Glacier National Park is never without adventure and every
time I go there, I leave having learnt something new. I have been there several times climbing the
greater peaks and have come to realize that the most dangerous objective
hazards aren’t the rock and icefall, but the people, concession food, and
wildlife.
Justin reaching the base of the route
If you are like Justin and I, and choose an objective in the
East side of the park, you must first survive “Going to the Sun” road. 48 miles of winding mountainous road filled
with clueless tourist. This is like
running the gauntlet. For 48 miles you
are dodging tourist who are both looking at the scenery and not paying
attention to the road, or just too scared of the road to stay in their own
lane. Pinned between a rock wall and a
large drop on the other side, you’re left with very few options and the driving
can get sporty. If you do survive the
drive and need time to unwind with a beer and some food, good luck.
Beginning the climb
Every time I eat at one of the concessions, I am amazed at
how horrible the food is. Generally 2
million people pass through the park every year and spend a ton of money on
lodging and food only to be served slop.
As Justin experienced, it can be crippling. Now that you are stressed from the driving
and nauseous from the food, its time to survive the approach.
Just below our high point
With one of the highest concentrations of grizzly bears in
the lower 48, the threat of an encounter is a realistic one. Most of that concentration is in the Many
Glacier area, exactly where our objective was.
Most of the time the bears don’t concern me much, but I’d be
lying if I said I wasn’t nervous this time.
We began hiking in the dark around 6am trying not to think about the
bears and make good time. We were about
15 minutes down the trail when through my dim headlamp; I caught the glimpse of
something big and brown. In a panic I
began backpedaling and raised my bear spray.
I couldn’t make out what it was, but I was preparing for a charge. Finally Justin shined his brighter headlamp
on the animal and we could see it was just a moose. Still incredibly dangerous, but not as
terrifying. Eventually a calf showed up
and began nursing. It was an incredible
sight, but we were in a hurry. The
stubborn moose took 20 minutes to haze off the trail eating into our precious
day. The rest of the approach went with
out incident. We listened to elk bugling
in the morning light and got surprised by a goat when we reached the base of
the climb.
Hidden Lake
The face looked more moderate than I expected. Quickly my nervousness gave way to
excitement, but by the time we crossed the snowfield to the rock, Justin was
doing all he could not to let the last night’s dinner come back up. Despite feeling worked, he began
climbing. We had only been soloing for
about 20 minutes when we spotted dark clouds moving in. 500 feet up the face; we weren’t yet at a
point of total commitment. Between the
poor looking weather heading our way and Justin being sick, we decided it was
best to leave this climb for another day.
We enjoyed the scenery as we hiked out feeling luck to live
in such a beautiful state. With the
remainder of the day, we check out other spots in the park (and yes, saw a
bear) and worked our way back to Whitefish where we could get some good and
safe food.
Great Northern Peak
Justin on the summit
