Chasing beargrass to Swiftcurrent Pass.  No grass, just bears.

Original date 6/26/25

The NPS installed new drop gates with password entry for the Many Glacier Valley this year. Is it a part of a major infrastructure project underway that was 50 years overdue? Or are they automating future access? Oh no, my favorite valley! But GoatBoy must try.

So I figured I would get up early on a June morning after a late-season snowstorm shut down parts of the park for a day and a half, to see if I could make it to Swiftcurrent Pass.

The trails were not filled with runoff and not too muddy, which is always a sign that you can make good time. Just hope the NPS has put up the bridges for the stream crossings.

But I do find some bear prints almost immediately, front and rear paws. I guess this fellow just walked thru this running stream bed an hour ago. No people = more bear activity.

Not as much snow up toward the Pass as I had hoped. I took along my ice ax with the thought of doing Dave’s Direct, but the bottom had long since dropped out of my favorite snow route. Maybe next summer.

This is when I spot the first of what would be an amazing beargrass bloom. The biggest that I have ever seen. It was amazing to see flowers this low in the valley (at 5K) this early in the season.

When I talk about infrastructure in the MGV, I mean new wells, water pipes, sewer lines, holding tanks, and cisterns that had not been touched since they were installed during the Mission 66 project in the late 50s and early 60s. A LOT of deferred maintenance work.

To the point, the MG campground and SWC Motor Inn were not allowed to open up for the season. If you count hikers and just day tourists coming into the see the MG Lodge, they estimate that over 150-250K people were barred from entry this season. First time ever.

Clearly not my problem. The work added a few detour miles to the hike, but when you’re logging around 18 miles, why not round it up to 20?

I have always loved beargrass. It’s not a grass, and bears don’t eat it (and it is part of the lily family). But the fragile-looking tassels make me think back to the many Dr. Suess books I read as a kid (and read to my kids) over the years. Childish and whimsical.

My first bear signing. I kept moving, as did he. With the trail this quiet, they are down very low, especially since they have only been out of the den for about a month. The valley bottom is the only place to find food until the summer heat comes in.

Even if the weather turns, walking thru a trail lined with beargrass is a very visual and exciting opportunity. The plant only blooms every seven to eight years, so when you get one this big, it’s kind of a cool thing.

I was really expecting more snow at the back of the valley. I heard there was a warm streak at the end of May that caused an early melt of the winter’s moderate snowpack. This is when we hope for rain to keep the forest fires at bay. Glacier Park smoky can be pretty icky.

I’ve been alone on the trail before this early. But never when the weather has been this good or the trail this clear. Kind of eerie.

It is hard to tell from the sky what it wants to do. There seems to be enough wind aloft to either push out or bring in some weather, but I can’t tell which. Even Zoleo couldn’t break the tie. So in the meantime, soldier on and enjoy it while it lasts.

It was like being the giant in a nursery rhyme. Dragging the back of my hand across what I could only call a beargrass forest. It made me smile.

Hard to believe I had the entire valley to myself. Possibly for a few hours. Possible for the whole day. Complete unknown. But I could not wait to find out.

Rocks don’t just flip themselves over for the exercise. Looks like a bear walked the trail, sniffing for any bugs underneath. Without the sound and smell of tourists to spook them away, the bears seem to be hanging around the trail longer than usual for this late in the spring.

So sad. Almost no snow up high, and we haven’t even hit July yet. I guess we need to hope for a rainy summer to compensate for the lack of slow-melting alpine moisture.

Bullhead Lake never gets the attention or the love it deserves. People are always just blowing past it. But today might be a good time to take a pause and really see what it has to offer.

While tourists focus on overusing and trampling the likes of Grinnell Glacier and Iceberg Lake, this little pass-by is just sitting all by itself. Now sprinkle around a major beargrass bloom, and ugly Betty is the queen of the prom. And with so few people to see and enjoy!

I could have stayed here for an hour and just taken it all in. But no! The mountains are calling, and I must go. At least there is still steady water falling from the Swiftcurrent Glacier complex up high. The siren’s song.

