Today was a day for a ranger-led hike up to Piegan Pass. The hike started at the Siyeh Bend shuttle stop. After yesterday's ride on the shuttle, where the first one that came was full, we were taking no chances and caught the 7:30 AM shuttle. It was completely empty when it arrived and we were the only passengers. It arrived at Siyeh Bend at about 8 AM, only an hour-and-a-half ahead of time.
Did I mention that it was cloudy, windy and cold at Siyeh Bend? We quickly dug out both fleece pullovers and wind jackets and tried to huddle out of the wind. At 9:15, the 8:30 shuttle arrived and the rest of the hikers came off the bus or out of their cars. It turned out that there were about twenty people, plus a rather young ranger, Arron, to lead us. After the obligatory talk about bears, it was off to Piegan Pass—maybe. There was a trail closure the day before due to a bear attack in the area. A lone hiker had stumbled upon a grizzly bear and her cub. He had been bitten in an arm and a leg and picked up and shaken by the bear. Otherwise, he was unhurt and continued his vacation. At any rate the trail was closed for the last couple of miles up to the pass. (Just how do they expect us to see any bears, if they close them off?)
We headed up the trail anyway. "Up" is the operative word, as the elevation gain for the hike was 1720 feet—and there were no downs. We would hike along a while (accompanied by shouts of "Hey BooBoo" or "Yo Yogi" at every curve to ward off the bears) then Arron would stop to point out some flower type or some other factoid. Meanwhile the slowest hiker, me, would catch up and miss out on what was said. My slow gait was irrelevant though, as not much could be heard at the end of a line of twenty hikers.
The hike went up through forest for quite a while and the trees grew shorter and thinner as we got higher up. We could now see over the valleys to the south to Piegan Glacier, one of the 25 left in the park. At about 2.5 miles into the hike the trail forked with the right fork heading up to Siyeh Pass and the left crossing a stream and continuing up to Piegan Pass, except for the string across the trail and the sign saying the trail was closed 1.7 miles ahead (due to bears, of course). The trail was supposed to be open.
Arron tried to radio to confirm that the trail was actually open. He was unsuccessful with this, but decided that we could continue, at least until the closure sign. Onward we went. The sun had come out by this time and it was warming up. I'd warmed up long before and had stowed both jacket and fleece.
Shortly above the fork the trail opened onto a scree field, as we were getting above the tree line. The trail followed a long rising traverse across the scree and had to cross two small snowfields along the way. The only tricky bit about crossing the snow, which was on a fairly steep slope, was doing it with a group of twenty. Each crossing was like being in traffic; take a couple of steps and stop, all while standing on rather slushy steep snow.
After we crossed the snow we came upon a small flock of bighorn sheep right on the trail near the end of the scree field. As we approached, they pretty much ignored us until we got close, then slowly moved off the trail to find tufts of grass as we went by. While waiting for the sheep, we noticed a small group of mountain goats on the other side of the valley. From where we were, they were hardly more than white dots moving across a snow field and up the rocks, but were quite visible through binoculars.
Just below the pass, we came to the actual trail closure warning sign. Arron was able to reach his contacts and was told that the trail was open; the ranger sent to remove the signs just hadn't gotten there yet. We were able to continue up to the pass to fabulous views down into the Many Glacier valley and up onto the cliffs of the back side of the Garden Wall.
We settled down for lunch among the resident marmots and ground squirrels. There were many of each, just at the pass itself. The pass was grass covered and seemed to be ideal marmot habitat. The young marmots would stroll up to hikers and stop about five feet away, looking expectantly—but not getting any handouts (we are well trained hikers). The older ones just kept on grubbing in the grass for food or lying in a snowdrift, taking a cooling nap. The squirrels just ran around every which way. One marmot stretched out in the snow, cooling his belly and apparently napping.
At this point the guided part of the hike was over. Ellen and I headed back fairly early before most of the group. Going down was less strenuous than going up, but I was not much faster. We did cross the snowfields much more easily by ourselves and the sheep were nowhere to be seen. By the intersection with the Siyeh Pass trail, the rest caught and passed us as we were stopped for a snack. By the time we finished the hike, all nine miles of it, everyone else was long gone.
We settled down to wait for the shuttle and it soon started to rain. The fleece and jackets went back on. After about 15 minutes of this, we were getting pretty damp. Two outbound shuttles had gone by, but none had come back down going in our direction. Fortunately, a solo hiker who had just gotten off the last shuttle to collect his car parked at the bend, offered us a lift back down to the campground—our savior. It was a warm, dry and quick ride back. By the time we reached the campground the rain had stopped.
We were beat. We dragged ourselves over to Speedy, took a couple of large doses of ibuprofen and hobbled over to the showers. The "showers" is almost a misnomer. They are behind the camp store and there is one in the mens room and one in the ladies room. They are $2.50 (tokens only) for eight minutes.
There were long lines waiting in front of each. The three guys in front of me were a father and his two twenty something sons. They were quick. I think they only used two tokens for the three of them. The women's line, as one might expect, was longer and moved slower. By the time I'd finished and dressed, Ellen had made it to second in line, having learned the personal histories of all the women waiting.
I headed back to the van. About 15 minutes later, it started to rain again. I could visualize Ellen standing in the rain, so I fired up Speedy (for the first time since we'd arrived) and headed off to the showers. I encountered Ellen about halfway there, getting a bit soggy. Since it was nearly 8 PM, we continued on to the lodge at the campground and had dinner at the Two Dog Flats restaurant.
By the time we finished, the rain had stopped; we trundled back to the campsite and collapsed.
Mountain Goats, Bighorn Sheep, Marmots and Ground Squirrels...but still no bears.
Photos
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