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!