August 27 - Hiking in Glacier NP

There are a lot of trails to hike in Glacier, so it was hard to decide which one to take.  We chose the hike to Grinnell Glacier, 11 miles there and back, with a 1,600 foot elevation gain on the way there.  We rode to the Many Glacier area, where the trail starts, on the motorcycle.

We had time to take lots of pictures of the scenery, mountains, and wildlife along the trail.

The uphill going was tough in spots, plus it was pretty warm.

Bear grass!

We stopped to cool off with a splash from this stream.

Didn't expect a shower on the trail, but it felt good!

Bullhead Lake?

Roxane trying to cool off her......

The view of where we came from.

And we finally get to Grinnell Glacier.  Worth the hike.

11

Time to relax with some snacks and frappacino.

See that low point in the mountain above?  We spotted a person up there perched on the Continental Divide.

Zoomed in on him/her - just looks like a point in the middle though.

We decided to cool off our feet in the glacier's lake.  Man it was so cold it hurt instantly!  But it did the trick, we were ready to head back down.

Standing on the glacier - barely.

Lots of flowers up here.

And we spotted almost 20 mountain goats way up on the side of the mountain.

More flowers.

That's actually a pretty big waterfall down there.

Whoa - what's that down there in the middle of our trail?

This dude was a lot bigger than they look in pictures - like as big as a big pony.  We weren't going to mess with him!  We just waited for him to move off the trail, then he still hung around snacking and posing for pictures.

Did we say there were flowers all over up here?

Just one more step back says Roxane....

Roxane's turn for a shower, although by now it was cooling off a bit and didn't feel as good.

More bear grass.

We started to wish we had bought a ticket on that boat way down there to shave a couple miles off the return trip.

But then we would have missed snacking on these thimble berries.  We left some for the bears though.

A closer view of the boat taxi.

Here's the lodge at Many Glacier.  Pretty big.

And the motorcycle ride home.

Is that a big black......oh it's a cow....watching the cars and us go by.

Now this is free range beef!

Had a big family style dinner back at Johnson's Cafe.  Man were we hungry - and sore.  Time for some extra pain relievers and a good night's sleep.  Tomorrow is a 200 mile motorcycle ride through Glacier to Kalispell and back.