat, scarf, or hood, and I had a hood.  So I wore my face mask as a scarf.  The warmth was nice, but I had to take it off because I couldn't breathe. 

Mike took this picture of Hidden Lake when the sun hit this corner of it.  The rest of the lake was dark and not very pretty under the heavy cloud cover.  Not worth the considerable effort to get there, in my opinion, but I think Mike liked it. 

We hiked back to Logans Pass and decided to at least start Highline Trail, since it's a famously popular trail and what we had planned to do.  The wind was still fierce, making an already scary ledge even scarier. There's a cable attached to the rock face, and I had at least one hand on it 99% of the time.

The Highline Trail on the left, and Going to the Sun Road way down below on the right.

View from the Highline.

We were pretty well spent after that, so we hiked back to our prized parking spot and left.  It is way more crowded on the trails and the road than I expected.  The whole place is crawling with people and cars.We stopped at a roadside stand and bought fresh Montana cherries on the way back to our place.  They were delicious.  Juicy and sweet.  We also tried our first huckleberry.  They were pretty good too, but we didn't buy any.  Tonight we're going to order a pizza, get things cleaned and organized (the van is showing signs of being on an ERT), and get ready to head for Yellowstone in the morning.  Hate to leave this place.  We loved it.

Sunset tonight from our back door.