Snyder Ridge Jungle Gym

Found some trip reports I never got around to posting from last year...

Tired of the crowds in Glacier National Park and looking to add some gymnastics to your hiking experience?  Try the Snyder Ridge Fire Trail in early season.

Others have called this a “poorly maintained trail through a wooded ridge with limited views” which is true. But where else can you have the trail all to yourself in Glacier (at least without a ford)?

A series of single blowdowns of varying heights provide a warm up on the climb to the ridge. 

First you have to find the trailhead.  You won’t see the sign from the road unless you look deep in the shadows. There is no parking area, just a turnoff on the other side of the road and the sign hiding in the trees.

A few triples. You can almost get a rhythm going if you get a running start.

All quiet going through massive groves of old-growth cedar.

Rest at the view-through-the-trees once you gain the ridge

Along the top, extensive areas of forest along the ridge were upturned. The trail here is completely covered by a huge tangled jungle gym of stacked-up downed-trees. I suspect it was recent, since there was no sign anyone had been this way- no footprints, no broken branches.  Maybe sometime it will get cleared?

Tangled

The forest is an endless abyss of disorienting branches that attack with their stabbing and jabbing and snagging. 

Then a clear part. It's enough to get your hopes up that maybe it won't be so hard the entire way.

Then more of this.

After a while, when you give up on thinking of this as a walk and give into the reality, try imagining you are still a kid, climbing up and over and around and through the tangled trees and pretend you are having fun. Work on balance beam moves. 

Some trees are so big that have to launch yourself up to get up on top of them.

More excitement: Climb to the top of the heap of broken up trees, and scan the area as far as you can see for some sign of where the trail might go.  Did you forget which way you were going when you were climbing up and over and through, trying not to plummet into the sea of sticks and needles? 
Navigating the playground is not a walk in the park.  Over seven miles of gymnastics is exhausting.  Especially when you get turned around and end up going the wrong direction for an hour.

Did that just happen?  An entire hour of not once checking map, compass or Gaia GPS?  Not once looking up to see the mountain peaks on the wrong side? Not even looking at the cell phone!

When’s the last time *anything* has been that engaging?

Close up view of beetle galleries.

The state of exhaustion is reached. The idea of turning around and hiking through that mess again seems completely crazy. 

It’s OK to bail.  The Lincoln Creek Trail intersects the Snyder Ridge Trail and leads 1.7 miles down to the Sun road.  It’s a well-maintained trail, another world.  Near the trailhead, there are even people! Hitchhiking in Glaicer is easy.  Much easier than doing this as an out and back. 

THANK YOU to the sweet young couple from Bigfork for the ride back to my car!

For more information
Snyder Ridge Fire Trail

Date hiked: 5/2/2016

View of the Swan

The park where I lived while I was in Montana the past two years was perched on a mountain on one side of a long narrow valley. Past the expanse of development, the mountains on the opposite side stand tall above the valley floor. The Swan Range.

View across the valley of the Swan Range from the park

The park I was at is noted for the scenic overlook of this valley. On the first interpretive hike I led (about wildflowers), when we got to the overlook, one of the visitors pointed across to the mountain and asked, "What is the name of that peak over there?"

I had to reply, "I don't know but I'll find out."

And while it made me frustrated that she couldn’t she just ask about flowers, that question got me motivated. I actually went kind of overboard. Not only did I end up learning the names of all the peaks (which no one ever asked once I’d learned them), but I took it a step further and hiked many of the peaks and the length of the mountain range she pointed to, the Swan, in my two seasons in Montana.

First trip to the Swan in May of 2015. I was hooked from the start.

Last trip to the Swan in August of 2016.

What was really special about my Swan trips was seeing the seasons change, the snow melt, the flowers come out and then whither and go to seed. And seeing this change from year to year.

Early season

November

The Swan became that place that I could go when I was tired, sad, happy, or full of energy. It was reliable and served all purposes. Within 30 minutes of leaving work, I could be climbing and that was all that mattered. And I think that’s why I often didn’t write about many of my trips there. They were all mine.

View from my campsite on one of my solo trips that didn't make the blog

While it’s not as classically scenic as Glacier, I never tired of being able to see across the valley back to where I lived. Knowing geography of local area is important.  Maybe more important to me than scenery. A sense of place gives that inner calm.

Another sunrise over the Swan from the park that I called home for two years.

