Day 120 - Many Glacier

No Ptarmigans at Ptarmigan Falls, No Icebergs at Iceberg Lake

About 40 degrees at sunrise, the heater was on this morning. A mostly clear day was forecast...if you discounted the smoke.

It was a hiking day at Many Glacier. There was still smoke in the air this morning, but we were up for a longer hike today, but first...breakfast. We decided to give Nell's at the Swiftcurrent Inn another try this morning. They had pretty good breakfasts, okay coffee and a surly waitress. I had the Montana Toast (commonly known as French Toast) with bacon and Ellen had the Classic (two eggs, bacon, home fries and english muffin). They were both pretty tasty and filling. The waitress, on the other hand, was a bit curt. The inn closes for the season tomorrow and this was undoubtedly her next to last day and we were just tourists. At least that is how it seemed.

After breakfast it was back to Speedy to pack for our hike. Our plan was to take the Ptarmigan Trail to Ptarmigan Falls and then a branch trail up to Iceberg Lake, a high mountain lake. It was about five miles each way with a 1,600 foot gain in altitude. With the falls at just about the midpoint of the route, it gave us an obvious alternate turnaround point if we wanted to cut it short. We didn't.

The first half mile or so was the steepest part of the trail. After that it rose quite a bit more gently all the way to the falls, 2.5 miles in. The trail alternated between open areas with expansive views and shaded forest on our way up to the falls. It was fairly windy and the smoke from the fire on the other side of the park was pouring in places. Some views were quite clear, others were very hazy...and then they would switch. As we climbed, we found ourselves above the snow line. There was still snow on the grasses, but not actually on the trail. We would see this  most of the way up in the morning.

The falls are a drop of about 60 feet into a gorge, but the best view was through the trees on the way there. Not much of the fall was visible where the trail crossed the stream. No Ptarmigans were seen, nor any Dippers. One wouldn't expect to find Ptarmigans here as they are birds that reside above treeline. I suspect the falls are so named because they are on the Ptarmigan Trail, which does continue up into Ptarmigan habitat. Dippers do hang about in rapids and riffles, but none were seen.

Just after the falls, the trail splits with one trail heading steeply up to Ptarmigan Lake and the Ptarmigan Tunnel, which is 2.6 miles further and 1,600 feet higher, and the other continuing to Iceberg Lake which was 2.1 miles further and only 500 feet higher. We chose the lake trail.

It was much like the first part of the hike, but more open as we were traversing a sub-alpine forest with much smaller trees and open meadows. The trail has a few up and down sections before finally descending to  Iceberg Lake.  The lake is one of the last in the park to thaw out and has ice until at least June. The chunks of ice that occur in the spring resemble small icebergs. There are also a couple of mini-glaciers that look like tidewater glaciers, except they are on the lake. While nothing was happening while we were there, they looked like they might calve a few small icebergs in the spring. There were no bergs in September, just very clear and cold water.

The lake is surrounded on three sides by high cliffs that go up at least a thousand feet right out of the lake. This forms an impressive bowl in which the lake sits. We sat down in a sunny spot above the lake for lunch, but it wasn't a long lunch since the winds coming off the cliffs were stiff and cold.

Coming down from the lake was a bit easier and quicker than the climb . We continued to have great, if smoky, views of the mountains surrounding the Many Glacier area of the park.There were not many birds to be seen on this hike,but we saw a small flock of Golden-crowned and Ruby-crowned Kinglets. We also had a pretty close view of two flocks of Bighorn Sheep on the cliffs above us. I don't think we've seen wild sheep in Glacier before.

We finally got back to Speedy with just under 11.5 miles covered. I don't know if I could have gone another foot. After recovering a bit and getting our gear packed away, we trudged over to the Swiftcurrent Inn for extremely needed and appreciated hot showers.

After our dinner of Speedy pasta made with sautéed onions and baby eggplant, we started planning for the coming days. The services here at Glacier are closing quickly, most will be closed by tomorrow, so we don't think we will stay any longer. We've had a couple of nice days here with good hikes in an area we haven't spent much time before. We'll probably be back, but it is time to start the trek home.

We will be retracing much of our path out in May as it is the shortest route back to Massachusetts and it stays mostly off Interstates and away from big cities. We will see how long it takes and what detours and stops we might make on the way.