A Walk In The Woods

We are still staying at Rising Sun Campground at Glacier NP and still hiking, but today's walk was pretty close to my limit. We hiked up the Rose Creek Trail to Otokomi Lake. A couple of big pluses for this trail is that it starts right next to the campground and it isn't one of the really popular trails. It was the one we planned to take as our next step in acclimatizing and getting our legs, a bit longer and a bit more climbing, but we almost decided against it.

One of the things that happens in the campground is that you meet lots of other campers with lots of opinions. While waiting for the campfire talk to start the other night we were chatting with the couple next to us. This was their 12th visit to Glacier and they had hiked almost all the trails, except to Otokomi Lake. They said that they hadn't hiked it because it was a walk in the woods and had no view. They lived near woods and came here for the views.

Based on that assessment, we then started considering other hikes, but decided to do it anyway. They didn't know what they were missing. Yes, it started in the woods here in the valley, but steadily climbed, about 2600 feet of climbing altogether. Aside for the last mile or so across a scree field, it was not walking along an open face like the Highline Trail, but it quickly opened to views of the surrounding peaks and of Rose Creek with its cascades and waterfalls. 6.75 miles later, the trail came down from the scree field, past the Otokomi backcountry campsite, to the head of Rose Creek and Otokomi Lake.

Otokomi is a classic small high altitude glacier-fed lake in a bowl, Rose Basin, surrounded by mountains, cliffs and scree fields. It is just snow-fed now, as the glaciers have gone, but it still has turquoise-hued waters that give away to a red rocky bottom near the shore. The water was crystal clear and we could see large trout swimming at the head of the creek.

It was time for lunch, so we parked ourselves by the head of the stream to watch the trout, eat our PB&J sandwiches and finish the last of our four bottles of water. It had been a long, hot, uphill hike and we had brought only four water bottles. But, we had also brought our Steri-Pen, a water purifier that uses ultra-violet light. You fill the water bottle, push a button on the pen, stick it in the water and wait until a signal light flashes green. In about a minute, you have as much as a liter of treated water. With this marvel, we refilled our bottles from the clear water and treated them. And it is just as well we did, as we drained them gain on the hike back down, a little mineral water tasting, but we have had much worse. We'll know if it worked in a few days.

The hike up was a walk without crowds, unusual in a park as popular as Glacier. We saw only two groups of other hikers, who were coming down from staying overnight in the backcountry campground. As we returned after lunch, we saw no more than a dozen people, most of whom were heading up to spend the night at the campsite. It is a really nice hike, especially with so few people. I suspect that it is not very popular because it is relatively long for a day hike, over 10 miles, there are no trails past the lake so it is only a hike up and back, not a trail that goes on to somewhere else, and it is not on the main day tourist routes.

Once again, we saw no bears. It might be that there were no bears or it might have been our new anti-bear device. The rangers all tell you that you should talk loudly on the trail, and even shout out things going around blind corners. This is supposed to warn the bears of your presence. We tend to use "Yo Yogi!", but it gets a bit tiresome.

Last year we were talking with some young backpackers who had just finished a long multi-day trip through the park. They had a unique method for warning the bears. They had brought along a powered speaker, a solar charger and an iPod, fastened it to a pack and played loud hip-hop as they hiked. They saw no bears.

It may be that bears don't like hip-hop, but we hope that was not the reason, as it is not one our our favorite genres. So, we bought a powered speaker to attach to my iPod Shuffle, loaded up the iPod with an audiobook of Bill Byrson's "A Walk In The Woods" and played it as we walked the trail. A bit more appropriate, we thought and a good read. We also saw no bears.

Photos: The Rose Creek Trail