Watching the sunrise over the Swan every morning also served as a link between my days on and my days off. No matter what my day held in store, I tried to hold the view of the sunrise in my heart. Knowing that I had hiked those mountains the previous weekend, or would hike them in just a few days. Remembering that could carry me through anything.

Looking back across the valley from the Swan range.

Last summer, I started watching the moon rise above the Swan too. And we put on a full moon hike at the park and invited everyone to come out to watch the moon rise with us. It turned out to be our most successful program at the park. I was so excited that I could describe all the peaks and point out where the moon would appear.

Watching the moon rise with more people that I ever dreamed would join us

Explaining where the moon rise would happen (as viewed from the park's overlook)

Hello moon. Right where I knew you would be.

Rising more.

Watching the moon come up between 6 Mile Mountain (that I’d climbed) and Big Hawk (where I’d been swimming last year) filled me with such joy.

View from the summit of 6 Mile Mountain.

Having those connections, especially in remembering that very first hike I’d led, where I hadn’t known any of this, makes me smile. I had no idea where that question would take me!

Summit of Mt. Aenes.

In thinking about moving, I wonder what new places will speak to me, and where my trips will lead. How do you find new places that make you want to know their every peak and valley? What modivates you to get out on your days off?

For more about my hikes in the Swan, links here.

The thing about Montana

The thing about Montana is that it is insanely beautiful.  I forget this constantly-- especially when I'm running errands or sitting at my computer at work.  Maybe this much beauty is too much to hold in one's tiny brain- it's bound to make one distracted or daydreamy.

But step out on the trail and Montana comes full force flooding into consciousness.  Fresh.

Bond Lake in the Swan Range of northwestern Montana

A 2,300 foot climb up the Bond Creek Trail to Bond Lake.  No one is around so I jump in.  Cool waters, fish jumping.  There is something about immersion in freezing waters that makes this landscape more comprehensible.  Or maybe it's just the brain slowing down in the cold.

Above Trinkus Lake

Going around blind corners, I hear my voice echoing across the entire valley as I announce my presence to possibly bears.  Deep, resonating, a powerful voice that means business.  I think back to the weak, quavering voice of my first few solo hikes in grizzly country.  This place has changed me.  Now I have a voice that penetrates around corners.

Frolicing.

At the junction with the Wire Trail, there is much not-knowing.  Will the next few miles to the lake wear me out in this heat?  Do I have enough water to get me there/ will the lake be dry/ drinkable?  Will there be grizzlies?  Will the clouds bring a storm and if so will I be stuck high on a ridge in the lightening?  I weigh what I know with all the uncertainty of new territory.

Closer to sky.

The name of the next lake is “Crevice Lakes.”  I don’t know what crevice means when it comes to lakes but it sounds like something I’d like.  Time to move forward despite the uncertainty.  Don’t I have everything I could possibly need right here on my back?  Don’t I have the experience to go along with it?  Isn’t an open heart even more critical than all of that?

Strong legs carry me forward. Where they get their power, I never know.

I feel the heat in the form of light nausea at the pit of my stomach.  How far is the next lake?  Two miles in this heat seems endlessly far and I recheck my water supply to see if there is enough to spare to soak a bandana for my neck.  Then up ahead, an unexpect gift.

How is there still snow in July?  In this heat?

In mid-July!  Snow is packed into my hat cooling me off instantly. More snow goes down into my shirt— the melting water drips down cooling me twice.

Rocks cradle water

Rock spines slice through Crevice Lake

Sight is restored as the snow cools me down.  Breaking through the trees, the endless mountains with impossible angles stretch out.  Tears start to run down my checks.  Sometimes I can’t stand it all, this beautiful Montana landscape.  I shout my frustrations into the wind, “How can I ever leave you, Montana?”

Epic ridgewalking along spines of mountains, views stretching east and west

Mountains don't respond though.  There are no answers. It's up to me to make sense of all this.

The scent up here… not overly sweet, just… right. The Swan Range smells like the fitting end of a long beloved book- deliciously complex, satisfying, provoking.  I love this smell, I think.

Close up.

I wonder if this is how it goes with all wild mountain places.  Certainly I felt like this with the High Sierra.  But Montana- isn’t this more beautiful than even that?  Is it even right to compare?  What even is beauty?  What is it about the power of a place to make us gasp, to make us wonder?

