GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, MONTANA
Sometimes days don't turn out at all how you plan. At first, you think it's going to be a waste of a day. And then bam! It turns into one of those days with unplannable, non-replicable events that make it one of the more memorable days of a trip.
I originally planned to hike the Highline Trail today, but the forecast said it was going to be cloudy and rainy and WINDY and smoky (!) all day. Boo.
So I decided to save the Highline Trail for next weekend (fingers crossed the weather is better!) and do some hikes today where the payoff isn't quite as weather dependent. I opted instead for Hidden Lake and Mount Oberlin.
Once again I was rewarded for getting up early. Also, I'm not a meteorologist, but that doesn't look like an overcast sky to me.
Although the sky never did cloud up or rain today, it WAS hazy.
Why?
Smoke!
I am not clear exactly where this smoke is coming from (wildfires in California? Canada?) but the meteorologists aren't making it up. Each night, I crack my bedroom window a bit so my room is nice and cool for sleeping. But last night, my room smelled like campfire and I thought, oh, someone in the neighborhood is using their fireplace. Nope. The smell is from distant wildfires. All day today, the air smelled like campfire and Christmas trees while I was hiking.
One more pic of this morning:
Hitchhiking Karma
Today, before I even hit my first trailhead, I had already made up my mind I was going to give a ride to some hitchhikers (if I saw any) as a way of paying it forward for a ride next weekend.
Sounds crazy, I know. And "why?" you ask.
Because next weekend I am hiking the Highline Trail which is 14 miles, point to point. This means you have to park at the end of the trail and find a ride to the beginning of the trail. Normally, you catch a free park shuttle, but the shuttles are done for the season, so the next viable option is to hitchhike. (Not making this up. It's a commonly recommended practice in hiking areas.) I'm super worried I'll waste half my day waiting for a ride. (My parents say I should super worry about getting murdered.) So today I decided to build some good karma by giving a ride if I see someone who needs a ride. I also decided to not murder anyone. You know, for some good not-getting-murdered karma. :)
Sure enough, just inside the park, I saw two young men on the side of the road. I picked them up and they were delightful. Silas and Ruben both grew up in Kalispell, MT, about an hour outside the west park entrance. They both went away for college, just graduated, and just moved back that summer for jobs in accounting and environmental policy.
They were going to run 18 miles today in that wicked cold wind. I commented how difficult it would be to run that far! They joked that the benefit of doing a point-to-point run is that you just make it halfway and then you're forced to run the final half. "So really, you just decide to run 9 miles and then you're forced to do 18." I couldn't argue with that reasoning.
I dropped them off, they politely thanked me, and I headed to the Logan Pass parking lot to check out Hidden Lake. Karma secured.
Hidden Lake
The trailhead to Hidden Lake is located at the Logan Pass Visitor Center parking lot. The trail is a moderate 5 mile out-and-back, but turned into just 2.8 miles roundtrip because the last half of the trail was closed due to a mama bear and her two cubs hanging out in that area.
And boy, it was cold and WINDY! Also, the trail was PACKED. There was a constant line of people going both up and down the trail. Not my cup of tea to share MY trails, but also, sometimes the busiest trails are busiest for good reason.
Here is Hidden Lake. Not a shabby view for an early Saturday morning.
Total miles = 2.78
Total elevation gain = 812'
Peak elevation = 7,178'
Mount Oberlin
From there, I wanted to hike Mount Oberlin but there was a rope hanging across the trailhead, blocking it off. I wondered if this trail was also closed due to bears?
Fortunately, the trailhead is near the Logan Pass Visitor Center so I found a Park Ranger and asked her about the trailhead. "Oh, you just step over the rope," she said.
Before I could ask why the trail was roped off if it wasn't really closed, she asked, "Do you have climbing experience? This is a climbing trail."
I paused. I have done some pretty legit hiking and scrambling by now, but I am definitely not a climber. "Do you mean scrambling? Or actual climbing? As in, do you need ropes for this?"
"No, you don't need ropes," she said, "But you need climbing experience."
