This was an HF group walking holiday to three US National
Parks: Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton.
It started with a three flight trip from Heathrow to Kalispell. I hadn’t
heard of Kalispell either – it’s on Montana, close to the Canadian border and
just outside Glacier National Park. The legs to Chicago and Denver went without
incident, but our plane from Denver to Kalispell was late arriving in Denver.
By the time it had arrived, some thunderstorms had too. We feared an unplanned
overnight stay in Denver, so were relieved
to finally take off around 9pm. We finally got to the Hampton Inn at
around midnight local time after around 25 hours of travel. We slept well.
Over breakfast the next morning, we met two Australian women
who’d booked on the HF holiday individually but were breakfasting together. One
of them, whom I’ll refer to as Sheila,
had an exaggerated and strident Aussie accent and was doing all the talking. I
said to Rosie that I hoped I’d be able to filter that frequency out before the
end of the fortnight.
We met our Glacier hiking guides, Andy and Clay, after
breakfast. They are in their mid-twenties, laid back and, I’m reliably
informed, somewhat cute. They drove the 15 of us, including Mike, the HF tour
leader, in two small buses up into the park. We popped into Lake McDonald Lodge, our home for the next two days, to drop off Jayne from New Zealand, who wasn't feeling well, and her Mum Iris.
The rest of us set out in the buses for a short walk to Avalanche Lake.
The parking area around the trail head was full to overflowing so, Clay, who was
driving our bus, tried to find roadside parking on the ‘main’ (these things are
relative) road. However, all the
roadside areas in the direction he’d headed were closed because of road works
so he needed to turn around. He chose a straight stretch and started a three
point turn. Soon the rear wheel was grounded
and spinning in the dirt just off the road. Even with us all off the bus and
the men pushing, he couldn’t get back onto the road. By this time, there was a
significant tailback, but Clay stayed cool the whole time. The guy at the head
of the tail back suggested that Clay reverse further off the road and approach
the road diagonally. We were all mightily relieved when this worked first time.
Clay dropped us off near the trail head with our packed lunches and went off to
park alone. Soon after sitting down in
the shade, a large mule deer wandered by.
Andy and Clay eventually parked their buses and found us and
each other (not so easy when there’s no
mobile phone coverage), and we set off for our introductory hike to Avalanche
Lake. This was a couple of miles uphill alongside a lovely wooded mountain
stream. This gave us some time to chat with the other members of the party. As
usual with these HF holidays, most of the group are retired, so we were amongst
the youngest. We were relieved that
there was another ’50-something’ couple, who’d brought their daughter. It
turned out that John had been a Cambridge contemporary of Rosie and, what’s
more, had been at Corpus. As Rosie sang
in the Corpus choir, they knew a lot of people in common.
Avalanche Lake was a lovely spot, and the ‘beach’ was alive
with chipmunks and butterflies. Many photos were taken, especially of the
chipmunks, but some of the humans too. We retraced our steps to our lunch spot,
Andy and Clay fetched the buses and ferried us back to Lake McDonald Lodge.
The lodge is one of the early buildings in the Park, very
stately and in a fantastic setting. However, we were in the ‘motel’ area, a
series of two-storey buildings with wood-panelled rooms. Ours was a little dark, but quaint and
comfortable enough. The restaurant
didn’t take reservations (apart from for regulars apparently), so we waited
patiently for a table. Our deal included anything from the menu. We both chose
steak-based dishes (when in Rome….), which were good. The Going to the Sun IPA
and Spiked Huckleberry Lemonade were pretty good too.
No comments:
Post a Comment