After stuck at our tiny one bed room apartment for five months, William and I were going crazy and really felt the need to have some getaway. I planed a four-day trip to Glacier National park and was lucky enough to reserve camp spots in fish creek campground (the only open campground in glacier NP this year) for thee nights.
The first and last days of our trip were spending on driving, so we only had two full days to explore the park. Due to COVID-19, much of the east side of the park is closed and there is no shuttle bus this year. As a result, the two day hikes we picked are either out and back or loop trail. The first one we did is the Highline Trail and The Loop trail with distance 25.4 miles (blue line below). The second one is siyeh pass loop with St Mary and Virginia falls with distance 17 miles ( red line below).
Everyone we had talked about our trip mentioned bears in Glacier NP, some even had personal experiences. I read a lot about bears which only make me really anxious. I even came across a story about an accident that a jogger collided with bear and got minor injury in Glacier NP a month ago. I was so nervous and even bought a bear bell which William called diner bell. We practiced a lot of precautions like only trail run on the straight portion, making a lot of noise on the rounding blind corners and having a bear spray handy. We had two bear encounters, fortunately, we were safe.
8/8 our first day hike. We started at 7 AM. The trail head is across the road from Logan pass visitor center. The parking lot there was about one third full. After hiking around quarter mile from the trail head, we reached a section where the trail is carved into the cliff and we can see the Going-to-the-Sun road below. It gave us a jolt of adrenaline. We jogged the gentle uphill along the Garden Wall and enjoy the lush U-shaped valley formed by glaciation below. I learned glaciation from geography class when I was around 13, and it's really exciting to see it in person. I enjoyed the view so much and didn't even feel the major climb to reach Haystack Pass.
At about 9 AM, we reached the junction leading to Grinnell Glacier Overlook trail. Will and I discussed if we'll see the glacier first or on the way back. We chose the second option which is not the smart decision since the trail was so packed in the early afternoon and it made social distancing impossible.
We reached the chalet, had snack break there and took The Loop trail steeply down the mountain. The first half mile or so has a lot of tall trees and the bloom of wild flowers. Then, the canopy opened up, allowing some nice view of mountains and meadows filled with flowers. The army of bare trees burned by 2003 Trapper Creek Fire lingered on the flower field. It's hard to imagine how thick the forest used to be.
There were a lot of huckleberry, thimbleberry and salmonberry bushes about a mile down from the Chalet. As it's said huckleberry maps hungry bears, I was really nervous and on the lookout for bears at all times. A couple also warned us about bear because they heard deer snort. Soon after they warned us, we had our first bear encounter. I was running down a straight pass and suddenly saw a bear standing on its hind legs about 100 meter away. We locked eyes and froze for a second and the bear reacted first by lowering itself. Then it went away from the trail, got back and passed the path to the other side. At this point, William and I didn't feel safe pushing forward so we turned back about a mile from The Loop trailhead.
We informed the first hiker about the bear after we turned back. We were not sure it's a black or grizzly bear, so we showed her the pictures we took. She said it was a black bear and there is nothing to worry about since they are friendly. However, we later figured out it's a grizzly from William's coworker, a Montana native, and he thought it's quite silly to think black bears are friendly.
We took a detour to see the Grinnell Glacier on the way back. This is the most congregated part of the whole hike. The Grinnell Glacier overlook trail is very narrow and steep (gaining about 900 feet in 0.9 mile) but it's definitely worth the efforts as the view on the top is spectacular. The overlook gives a bird eye view of Salamander glacier, upper Grinnell Glacier Lake, Mt. Gould and Grinnell Glacier below the north face of Mt. Gould. I hope we can have a closer look of Grinnell Glacier next time by taking Grinnell Glacier trail.
We saw a lot more mammals on the way back to Logan Pass Visitor Center. I guess when we started our hike at 7AM, it's not only too early to be active for me but also for other animals. Columbian ground squirrels were racing down the trail with us. Hoary marmots were posing on rocks. We saw 5 big horn sheeps, a white-tailed deer and a mountain goat.
It took us 8 hrs to finish the hike. According to Strava, the total mileage is 24.11 miles( 38.8 km) and the total elevation gain is 5823 feet (1775 m).
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