This part of the trail was cut by the Great Northern and finished around 1915, connecting the Many Glacier Valley to the west side of the Park. The switchbacks were known as the Glory Trail.

Finally time to stop slacking off in the valley and make the climb. The last three bridges before the headwall aren’t installed yet. Just to make sure the spring runoff won’t carry them away. Making a wet boot or barefoot crossing is a big decision.

I got passed on the trail by a guy my age from France. He couldn’t speak English, and I had just filled my mouth with a bunch of those peanut butter-filled pretzel bites from Costco. So you can correctly assume we didn’t have a meaningful conversation. But I think he complimented my boots (old school Swiss Raichle).

The sky is still not sure what it wants to do, and the wind is starting bite a little more. But SWC Pass is my goal, and I know I will reach it for sure. Just need to hike a handful of long (pack horse friendly) switchbacks that would grind out over 1800′ of gain.

In the last few years, the NPS has begun reintroducing pack-saddle horses to these trails. Absent for close to 100 years now, after going bankrupt in the early 30s. Big question: how will a modern horse string of ‘dude’ tourists fare sharing these narrow paths with 1500 hikers who have no idea of equine trail etiquette? Only time (and emergency air lifts) will tell.

Dave’s Direct is so melted out. The spring was warm, and I’m about three weeks behind schedule. It is such a fun snow climb that I really look forward to it. With a little luck, it will be there for the 2026 season.

I came across a couple of kids in their 20s going off-trail through here, doing a highly technical approach to the Swiftcurrent Glacier complex. Yeah. I was going to tell them that was clearly not going to happen, after gleaning their lack of knowledge not just of Glacier Park, but also of how to navigate all those cliffs with the lingering ice this early in the season.

Then they started talking about being from Glasgow, MT. I knew someone from there once. He was about half as bright as these two fellows combined. Must be a regional gene. So I decided to double down on natural selection. I wished them the best of luck. And smiled at the thought of the overtime some lucky rangers would get for the body recovery effort.

Getting close to the Pass, I started hearing voices behind me. Another group of hikers. Having the high ground, I could see it was three girls and a guy, all about mid-20s. I’m guessing seasonal. Employed at Many. They were moving fast and would eventually catch me, so I found a nice view and stepped off to the side of the trail.

They passed me, with respect, kept talking nonstop, not once pausing for a breath. The guy had this crazy New Zealand accent. I only know New Zealand because he could not stop talking about Christchurch. But as we reached the last of the winter snow fields on the upper reaches just before the pass, I had to pass them again.

People make fun of the fact that I still wear hiking boots. Old school. Clunky and clumsy. But proven and true. They have never given me a blister in the last 30 years. And guess what? When you need to kick in steps on an old, rotten snow field that is pretty much all ice this late in the season, what do you do? Wait and follow the old guy with the boots, because those soft trail runners are nothing but expensive toboggans on that terrain. Not my first rodeo in GNP.

Every time I see a group like this, it takes me back to my first summer working in the Park when I was just 19. No trail too long. No mountain is too high. Plenty of hours in the day (and night). As long as you showed up to your 7 am shift on time, all was fine.

And then they passed me yet again. And to be honest, I didn’t mind. I reached my turnaround point at the pass before they did, and watched them crest over down towards Granite Park Chalet. Mr. Christchurch even thru me a ‘Good Job!’ and a fist bump when passing.

At first, I thought he was kind of being a dick and making fun of the old man on the mountain. But he was respectful, as were the rest of his party, and it made me smile. Yeah, this old goat may not have many miles left in him, but the ones I have now matter.

The wind was starting to chill the sweat, and I didn’t spend much time at the pass. Just enough to remember youth gone by, and cross my fingers for a couple more seasons in this magical place.

I know my years, and am at peace with the math. That energy from those endless summers of childhood is the fuel for that flicker of flame. The one that keeps the soul warm. Staving off the long dark shadows that inevitably come for us all.

The return down the valley is nothing but memories, and the sky was giving me more blue than grey. Once I dropped down a grand, the wind backed off, and the sun started warming the subalpine, making it almost pleasant.

