Hiking in Glacier has been on the top of my list for a long time. And as and added bonus, my friend Brit that I hiked with on the A.T. was going to be here as well. He came to the states from England this year to hike the Continental Divide Trail to complete his tripple crown. For those of you who don't know what that is, it means that he had already completed the A.T. and the Pacific Crest Trail, which is kind of impressive if you ask me, but also a little crazy. For those of you who do not know what the CDT is, it's the longest of the three major long distance hiking trails in the U.S., running from the Mexican border in New Mexico to the Canadian border in Glacier National Park, Montana. So it had been three years since i had gotten to see him and i was very excited about getting the chance to hang out, especially getting to celebrate the completion of a thru-hike. Glacier is also one of those life-list destinations for backpacking, famous for it's many glaciers and rugged back country
Planning a hike in Glacier can be a little tricky because there are limited backcountry campsites with limited space at each. So you basically have to come up with a Plan B and Plan C and then be willing to be a little flexible. The process can be made easier depending on the ranger you end up talking to, like if you get one who actually enjoys his job and wants to make sure you enjoy your hike. We didn't get one of those rangers. We also didn't get our first choice of hikes but we were pretty excited about the route we got to take. It would take us out of Many Glacier Campground up through Red Gap Pass to camp at Poia Lake.There was a great deal of bearanoia going around and not just on our part. This was our first hike in grizzly country and it seemed it was all anyone could talk about.
The campsites are set up with a separate cooking area and they don't want you to bring anything that smells like anything into the sleeping area.
The weather forcast was supposed to be farily good but things can change in the mountains very quickly. We got drizzled on for about an hour on the first day and it got pretty chilly at night but over all it wasn's so bad. The next on the other hand would probably best be described as greasy. One of those days where it's less than a drizzle but you still end up wet and cold the entire time. There was also this lovely grey line that hung over all the mountaintops so when we were in the valleys you couldn't see the mountains and when we were on the mountains we couldn't see anything. We did get a few beautiful views here an there, and there's a certain mysterious beauty to walking through the clouds at 7,000 feet. Reguardless, it was an overwhelming experience as i had never really hiked in big open mountains like this. I definitely plan on coming back again.
