(This is a long one- it covers 11 days)
So where did I leave off . . . I was in the middle of Trip 3 and I had just finished backpacking with Tibber and was driving to East Glacier to meet up with MattB, Jen (yep, that Jen) and her daughter Maia, who is now 17 years old, if you can believe that.
Our original plan was a 3 or 4 night backpack through the Park Creek drainage and over Two Medicine Pass to Two Medicine. However, our plan was foiled when the trail to Cobalt Lake closed for bears. Good thing I had that permit for two nights at Gunsight Lake because we used it as our backup plan.
We drove to Two Medicine on the 23rd to pick up our permit and did a hike to Upper Two Medicine Lake.
With a stop at Twin Falls. Can you find Jen and Maia?
After that, we drove to St Mary Campground and set up camp. I brought some potato chips down from Canada, flavors that you can’t find in the US. Jen and Matt’s favorite was the All Dressed, and Maia liked the Spicy Dill Pickle best. No one really cared for the Ketchup chips.
We ate at the Mexican restaurant in St Mary that night. You order your food at the counter and then sit at picnic tables outside, where your food is brought out to you. They had live music and the food was pretty good.
On the morning of the 24th, Jen and I drove to St Mary Lodge and picked up some quick breakfast food and some sandwiches for lunch. We then packed up our backpacks and moved some gear to Matt’s van, so that the 4 of us could fit in my vehicle for the ride to the trailhead at Jackson Glacier Overlook.
The problem writing these trip reports 3 months after the fact is that some of the details are fuzzy (I’m getting older, remember?) so I can’t remember small things like what time we left the trailhead, or what the temperature was, or whether it was buggy. I do remember that it was a really nice hike and my first time hiking beyond the Reynolds Creek Campground.
Twice in the past I have gotten lucky with permits for GUN ELL SPE, and both times I had to cancel, once for bad weather and the other time because of the Reynolds Creek Fire.
We stopped for lunch at the creek below Florence Falls and took a nice break. We ate our sandwiches, and Jen decided to drink the beer she had packed to avoid carrying it during the uphill climb.
We were all doing pretty well with the hike in before lunch, but things turned south afterward. Just beyond the bridge where we enjoyed our lunch, the uphill begins. It really isn’t that bad of a climb, but it got hot. And we all just finished a big lunch. And one of us just finished a beer. We took a lot of breaks. And we might have gotten a little whiney. But it really wasn’t long before we reached Gunsight Lake.
Gunsight Lake was under a mosquito warning, so I decided to pack a Thermacell Backpacker. I had heard good things about this device from other backpackers in the Canadian Rockies, and how it is really effective against mosquitoes (but not flies), but it was going to be my first time trying it out. When I showed it to Matt and Jen while packing at St Mary, they both kinda chuckled and I could tell they were skeptical.
Well let me tell you, this thing was a lifesaver.
The mosquitoes were horrific at the campground. Bug nets were a necessity.
So I fired up the Thermacell, and what do you know . . . they disappeared. This thing is a godsend. It doesn’t kick off much noticeable fume, and who knows what we were inhaling, but we could take off our bug nets and not be bothered. And it has a ten foot radius, so we were the most popular group at the food prep area. Everyone in the food prep benefited from it, and we all hung out there after supper instead of scattering.
You can see it on the ground on the upper left side of this photo. It weighs about 3-4 ounces and screws onto a gas canister. It doesn’t use much gas at all, and each Thermacell repellant sheet that slides into the device lasts about 4 hours.
I think on this night we had the most people I’ve ever seen in Glacier food prep area. You can’t even see everyone here. There were at least 20 people. And notice that no one is using a bug net!
A few from the other groups told us that after we left the food prep and I hung the Thermacell, the mosquitoes reappeared so they all went back to their tents.
I’m digressing a little but I wanted to sing the praises of the Thermacell Backpacker.
After we arrived at the campground, we spent a while in the food prep while Maia found us a campsite. After hanging food we set up camp. Henry Styles (owner of Tarptent) would be proud. Jen has a Tarptent Hogback, Matt used a Tarptent Rainbow, and I used a Tarptent Double Rainbow while car camping.
We then went down to relax by the lake for awhile.
