Geoff and Jenn's 1997 Glacier NP Trip
Day
3: Iceberg Lake, Glacier NP
The day began with a hasty exit from the previous night's
campover at The Rising Sun campground. Strangely enough, we
noticed that the cheese left in the car had been eaten overnight
-- we considered it a fluke.
After a quick refueling at St. Mary's
"super" market (donuts and canned chili) we headed off
to "Many Glaciers" to seek our daily destiny. Waffling
between taking a hike to a glacier, and a hike to a high altitude
lake, we eventually decided on the latter (remembering the
glacier hike at Banff, and also notably, Vice President Gore was
just on the Grinnell Glacier hike just a few days before).
The hike started out with a fairly significant
vertical climb, leaving us both wheezing for breath, pitying our
flatland lungs. Unfortunately, it appeared that most of the
wildflowers had passed for the season, but it was too early for
the aspen to have changed, leaving us in a moderate scenery
hiatus.
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Quick
Shot of Jenn at the Beginning of the Hike.
Destination: base of the
cragged edges in upper left horizon.
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Cheesy
Quick Shot of Geoff at the Beginning of the Hike
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After several kilometers of breath taking views
up and down the valley, and after a "surprise"
waterfall (whose noise came and disappeared within a few steps)
we came upon an oasis of wildflowers still in bloom around a
spring fed trickle of a stream coming off the mountain. Jenn
counted some 15-20 different unique wildflowers.
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Why
Do Wildflowers Always Get the Best View!?
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The
Deep Scarlet Red Paintbrush
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We took an immediate picture of a gorgeous
purple, multi-flowered specimen, only to be embarrassed to find
out that it was simply fireweed. Among the others, we saw
columbine, paintbrush, and harebells. Also of note was pistamen,
parnissus (first timer for us), and wild chives and onions (again
first timers). While Jenn focused on recording the sightings in
our Audubon, I took pictures of the area (immediately above and
below). As for the paintbrush, by the end of the trip we had
spotted everything from the traditional red, to a beautiful pink,
to luscious scarlet, and to even a more rare all white one.
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The
Embarrassing Fireweed
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The
Horticulturist Doing Her Work
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After crossing the alpine valley, the trail
forked to ptarmigan lake and iceberg lake. Heading left, we then
traveled along (towards) the back side of the garden wall. We
found an interesting sunflower like plant, with a deep red center
the bulged upwards. Geoff caught a picture of it on the way back
down (complete with a small alpine fly). We also encountered a
monkey flower as we got closer to the lake.
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The
Mysterious Minitiare Sunflower
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A
Gorgeous Monkey Flower
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View
from the Iceberg Lake Trail
(Notice the falls in the
middle)
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All the while Geoff munched on sunflower seeds, while
Jenn lived off the land, gobbling all of the wild
trailside raspberries. With each person passing
by on the trail, the common question asked (both ways)
was "Have you seen a bear yet?" Increasingly
through the day, it became a mission, especially given
the improbable, but true fact that Jenn had yet to see a
bear in her life.
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| Eventually (pant) we came to the lake, with beautiful
mini-icebergs floating in it. Interestingly, the icebergs
were most melted where it touched the water, leaving an
interesting contour around it. We debated as to whether
or not the melting was due to the motion of the waves on
top of the water, or the heating of the top inches of the
lake by the sun. |
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At
Last! We Glimpse the Iceberg Lake!
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Notice
the Cool Formations of the Icebergs
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Picture
Happy
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Greens
and Blues
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Mountain
Goat at 300mm
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From the lake, we could also see a number of mountain
goats -- big burly things, with short stubby legs. One
was kind enough to stand and trot around for us to see.
We saw three precariously asleep on what appeared to be a
solid rock ledge. Jenn snapped a picture of one crossing
a talus slope. At 300mm, it still looks pretty
small. |
| After a voracious snack of triscuits, ham, swiss,
turkey and cheddar, we headed back down, already
exhausted. We immediately came upon a herd of big horn
sheep that we missed on the way up. We counted some 25-30
traveling in a big pack, and accompanied somewhat by
another mountain goat. |
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Goats
and Sheep? Its a Conspiracy!
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Still desperate to see a bear, we kept scanning
the hills on the way back down. In the process, we managed to
pick out many dead, brown logs the deceptively looked like bears,
and a sleeping elk on the other side of the valley.
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The
Young Fellow Checks Us Out
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Then, on the final mile, Geoff spotted a small brown
bear just a hundred yards below the trail. It promptly
stood on its hind legs to let us all have a look at him.
Jenn got an initial quick snap, a second, although more
distant shot came after. Too bad we did not have our
telephoto on! Needless to say, Jenn was quite elated at
the encounter. |
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And
the Waddles Away
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Finally, upon reaching the inn at the end of the trail, we
spotted a pack of tourists pointing into the hills at a distant
peak. Evidently, a grizzly was roaming high above on one of the
peaks. Sneaking a peak through a park ranger's spotting scope we
could get a pretty good glimpse of the fellow. Jenn could spot it
with her naked eyes, earning much praise from the crowd. Other
visitors spotted a big horn sheep on a neighboring mountain. Our
response was "oh, just another sheep, big woop."
Obviously, we could not hide our disdain for having to walk so
many miles to see *our* sheep, while these flabby tourists
only had to walk five feet out of their cars.
Thus, the day ended with approximately a total of 10 mountain
goats, 40 big horn sheep, 1 elk, 1 brown bear, 15 tourists, and 1
distant grizzly. To top the day off, we saw two white-tailed dears on the drive out of the camp. We considered it a fair day
in the big mammal game circuit.
Too tired to move, we had dinner at the "Two Sisters
Cafe", both of us ordering a big country fried steak dinner,
complete with cantaloupe and corn on the cob. The pies look world-renowned, but our stomachs were full (tomorrow's snack?)
We crashed hard, and prayed that the cavalier would make it
through another day (its throttle is stuck open to at least 15%
again).
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