I was confused at that point and admittedly, I hadn't read details about Mount Oberlin in advance, so I wasn't sure if it was really that technical or if she just thought I wasn't capable. Without that knowledge, but with the knowledge that it was super gusty that day which makes me nervous when balance is critical, I decided to not press it. Instead I asked about Florence Falls and she said that would be a good one for me to do.
Here is a picture of Mt. Oberlin. You can see the dirt trail cut through the trees in the background. What you can't see is the rope blocking the entrance to that path. Or my regret for not attempting it.
For the record, I read about Mount Oberlin when I got home. It does NOT require climbing and yes, it requires some scrambling, but it is no more technical than other hikes I've done. I'm kicking myself that I allowed that Park Ranger to discourage me from something I wanted to do. Now I have to go back to Glacier National Park just to climb that stupid mountain and prove I can do it.
Florence Falls
Exactly unlike the crowded Hidden Lake Trail, Florence Falls was a quiet hike with NO ONE on the trail, which I loved. What I didn't love is that Florence Falls is a long boring flat hike, which confirmed that the Park Ranger underestimated my hiking abilities. Boo.
The Florence Falls Trail is a total of 9.6 miles, out and back. The first mile is a moderate descent into a canyon, which means the last mile out is a bit of a climb - save the best for last is what I say!
Here is a pretty stop about a mile in. It's a baby slot canyon being formed! Check out how crystal clear that blue water is. Amazing.
From there, you follow a long flat trail through tall trees with dense undergrowth. When I say the vegetation is dense, it is THICK, and ranges from waist-high to head-high.
I was the only person on the trail. On the nearly five miles to the waterfall, I saw just 3 groups of hikers.
So of course, with no one around and dense vegetation, I was nervous about bears. I took the safety off my bear spray can and kept it in my hand like a gun, ready to use in an instant, if necessary.
About half a mile in, I heard strange noises to my right. I had never heard this sound before, but in the moment, it was half wail, half growl, like how you would imagine a bear yawning loudly. That's the only way I can think to describe it.
I stopped.
I could hear it off to my right but I couldn't place where it was coming from. Of course, I turned my video on in case I DID see a bear, because even though I really wanted no close encounters of any kind, if I did end up in a precarious situation, I might as well get it on film!
I couldn't see anything moving and I couldn't place where the sound was coming from. So I shrugged and continued on. But I was on high alert the entire time I hiked, which is a little bit exhausting if I'm being honest.
Spoiler alert: on the way back, I heard the same sound in the same spot. This time I figured out the source. It was a clump of trees rubbing together in the wind. How crazy is that??
Here is a shot along the trail of a cool foot bridge:
The bridge is way bigger than it looks in that picture. Those log steps are knee high! I took another pic in front of it for frame of reference, but sometimes I think that ends up making things like huge logs and boulders look smaller than they really are ...
The Runners
At just over 4 miles in, roughly 1/2 mile from the waterfall, I saw a woman running around the corner toward me. I thought, "Man, this woman is a go-getter to be RUNNING the trails!"
Jokingly, I called out to her, "Are you running? Or running away?"
Without slowing down a bit, she looked over her shoulder, then back at me and gasped, "Running AWAY!"
As she got closer to me, a man suddenly came running around the same curve in trail.
She ran past me, waiting behind me for the man to catch up.
When the man caught up, the couple explained they had rounded a curve further down the trail and almost literally ran into two moose - a bull and a cow. The moose startled them and they startled the moose. The couple took off running, but then the guy figured he might as well get a picture as long as he was that close, so he stopped to snap a photo. At that exact moment, a third moose (another bull) came out of the trees and started charging him. That's when he took off after his wife.
They were both visibly shaken and kept looking back over their shoulders at the trail, ready to sprint at the first hint of Bullwinkle horns coming around that curve.
Now here I was ... SO CLOSE to the waterfall, faced with the prospect of hiking 9 miles roundtrip of flat boring trail for nothing. I asked if they were going to the waterfall.
The woman said, "Absolutely not." The man paused, thinking it over, and then he shuddered, recalling the close encounter and agreed with his wife. "No way, it's not worth it."
I decided I still wanted to press forward. If I was going to hike 9+ miles, I was going to see a waterfall or a moose, darn it!
The man explained how far up the trail the moose were, reasoned that I had bear spray which would be just as effective on a moose as it would be on a bear, and that the moose had probably been startled off the trail by now anyway.
