Glacier National Park (4 page)

Morgan and James rolled up their pant legs and took off their shoes. They waded into the shallow water of Hidden Lake. “You guys should come in,” James said to his parents.

Mom dipped her toes into the water. “You know,” she concluded, “I think it’s at kids’ temperature, not adults’!”

The family spent the night camped at Rising Sun.
They got up the next day under hazy skies. After eating breakfast, the Parkers packed up for a long hike.

They walked to the shuttle bus stop next to the campground. “It’s nice to leave the car behind,” Dad said as he sat down on one of the shuttle seats and stretched out.

“And it reduces pollution,” Morgan added, since these buses run on biodiesel.

The Parkers got off at Siyeh Bend and began their ten-mile hike. They climbed steadily into a region filled with small trees and wild-flowers. Soon they crossed a footbridge over a cascading stream.

A man with a day pack approached the family on his way down. “How’s it going?” he greeted them.

“Great!” Dad responded. “And you?”

“Well, Siyeh Pass is one of my favorite trails. You’re in for a real treat.”

James looked at the man questioningly. “Have you seen any bears?”

“Not today. But I did see
that
!” He pointed to the west. High up on a mountain was a large, lone slab of ice that glistened in the sun.

“Is that a glacier?” James asked.

“I believe so!” the man replied and took off down the trail.

Mom unpacked the binoculars and focused in on the snowfield. “It looks like a glacier,” she reported. “There are cracks in the ice. And it’s in a
perfect spot, high up on an east-facing slope.”

“Our first full look at a glacier in the park,” James announced with satisfaction. He pulled out his map. “It must be Piegan Glacier.”

The Parkers gazed at it for a while, then hiked on, moving into an alpine zone of meadows and stunted trees.

Morgan turned around to look at the small glacier once more. “The views just keep getting better and better!” she exclaimed.

Soon the trail changed from dirt lined with small alpine plants to loose rocks skirting the side of a mountain. Dad paused at a small patch of snow blocking the path. He stepped onto the ice where others had walked previously and guided his family carefully across.

“We should be close to the summit now,” he reported.

Fierce, gusty winds whipped about. Finally, the trail turned a bend and leveled out. The Parkers stopped and leaned against the rocks for a moment.

“We’re on top of the world!” Mom exclaimed while peering down.

“Siyeh Pass!” Dad announced as the winds buffeted his jacket. “8,150 feet, and the highest-elevation trail in the park.”

They walked a few steps down from the pass and stopped at a circular pile of stones. Morgan directed her family to stand near the summit marker. Then she looked for a place to set her camera.

A high-pitched squeak came out of nowhere.

James hurriedly looked around. “What was that?”

A tiny furry animal stood nearby on a small rock, a clump of grass in its mouth. The animal stared at the Parkers, its whiskers quivering.

The little creature whistled again, then dashed into a hole.

“It’s a pika,” Mom said. “It’s part of the rabbit family. They only live in high alpine regions.”

The Parkers heard another squeak just as a shadow fell on them from above. Mom glanced upward. “Aha!” she exclaimed. “Now I know why they are warning each other.”

Morgan, James, Mom, and Dad watched the drifting bird.

“I think it’s a bald eagle. See its white head?” Dad said.

The large bird swooped toward a giant slab of ice below the mountaintop.

“Hey!” James exclaimed. “There’s another glacier!”

Morgan hurriedly got her family in place to take the picture. Then James pulled out his map and unfolded it. “That one’s Sexton Glacier,” he announced.

“Look at the chunks of ice and their cracks,” Dad exclaimed.

“And that waterfall below it,” Morgan added.

“Well,” Mom concluded, “this trail sure is full of wonderful surprises.”

The Parkers began a long trek down a series of switchbacks. Sexton Glacier, with its distinct chunks of ice, stayed in view.

Soon the family was back among a few tiny trees. A short spur trail led toward the glacier. The Parkers took it, stopping to sit on some rocks with a view of the whole slab of ice in front of them.