Time to make camp

Then there is the slowly creeping evening light. Eager to go to bed in my hammock, but I have to wait and watch.  Bird dart and chase each other.  What if I fall asleep before all the colors turn?

Beckoning.

Yellow hour

Pinks start to appear

Nearly there orange

I laugh because it matters not if I am hear to watch it or not.  It happens here, day after day, all of this.  Somehow that is comforting, knowing this continues to be here even when I'm back in town, even when I leave Montana.  This will all be here.  Maybe some of this will stay with me.  Maybe there is some of this that I will never forget because it has changed me so.  If not the beauty, then the scars this place has left.

Breathing it in.

Morning again

This trip will be my last solo in Montana.  I'm completing my second term with Montana State Parks Americorps.  I thought I'd stay here forever, but it's clear I have to leave now.  How can I possibly be anywhere else though!?!?  Guess I'll find out soon enough.

Trip information
Bond Creek Trail
Alpine Trail #7
Crevice Lake

Rainy Harrison Lake

Thunder rumbles in the distance.  The intensity of the rain picks up.  I splash along the shoreline- my shoes are soaked anyway and I can only feel half of my frozen toes, but a little more wet won’t matter.  The lake water has risen to cover the gravely bank but I’m determined to get to the survey site before the storm rolls in.  I'm out here doing surveys for Glacier National Park's Citizen Science Program, and there is still a view of the steep, snow-speckled Glacier Park peaks that I hope harbor mountain goats.

Is this storm coming in or heading out?

Balancing my umbrella in my poncho, I pull out my binoculars and scan the cliffs.  Binoculars fog up, get wiped clean, fog up again, then get rain-soaked.  Goat-shaped rocks or rock-shaped goats?  Is that goat-snow patch moving?  Binocs are too blurry to tell.

Foggy binocs frustration.

I retreat back to the ranger cabin porch to wait it out.  What if the fog rolls in further?  What if the rain keeps pouring all night? I don't know why it matters so much.  I'm not getting paid.  If I can't survey, it's OK.  But still, I care.  I want to see if the goats are out there.  Curiosity, ah yes, you powerful modivator.

Waiting, watching, trying not to be cold.  How could we be this cold in July?

No sense in what- ifing.  There is only listening to the rain drops through the forest.  Watching the sparkle of light on wet forest.  Marveling at the wonder of found-shelter.  Soaking in the here-and-now.  Breathing it in.  There is only waiting and being present.

(Oh why is this stillness, this softness with the present moment so accessible out here, but sometimes hard to find inside buildings, inside cities?)

Slowly, very slowly, there is a brightness that appears in the distance.  Is it moving this way? 

Ah blue sky- what are you even?  A little patch.  But there nonetheless.

Blue skies.

I move down again to the water’s edge where I can make out the distant peaks.  Are you out there, mountain goats?  Through the binoculars, there is a possible goat-rock or it is a real goat? Are those legs- oh it’s moving!  It's a goat not a rock!  Out come the spotting scope and tripod, and oh there are four goats sure enough.

  One, two, three, F-O-U-R goats.

Their locations is recorded in my citizen science data sheet.  I watch them for a while longer.  They move the way goats do, across impossible cliffs, nimble.  Ah goats!

All it took was some waiting, some watching.  Without the spotting scope, without that break in the weather, I'd never have seen them.  How many things are like that?  Without knowing how to look, without waiting for a clear view, you'd never even know that four goats were up there.  I wonder how much more I'd see if I had this kind of patience in other situations.

Socked in with fog the next morning. But ah the stillness.

Trip Info

The Boundary Trail led 7.2 miles above the Middle Fork of the Flathead from Headquarters to the Harrison Lake Trail.  Then it was 4.8 miles to the Harrison Lake Campground, and 0.5 miles beyond to the goat site.

Along the Middle Fork of the Flathead.

Only saw two other people in two days, and there was no one else at the campsite.  No one.  On a weekend in July.  They say that Glacier National Park is crowded, but it’s not if you know where to go.  Just don't tell anyone about Harrison Lake.  Or tell them its a terribly overgrown trail.

Which is true.  Here we are fighting through the bushes.  The trail was only like this 75% of the time.

The Belton Bridge was not the place for solitude, certainly.  When returning to the trailhead, it was packed with people playing loud music and sunbathing in bikinis and whooping as they leapt into the water below.  What a shocking onslought of humanity to return to after such a quiet and restorative two days.  I strode by with my sun-umbrella, knee high gaiters, and long-sleeved shirt, feeling feral and free, determined to carry the peace and wildness with me in my heart as I venture back into the week.