I agreed with him and said I was going for it.
He shook his head and said, "God be with you."
And so, with my bear spray in one hand and my iPhone in video mode in the other, I started down the trail, taking great care around each curve, looking for movement all around me. I stopped occasionally to listen. I heard nothing except the very strong wind. I occasionally called out "Hey, moose!" so I wouldn't startle them up close and so they would have time to clear away from the human.
With each step, I silently debated how stupid it would be to go this far and turn around without seeing the waterfall. And then simultaneously debated how stupid it would be to walk right into a few aggressive moose, knowing that this is how dumb people end up on the evening news.
Here's a video of my foray into the moose's den:
Ok, so that video was definitely a let down. But hopefully it gave you a sense of the same stress and anticipation I felt as I scanned the underbrush for signs of movement!
I continued down the trail, at a painfully slow pace. I had read that you never want to surprise a bear, so you should make lots of noise so the bear can hear you coming and get out of the way. I figured the same should hold true for moose.
I sounded like an absolute lunatic as I walked down the trail, talking out loud to moose I couldn't see. "Hey moose, just a human here, coming your way ... I'm not going to hurt you ... In fact, I couldn't hurt you if I tried ... On the other hand, you could definitely hurt me ... but please don't." And so on. You know, the usual things you say to a moose.
Here is a video of the moose footprints on the trail. They are HUGE.
As I made my way further down the trail, I grew more and more confident. I figured the moose had cleared the trail by now. Also, I reasoned they are probably much like the cattle I grew up around. They aren't carnivorous killers; they are docile animals protecting themselves and their young, but will take on that killer instinct if you venture too close.
I thought about how the moose charged the man and that it was probably a bluff on the moose's part; but if the man hadn't run away, THEN the moose would have gotten down to business. So the bottom line is to just stay back. And probably to get behind a tree because how are those moose antlers going to get you if you're behind a tree? And that's your daily moose musings from someone with absolutely zero moose knowledge. And now it's on the internet so you have to believe it.
As I neared the waterfall, I came to a spot where a tree had fallen over the trail. What surprised me is that, although the tree had been there a long time, there was no obvious path over or around the tree. That surprised me and made me wonder if anyone came out this far? Or if the moose spooked everyone away?
And it was in this exact spot that I experienced the most dangerous encounter I had on this trip:
Me.
In fairness, I had bear spray in one hand and my phone in the other, so I had no way to catch myself as I went down, ha! I showed the video to my parents and they asked why I turned the video off? I didn't. I fumbled the phone as I went down and accidentally turned the video off somehow. Good grief!
Anyway, after ALL that, I finally reached the waterfall. And yes, it was worth the 9.68 miles, the near moose encounter, tripping over a log, and hollering non-sense like a crazy person.
Florence Falls is beautiful! I can't find anything online that definitively says how tall the falls are. I'm guessing 100-200 feet? Each of those little "steps" is knee to hip high. So let me know if you can figure out the math on this.
Here's a live photo on loop:
Here's another live photo, this one on long exposure:
The hike back was much faster. I hurried as fast as I could, hoping I would catch up to that couple. I wanted them to know God went with me, per the man's parting words.
I wanted to tell them about my hitchhiking karma - that if I hadn't picked those young men up earlier, I would have been a minute ahead of the couple and I would have been the one to encounter the moose. And thank God I wasn't first because I guarantee I can't run as fast as they did.
I wanted to tell them I never did see a moose, but that I heard them. That the female moose was nagging, "I told you we would run into humans if we if we took the trail, but nooo, you never listen to me!" And then the male said, "Look, YOU try weaving in and out of trees with these antlers and then tell me we shouldn't take the trail." And then the third moose said, "Guys, guys, did you SEE how fast those humans took off?? I am STILL laughing at the looks on their faces after I pretended to charge them!"
I'm not sure the couple would have found it nearly as funny as I did.
I also wanted to ask the most important question of all. Did the man actually get a picture of the moose before it started charging him??!
I never did catch up to them, so I guess we will never know.
Total miles = 9.68
Total elevation gain = 1,579'
Peak elevation = 5,305'