After eating lunch, the family returned to the main trail and continued to hike down. “I’m sure glad we’re not going up this!” Morgan mentioned.

Finally, the Parkers worked their way back into the forest.

The trail approached a red rock gorge containing several small waterfalls. Mom gazed at the cascading stream. “This place is amazing,” she said. “Every section of trail is so spectacular and full of surprises.”

Eventually the sound of cars replaced the rushing stream. “We’re almost back to the road,” Dad said.

Just before the highway was an overlook at Sunrift Gorge. Morgan, James, Mom, and Dad stared into the straight-walled canyon with a stream running through it. A few minutes later, pleasantly tired from their hike, they walked down and caught the next bus to their campground.

Later that evening, the family drove a few miles east. Dad pulled the car into a small parking area called Two Dog Flats. The family piled out and stared up at a sloping grassland. Beyond the grass, the area turned to forest. On the other side of the road, St. Mary Lake stretched over several miles. Haze and smoke filled the air.

Morgan scanned Two Dog Flats. “Nothing’s out there now,” she reported.

The Parkers continued watching patiently. Mom started walking onto the grass with James, Morgan, and Dad following her.

In his peripheral vision, James suddenly noticed a small, gray animal up the hill. “There’s something out there,” he called out softly.

The doglike animal limped downhill from the flats toward the road. The Parkers stood still and breathlessly watched as he approached.

Mom leaned toward her family and whispered, “I think it’s a wolf. It’s gray and larger than a coyote.”

Morgan studied the animal with the binoculars. “It’s hurt!” she realized.

The wolf hopped across the road right in front of the Parkers. Morgan tried to quickly snap a few photos. Once the carnivore crossed, he stopped and licked his injured paw, then carefully loped toward some trees.

“Welcome aboard, everyone!” a ranger called from
the deck of the boat. “We’re now crossing Lake Josephine. Do you notice how the water here is a little turquoise?”

A crew member quickly walked up to the ranger. He whispered something to him and pointed to the forest next to the water. The ranger glanced in that direction, then looked again. He turned toward the passengers and announced, “Folks, we’re going to take a little detour and warn some hikers along the trail.”

Morgan looked at James. “I wonder what’s going on.”

The boat turned toward the shore. A crew member handed the ranger a microphone.

Morgan, James, Mom, and Dad watched through the boat’s windows. Several bushes moved near the trail. James spotted the bulging back of a large brown animal. “It’s a bear!” he realized.

Suddenly Morgan noticed that a group of people were hiking toward it. A shiver went up her spine.

The ranger put the microphone to his mouth and waited until the boat got a little closer. “There’s a bear ahead of you!” he announced into the PA system. The ranger called out again. “There’s a bear up ahead! It’s below the trail, near the lake.”

The hikers stopped and turned toward the boat. One person cupped his hands and called back. “What kind?”

“A grizzly!”

The hikers looked at each other and began talking. The people on the boat watched, wondering what they were going to do.

Several more hikers caught up to the first group. Slowly, the large gathering of people proceeded. A person in the front yelled out, “Hey, bear!”

At the top of a small hill, the group stopped. The bear was down below, a short distance off the trail. A distinct hump on its back curved up between its shoulders.

The bear heard human voices. It glanced toward the boat and at the group of people on the trail, then returned to foraging for food, seemingly unaffected by their presence.

The hikers quickly scooted past the grizzly.

The ranger watched until the group appeared to have safely gone by. He stepped back inside. “That was a close call. But the hikers did the right thing. They stayed together and made sure the bear knew they were there.”

The boat crossed the rest of Lake Josephine, docking to let the passengers on the Grinnell Glacier guided hike disembark. They walked across the dock and gathered together on the shore.

“Good morning, bears!” The ranger called out into the forest loudly, startling some in the group. Then he turned to everyone. “I’m ranger Rick,” he introduced himself. “By the way, does anyone know how to tell the difference between black bear scat and a grizzly’s?”

No one answered.

The ranger smiled. “Grizzly scat has bear bells in it!”

Everyone laughed nervously.

