Glacier National Park: The Highline Trail, Granite Park Chalet and the Loop Trail

Most days on these holidays, there’s a choice of a harder or easier walk. So, after a decent breakfast, the sorting hat was deployed for the first time. Both walks started at Logan Pass, where the Going to the Sun Road crosses the Continental Divide at 6,600 ft. This road runs West to East across the middle of the park, hugging cliff sides as it gains height.  By the time we got to the car park, we were in the clouds so had to don almost all the clothes we were carrying.

The first stretch of the walk was on a path cut out of the side of the cliff. Although the path isn't too narrow, the drop is so steep that there's a handrail along the cliff. Several of the group found this a bit challenging. We were fine, and the path soon got wider, although the drop alongside it was still there.

We soon found out why this stretch of mountain is known as The Garden Wall - there was a profusion of flowers, including some lovely yellow Aquilegia. Unfortunately, the gentians were not open. We also saw our first marmot of the trip, and plenty of ground squirrels.

The trail has a few ups and downs, but generally stayed at the same altitude. It wasn't long before the cloud lifted above us and we got great views down into the valleys. After a few miles, we reached a group of large rocks that was to be our lunch spot. Each day, it was part of Clay and Andy's job to provide lunch for the group. We each had a sandwich, with plenty of filling on decent bread, a home-made cookie, some fruit and some nibbles. Lovely.

After lunch, the 'easier' group turned around and headed back to Logan Pass. The rest of us continued on the Highline Trail, which soon started to ascend. By this time, I'd got into a conversation about music with Andy, who plays guitar, banjo and other things in a band in Missoula. He was leading the group, and I kept up with him, forgetting my duty to stay behind Rosie on the uphill stretches. This is especially necessary at altitude, where she suffers from loss of breath. The sorting hat should have assigned her to Hufflepuff (and pant). I was not top husband at this time.

Before long, we reached the end of the Highline Trail at the Granite Park Chalet, where we could buy soft drinks, and queue for ages for the 'pit toilet'. The cloud was lifting and breaking all the time, opening up even more spectacular views.

From there, we joined the Loop Trail (AKA the Granite Park Trail) for a 2,400' descent to rejoin the Going to the Sun Road. This was done over 4.2 miles, and was a fairly gentle gradient. The path took us through an area that was densely wooded until 2003, when a fire swept through the area. Some of the burnt trees still stand, and make a striking sight with their almost-silver  trunks. By now, it was hot and sunny, and there was very little shade.

Both buses had been left at Logan Pass, so some shuffling was involved before we could set off back to the hotel. We only had a short time before a 6:30 dinner (we both had the steak dish we hadn't tried the previous evening), and then used the hotel wifi to connect to the outside world. Unfortunately, the wifi there seems to be connected to the internet with wet string, so uploading photos was a very slow process. I also had to attend to a work problem that involved a small amount of programming. This took me back to the days of dial-up!

The Rockies: Kalispell, Avalanche Lake and the Lake McDonald Lodge

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.