From Glacier NAtional Park to Lethbridge, Canada.
I headed back to Glacier, a little later in the morning today, for unfinished business. Those hikes… besides, I spent $49 on bear spray. Unlike the other parks I’ve visited, because there’s really just this main road, there’s no other road drive or exploring by road to be done. The rest is all hikes, or finding the off roads, by, for instance, coming into the park down by the Cut Banks area, where there are lot of off roads it seems, judging by the map, but those are all a little more rugged and isolated than I want.
I re-visited Sun Point, about 10 miles in, and took the hike I started yesterday, to the three falls, Baring Falls, St. Mary Falls, and Virginia Falls, a round trip of about 6½ miles, which took a little over three hours. From Baring Falls on, it’s mostly uphill, and considered a moderate hike, even though not an especially long hike, but it was long enough for me, and arduous enough considering the mostly uphill hike going in, as well as a fair number of uphill stretches on the way back.
Each fall was lovely, but Virginia Falls was the most lovely, sailing off the mountain above. I saw some lovely fall color along the way, and views of the mountains with their heads in the clouds. It started out as cool and windy, although not as windy as yesterday, burt warmed up over the course of the hike. I started out with a fleece and wool hat, and wound up holding my jacket and wearing my baseball cap.
Baring Falls, the first of the three falls, is pretty easy to reach, a little over half a mile in, and an easy walk
After Baring Falls, it gets more difficult, mostly uphill on the narrow dirt trail along the mountainside, and about 2 miles to the St. Mary Falls. On my way back, quite a few hikers going in asked how far the next falls were.
Then, it’s a little less than a mile to Virginia Falls, with lovely small river waterfalls resulting from the runoff from Virginia Falls above. Each of these was worth stopping at and exploring, and you might even wonder if these were Virginia Falls, but they weren’t.
It was a short hike from St. Mary Falls, but pretty much all uphill, with even more hikers coming asking how far is it to Virginia Falls, and was the view worth it. It was. It was lovely coming in, but if you scrambled up the small trail in the woods, the views got lovelier as you got higher. I could feel the spray from the falls. Just lovely.
I loved the hike, but after a 6½ mile, 3 plus hour, hike, I was done in. It was a pipe dream to think I could manage another three hour hike,or any for that matter. I did head back to Logan Pass, to at least consider the Hidden Lake trail, but I was tired, and by, the time I got there decided to not even consider it further. Instead, I drove across and down the pass again, and along the way saw more bighorn sheep, alongside the mountain.
And that was it. I drove down Logan Pass again (great ride), and then turned around and heading back north to the St. Mary entrance (or exit, in this case), with sun again getting low, around 5 in the afternoon at this point.
When I entered the park this morning, I asked whether I could exit directly into Canada, but the answer was no, even though the park extends into Canada, where it becomes part of the Canadian national park system. So I returned to to the St. Mary park entrance, exited, took a left, and headed to Canada, about 20 miles north, and from there to Lethbridge, Alberta, where I’m spending the night.
Tomorrow, onto Banff, and I’ll staying in that neck of the woods until Saturday. I’ll actually be staying just west of Calgary, and taking the one hour drive from Calgary to Banff.