Harrison Lake- let's keep it quiet.

Date Hiked: July 16-17, 2016
More about Glacier National Park's Citizen Science Program.

CDT in Glacier: Pitamakin and Triple Divide Passes

For Day 1 between Two Medicine and Oldman Lake, click here.

The second and third days of our Continental Divide Trail trip in Glacier, Renee and I went walking through a gorgeous painting.  How can the peaks jut up at these incomprehensible angles? How can this possibly be real?

Above Medicine Grizzly Lake.

Glacier feels so alive and vibrant.  Almost like I shouldn't be here. What is our impact having?  Rather than feeling at home like I do on other trails, here I am constantly aware that I am just passing through.  This place belongs to the wildlife, not us humans.  It is wild.

Carved by glaciers

This area is known for a high concentration of grizzlies.  We make lots of noise, and I scan the trail and hillsides, ever vigilant. My voice penetrates the quiet, cutting through the birdsong.  Does Renee think I'm excessively paranoid with all my shouting and reminders to be alert?  I think of all the quiet mornings we've spent hiking together on other trails across the country, sharing peaceful sunrises.  Being with her reminds me of how different my mental state is out here where I'm not at the top of the food chain.  A deep awareness of what I give up to be here.

Taking a break, we finally sit quietly and watch the lake ice melting before our eyes as wildflowers dance in the breeze.

Sitting for an hour doing mountain goat or loon surveys provides a quiet counterbalance, stillness, and a way to cope with being in Glacier.  It makes me feel like I can help out the wildlife, in the small way that scientific research does, by raising awareness and deepening human understanding- I still believe this can make the difference, can't it?  Surveys also focus our observations, and makes us look deeper.  So if there is no tangible broader impact, at least the surveys change us in small ways.  Sometimes that is enough.

Renee spots goats and sheep at Pitamakin Pass

Sitting still, tracing the binoculars and spotting scope across the landscape.  Otherwise the landscape, and these problems, are just too big for my tiny brain. 

Marveling at how fast the mountain goats run across snowfields at Triple Divide Pass.

A tiny newborn goat follows behind its mama.  How they can be so agile on impossibly angled slopes?  How can they survive the winters here?  How quickly they disappear around the corners, out of sight. 

Distant waterfalls

Further on down the trail, two CDT hikers greet me, "Hello Joan!"  I'm surprised they recognize me-- we just hiked together for part of one day on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2014 near Sonora Pass (read about meeting them on here).  I remember being so inspired by them- how they were going off to hike the High Sierra Route, and how we had that sort of intense and real conversations that can happen out while backpacking.  But still, they must have had a good memory to remember my name!  I asked and they said, "Well you're wearing the same outfit too!"

Despite the new bear spray and binocular accessories, I've still got pretty much the same look.

We catch up on two year's worth of hiking and life.  (The Sierra High Route was incredible, they said.) It's old trail friend moments like this that make me want to do another long distance hike.  Oh how I've missed this feeling of instant connection, of being part of a community. 

Richness

The afternoon heats up as we descend into the burn area.  There is water all around, but there are times where it seems so far away.  Whenever we cross a stream, I soak my clothes and head and feet.  Not being adapted to these temperature extremes.

Water and green amid the burn

Whenever we pause, the mosquitoes descend upon us. At least one critter is glad we are here. I keep up my racket of announcing our presence into the wilderness.  We see no bears.

Even the burn has a beauty I wasn't expecting.  How life has recovered.

Bear grass and regrowth

A way across

At camp, we spend the evening talking to a couple who is finishing up their last section of the CDT.  Ah what stories they share.  A group of college buddies arrive later- obviously on their first camping trip.  They leave food out unattended while they go get water, so we all try to educate them about proper food safety and etiquette without being preachy.  It seems to come across well and they ask question after question about long distance hiking and how our packs can be so small.  This type of exchange is one reason I really like these shared food areas-- how wonderful to share and listen and educate, to inspire and learn from one another.

Evening at Red Eagle Lake Campsite

Route:
We hiked on the CDT in Glacier National Park on the Pitamakin Pass Trail from Oldman Lake to Altlantic Creek Campground.  Then, over Triple Divide Pass to Red Eagle Lake Campground.
Date hike: June 28-29, 2016