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Montana Summer & Glacier-Waterton National Park

// July 30th, 2011 // Travel

Before starting my PhD studies at Carnegie Mellon University this fall, I decided to spend the summer back in Livingston, Montana working the same job I did last summer: teaching off-road driving at a ranch. It’s a great job, tons of fun, and it will help a lot with expenses for school, especially after coming back from a 7-month trip to Taipei and Beijing (I badly need money!). But perhaps the best part about being here is that it is giving me some much needed time to relax a little, have some fun, and in general have a good time enjoying life before having to hunker down and get really serious with my studies and research this fall. After 7 months of being in huge cities, I can’t think of a better place to be than the northern Rockies.

There’s no doubt that the best way to enjoy this place is to get outside, so once again I’ve decided to take advantage of my time and get out as much as possible. Last summer I spent most of my time hiking surrounding mountains, so this year I decided to spend more time rock climbing (though I did get to hike Livingston Peak again, one of my favorites). My roommate Sam is a very skilled climber, so I’ve gone out a few times with him to try and learn as much as I can and have a good time doing it. My friend Vanessa, a lindy hopper in Bozeman, is also an experienced climber and has joined for some climbs as well. While I have climbed in the past, I’ve never had so much time on real rock, and it’s opened up a whole new world for me. My first time on real rock was in Yangshuo, China, back in November 2010, and ever since I’ve been itching to climb more outside on the real thing. I also started learning how to lead and lead my first route (only a 5.7) just a couple weeks ago. I’m hoping to get to do a little more in the last few weeks here and then hopefully get to do some near Pittsburgh this fall.

The other great things about being in Montana is how close it is to some of the greatest national parks in the world. Last year I went through Yellowstone and Grand Teton, my first time in a national park. This year I decided to head to Glacier and Waterton National Park for my 24th birthday. Vanessa joined me for the trip and we decided we’d spend most of the time hiking some backcountry up in the Canadian side. We drove up from Bozeman on the 24th and fortunately were able to drive through the Going to the Sun Road at dusk (the road was just opened just 10 days prior having been closed due to snow before). That night we drove to a small camp site, cooked up some pasta, and rested for the morning.

The next day we drove up to Waterton in Canada and found a trail to hike in the backcountry for the next 2 days. The only multi-day hike listed was the Tamarack Trail, a 35 km stretch with a few different camp sites along the way. Most people do it in 3 days, be we decided we’d push hard and get to Lone Lake on day 1 (17.5 km in) so we could hike out on day 2. We got on the trail at about 11 am and started in, carrying all our gear (tent, food, sleeping bags). The first part was relatively easy, but after about 6 km it got significantly harder, with switch backs through the snow through a 2000 ft climb. Just as we hit the snowy part, a rain storm swept through with some pretty serious winds. It was about a 45 minute stretch of loose footings and cold rain, but as the storm past we crested the peak of Lineham Ridge and came upon this view:

After a break at the top, we descended the other side of the ridge, back down another 2000 ft. or so, into a forrest in the valley. The forrest provided some refreshing shade and fresh glacier melt water at a stream, but after several hours of hiking back and forth up and down switch backs, we were getting pretty ready to get out of it. Eventually the trail brought us out of the valley and back up yet another huge climb of switch backs to another peak. At this point we were getting pretty exhausted, and just as we were getting ready to sit down and make camp anywhere, we saw Lone Lake just on the other side of the peak, the camp site we were shooting for. Down more switch backs and some snow and we finally made it to the camp site.

We set up the tent and decided to take a break for a bit and relax before dinner. About 30 minutes later, we heard thunder, and decided maybe we should have gotten on dinner right away. Sure enough, about half way through boiling some pasta, the storm hit, but what came was more than anything we could have anticipated – golf ball size hail! It started as little pellets, but sure and steadily grew to huge balls falling insanely fast. Fortunately the camp site had a wooden outhouse, so we sought refuge there and brought the pasta inside. Together we enjoyed a nice pasta meal over a plastic toilet seat to the sound of golf balls pulverizing everything. All I could think of was how our tent was holding up.

After dinner and the storm passed, we checked the tent and found that despite the hail, it held up rather well. We filled up on water by the lake, hung our food from the bears, and finally crashed. In the middle of the night, another storm hit, with lightening, thunder, and rain most of the night. We woke to more rain, and after waiting for an hour for it to pass, we just gave up and accepted that it was going to be a long, wet day. We packed up camp and headed on north towards the next camp site, Twin Lakes. The 8ish km between the two sites, while relatively flat, was the most snow-covered of the whole trail, and we were hiking in snow at least half the time. At a critical point where we totally lost the trail in the snow, we came across 3 people hiking in the opposite direction. Had we not ran into them right then, we probably would have wandered for a few hours searching our way back to the trail. After passing Twin Lakes, we ran into some park trail workers that were burning an old outhouse and enjoyed the warmth for a moment by the raging fire they had started.

From that point on, the rain slowly dissipated and the trail became very wide and flat. We hiked the last 8 km sopping wet, but in the sun, slowly beginning to dry. At the end, we came out of the trail head and ran into a crowd of tourists from all over the world, several asking how the trail was, and we shared our story of the past day. We started walking down the road looking to hitch hike back to the other side of the trail where we parked the car and fortunately ran into the same trail workers. They beat us back because they rode bikes, but they gave us a lift back into town. From there we hitched another ride up to Vanessa’s car and then got dinner at Subway.

We only had one more night, and since all our gear was completely soaked, we decided to drive back into Glacier and just sleep in the car. We came into Many Glacier and washed up a bit at the hotel there, warmed up by the fire, and then slept in the car. Once again it rained all night, and in the morning we drove back down the Going to the Sun Road.

This time the sun was just breaking through the mountains, so the views were completely different. The clouds drifted through the valleys like a fog and made for some surreal scenery. A few hours and a few stops for road maintenance later and we came out the west side of the park and began our drive back to Bozeman. On the way back we stopped at a diner and had the biggest breakfast we could find. We got back at around 5 pm and had to shower and get ready for a dance class I had to teach at 7, though I wanted nothing more than to sleep! I got home late and completely wiped. In the end, the trip was a serious test of the elements and the shape we were both in, but the scenery and wonder brought by the time spent out alone with just the mountains and the snow is a memory that will last forever.