We had a helicopter fly by a couple times, which we knew was probably not a good sign. And during the night, we heard the helicopters again. We learned on our return that this was the evening that the bodies of Jack Beard and Brian Kennedy were retrieved, after their fatal falls while descending Dusty Star Mountain.
The helicopters weren’t the only disturbance that evening. I was sharing a tent with Jen and Maia, and Matt’s tent was set up next to us. During the night I was awaken by the sound of hooves, lots of them, running between the tents. I shot straight up from my mat, as it sounded like they were 2 feet from my head. I wasn’t exactly sure what was out there, but found out the next morning that mountain goats had invaded the campsites. They didn’t disturb ours at all, other than peeing on the trail leading out of our site, but another group was kept up all night by them.
The 25th of July was our layover day. After breakfast, Matt, Jen and Maia decided they would hike up the trail towards Gunsight Pass. Not necessarily to the Pass because there were still some problematic snowfields, but up aways. I felt tired after breakfast and thought I’d go back to the tent for a little nap. I shut my eyes for about an hour and it did me wonders. I guess all those days of hiking and backpacking in a row had caught up to me.
I went down to the lake after my nap, then decided I would hike up towards the Pass to meet the crew somewhere along the trail. But I didn’t even leave the beach before I heard their voices. They didn’t hike very far at all before hearing from another hiker that a sow with cubs was near the trail, protecting her cubs from a male grizzly that was after them. We saw some great photos of the encounter that evening at the food prep.
So this turned out to be pretty much a rest day for all of us.
We really enjoyed hanging out at the lake. Jen and Maia walked along the perimeter of the lake a ways, and found a cool remnant from the Gunsight Chalet (we’re assuming that’s what it was).
We were up again the second night after a storm rolled in. I watched the lightening light up the tent for awhile before the thunder began. And boy was it loud reverberating off the mountains. A steady rain started and my corner of the tent started getting wet. I snuggled in closer to Maia who was in the middle, and that kept me dry, but Maia was soon getting wet from a leak in the roof. There was lots of commotion as we rearranged and tried to stay dry, and thunder was booming and lightening lit up the sky. Yet Matt slept through it all.
We had a pretty uneventful hike out, but did enjoy a stop at the bridge below Florence Falls again, this time with a few of our fellow Gunsight Lake backpackers. And we also enjoyed a long break at Deadwood Falls before the 700 foot climb out to the trailhead.
We got to see some tourists in their environment on the way back to St Mary.
We stopped at Rising Sun for snacks and drinks, and enjoyed a charcuterie lunch back at the St Mary campground.
There were no showers at St Mary, so off we went to Johnson’s for a shower, and then dinner at Two Sisters.
After that we went to St Mary KOA to see if we could find MarxMn. He was not at his cabin because he drove over to St Mary Campground to find us, but we eventually caught up with him at the KOA gift shop.
That was one big truck you rented, Bill!
We had a good sleep that night at St Mary campground. Bill came over for a visit that morning, then set off to meet the rest of his crew that were arriving that day. We took it easy this day. In the afternoon we went up to Logan Pass, because Maia had never been on the Highline. So we hiked out a short way and then wandered around the visitor center.
Back to St Mary campground for a supper of chicken grilled over the campfire, mushroom risotto, and fresh vegetables. Jen can cook a great campfire meal!
We also had a visit that night with Rosie and the Minnesota crew.
The next morning, we moved over to Many Glacier campground.
After setting up camp we started a hike to Iceberg Lake. But we quickly realized that was a bad idea, because it was after 11:00 am and already sweltering. It was in the high 80’s this day. So we made it a beer and sandals day by Swiftcurrent River.
We had dinner at the Many Glacier Hotel
and then went back to the campsite to drink some Gunsight Rock wine (how fitting) and other adult beverages. The Minnesota crew came by for one last visit.
The next morning we woke up early and Jen and I tore down our tents. We were on the trail to Iceberg Lake by 8:00 or 8:30. What a great hike we had! There were more icebergs than I’ve ever seen.
After hiking back, it was time to say goodbye to Matt, who was staying in MG for another night. Matt is a great hiking partner and I’m always sad to say goodbye. But it was time to get Jen and Maia back to East Glacier (another hard goodbye) and myself back home. I had already been gone for 11 days, and I was only going home for 4 days before returning to the Park for another short backpack.