The sky makes no difference. The rocks. The dirt. The a valley that has been glaciated 20 times in the last two million years. But in my eyes, it has not changed in over forty years. The gift of being human. Being only a blink in the eye of time.

I’m not sure how many times I’ve made this trek through the years. Probably a couple of dozen? And while I wouldn’t say that each time feels like the first, every experience does blend into all of those that came before.

I recall the first time I passed this waterfall in June of 1985. With my roommate from Toledo, Ohio. Andy Kalkulack. I took a photo with a cheap Kodak C-110 camera, where it cost more to develop a roll of film than the cost of the entire camera.

Oh. Wait. Here it is. Funny how the body changes. Along with the mind and spirit. And often our personal direction in life. But somehow, as if by magic, the mountains remain the same. Or better put, they just change much more slowly.

That is why my connection to this valley with its string of lakes, majestic waterfalls, and razor peaks continues to get stronger with each visit. The sum of the whole is so much more powerful than any single visit.

However, I have to say that this visit, chasing beargrass and running from bear and moose, has been very special all in its own right. I’ll get to the moose in a minute. And running is something GoatBoy doesn’t do. It’s more of a brisk hike.

The afternoon descent also gave me better colors and backlighting than I could have ever hoped for. It is really hard to take a bad picture when you are in an amazing place, and the skies above decide to throw you a bone. Which I chase like a Labrador Retriever with three brain cells.

This hike is hard to explain. Without all the words, sounds, and smells that make the experience what it is. But all I can give you is a visual. With the hope you can backfill with the best memories of your past.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. When Glacier Park gives, she gives you everything she has.

But when Glacier Park takes, she will take more than you have and make you write an IOU for the rest of your life. So always get while the getting is good. And this was a VERY good afternoon.

So as I drop back on the valley floor to enjoy the four-plus-mile more or less level stroll to the trailhead under blue skies and wispy white clouds, I could not help but feel there was another shoe (or is it hoof) left to drop.

Bullhead Lake was more lovely than ever. Those amazing alpine firs. The long views through a valley in which I’ve seen less than a dozen people in what will be twenty miles in the heart of Glacier National Park, with 3.4 million visitors in mostly three short months.

I could tell you all of the names of these mountains, the trees, the grasses, and the flowers. But why? It was just a beautiful place to be at a wonderful moment. And it was all mine, not to be shared.

This moment should not have happened. This trail gets over 1,000 people this time of season on a day like this. No peace. No quiet. No serenity. The steady stream of human detritus that brings its technology and social baggage to a place it doesn’t belong.

But not today. And to remind me that I was but a visitor, I would also have to cross paths with a bull moose. This fellow was way too close to the trail for my liking. But breaking through six-foot-high brush and willows to circumvent would have been a higher danger level.

So I just made myself known and keep on moving. No eye contact. He allowed me to share his space for a few moments. Nothing more, nothing less.

The sky was uncertain, but the trail was dry and empty off all the things that distract from a walk in the woods. And that beargrass bloom just kept on showing me the way home.

Over this summer, I would come across people hiking in the Park for the first time. Which is great. I love talking to people on the trail. But on this hike, it was different. Not because there were so few, but because they had no idea how special this experience was.

To see this flora as it was meant to be. Up close, personal, alone. Such a rare thing in the Glacier Park of the 21st Century. The few people I met were really experiencing it as Louis Hill wanted the guests of the GNRR to see it 125 years ago (sans horse).

Just the sound of your thoughts. No mental static. No metallic grind of progress from the industrial age.

I did see another bear on the return trip. Not the same one. Wrong color. No berries in yet, so he was working on an old stump. And I mean, he was working it. He was just too close for my comfort. He stayed interested in his thing, and I kept to mine.

Yeah. These were good hours in the valley. I really couldn’t have told you when it started or when I stopped if I hadn’t been wearing a watch. I miss the freedom of leaving time behind.

I always get butterflies in my stomach when I begin a long hike. Followed by fatigue and melancholy when I return to the trailhead. It has been a very, very long time since I have had either. That is a good feeling.

GoatBoy out. And smiling.

Oh, Patrick sucks.