Day 12 - Glacier NP

Rob woke at 6am on our last day at Glacier to get colorful shots of the mountains at sunrise. He was successful!

We like how the color changed over the 45 minutes he spent outside.

Despite the early morning wake up we didn’t rush to get out today. We had a later breakfast and decided to take a hike to Apikuni Falls. We knew nothing about this hike except for its duration (1 mile one way after walking 1.1 miles to the trailhead) and elevation gain (700 feet), but hoped that a decent waterfall would be at the end of it.

We left our hotel around 10:30am to trek up the road towards the trailhead. Not too far down the road we shed our jackets—it was toasty already. The walk to the trailhead was somewhat uphill and into the sun, but we soon reached Apikuni Mountain.

We had thought about driving over to the trailhead, but worried that being a weekend the parking spots would be full already. They were so good thinking on walking over. At the trailhead we saw an enticing path ahead of us and were excited about the promise of a waterfall, despite the warning signs of Grizzly Country. Michele had her bear bell on today!

The path was more of a steady incline rather than a step ascent, and more than half of it was within the shady pine trees.The forest smelled great!

Rob thought it was interesting how a mountain can look one way from the road, but up close it is a sheer vertical drop.

We started to hear the falls and then it suddenly revealed itself.

What a great surprise to see such a tall waterfall, so different from the others we've hiked to. At the bottom Michele said she wanted to stand under the waterfall, clothes and all, to cool off. She took off her shoes to dip a toe in to test just how cool the water was.

And quickly realized just how unbelievably cold glacier melt is.

Rob put in his hand and estimated that the water was below 40 degrees. Michele said her feet ached after just 10 seconds in so no swimming in the waterfall for her today. We climbed the surrounding rocks to get up closer to the falls to check them out and discovered we could get right up to the base of them. It was deceptively high. Michele really wanted a photo of herself in the water and braved it again.

While she was putting her shoes back on, this little guy came running over to check us out.

He walked over to Michele’s purse while she had no shoes on, we think to steal the peanut butter crackers she had in there.

We like how the algae looks like green ooze.

Reluctantly we had to say good bye to the falls and hike back down.

On our walk back to the hotel, we got a great view of Grinnell Glacier, one of the most popular glaciers in the park. It is a 7-10 mile strenuous hike to get there, so maybe another time. (But not too long as we later learned, that due to climate change most of the park's glaciers could melt by 2030! We truly hope not.)

We got a late lunch in the hotel lounge and then sat outside on the deck to soak up the views. Not five minutes later a very cold wind blew in and the rain began to creep across the lake. We ran up to the parking lot to check on the bike cover worried about the wind gusts, but the parking lot had only a breeze. Suddenly the rain stopped and the sun came out. It was 10 degrees warmer instantly. The weather is wacky here!

Back at the hotel deck, we claimed chairs and overheard a park ranger giving a talk about the hotel. He spoke about the Ptarmigan mountains within view and how two men from Minnesota scaled the rock a long time ago and punched a hole into it! Rob got a shot with his big lens. See here in the very middle of the photo just to the right of the low dip point in the rock. To its right is a dot of white snow.

On the deck a nice Australian lady asked Rob if he’s a professional photographer due to his Sigma lens. He was modest about his abilities, but we chatted with her for 30 minutes. She lives nearby and spends a lot of time in the park taking photos of wildlife, especially the mountain goats. She said that just the other day at Logan Pass (where we stopped on top of the Going to the Sun Road yesterday) a male grizzly came charging across the footpath chasing after a mountain goat and her babies. He apparently was hungry for a goat. She said that people ran and screamed and it was absolute mayhem. We can’t believe this happened in the very same touristy area we just visited.

We left for dinner and walked through the lake nature trail to the campground restaurant for pizza. After dinner, Rob caught a few sunset shots to close out our great day.