Rick explained. “There’s no better way of alerting bears than our voice. Bells could make a bear curious. They might sound like a pika or marmot—bear food. We certainly wouldn’t want that!”

One person with a walking stick removed the bells from his pole.

“I’ll tell you about a bear encounter I dealt with along this trail in a little while. But first, I want to mention that there’s safety in numbers, and we’re a large group. Though we need to be careful, keep in mind that you’re going on one of the prettiest hikes in the park, and to a very interesting place too.”

Rick started walking down a path. He cupped his hands and announced in a deep voice, “Yo, bears. We’re here!” Then he turned to the group. “Come on! We’ve got a lot of trail ahead of us.”

Farther along, Rick waited for the forty or so people to gather.

“Okay. Let me point out a few things. The large mountain in back there is Mt. Gould. In front of it is Angels Wing. What’s left of Grinnell Glacier is between those two peaks. And down below is one of the real jewels of this park, Grinnell Lake. We’ll continue to see it and its great display of turquoisity along the way.”

A little while later Rick stopped the group near a series of red rocks. He removed his cap and wiped some sweat off his face. “It’s an awfully warm day,” he said. “But that’s been the trend these last few summers. Years ago it hardly ever got this way so high up in Glacier. And the winters have warmed up significantly too.”

He turned around and pointed. “Even Gem Glacier, near the top of the mountain, has bare ice on it now. This has only happened in the last couple of years. Usually the ice is covered from last winter’s snows.”

Rick looked straight down at Grinnell Lake. “One day that jewel of water will lose its turquoise color. And unfortunately, that day isn’t too far off. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Now I want to tell you my bear story.

“A few years ago, on this very trail, a young woman and her father took off to Grinnell Glacier early in the morning. They were the first ones on the path that day. Just ahead of this spot they climbed around a bend and a grizzly and cub were right on the trail.

“One of the most dangerous things you can do is to surprise a sow and her cub. The grizzly charged and attacked. Both the daughter and father tumbled off a cliff. This seriously injured them, in addition to their wounds from the attack, but it also might have saved them.”

Rick paused to catch his breath. “I was the ranger on duty that day. And let me tell you, it was one long day. A hiker came running down to tell me what happened. Well…I’ve never hiked up this trail so quickly. I got to the two people and radioed for help. We had to fly them both out in a helicopter, but they survived. In fact, the father came back a year later to hike this very same trail!

“One thing we should all consider when hiking in bear country is to go in large groups, like we are today. But enough of this scary bear stuff,” Rick said, turning back toward the glacier. “You can only see the top of Grinnell Glacier now, so let’s hike the rest of the way and look at all of it. And by the way, George Bird Grinnell discovered Grinnell Glacier back in 1887. It’s been extensively viewed and studied ever since.”

Morgan and James noticed the bear spray clipped to Rick’s belt.

Mom saw where James looked. “We’re going to have to get some bear spray for ourselves,” she mentioned, keeping her family close behind the ranger.

The group passed a waterfall splashing vigorously onto the trail. The Parkers, like the other hikers, dashed by, hoping not to get soaked. Eventually, everyone reached the last group of trees before the final steep climb.

Someone noticed an animal nearby. “Look. A bighorn!”

The large, noble-looking sheep was standing on a mound of rock, its thick horns curling over its head.

“There’s another one,” Morgan called out.

“They’re guarding the valley,” Rick announced with a smile.

The group proceeded up the trail. As they passed the bighorns, Morgan and James counted. “I’ve seen twelve so far,” James reported.

The path began to level off. One last large sheep was perched on a huge boulder, staring down at the hikers.

“He’s right above us,” Dad whispered nervously as the family dashed by.

Finally the group reached the top. Straight ahead was a remnant arctic scene. Grinnell Glacier was full of cracks and large chunks of ice. Some icebergs were floating in a small turquoise lake. A waterfall splashed down from Salamander Glacier above it.

Suddenly a booming, cracking sound rumbled up from the ice field. It echoed throughout the mountain bowl like thunder. The Parkers and the whole group froze and looked all around.