The Sperry Glacier Complex. With great effort comes great reward.

Original Post Date 7/14/21

The last time I had a full day off for hiking was Lake Otokomi. This time I decided to stay local, and take on what many consider to be one of the hardest day hikes in the entire park.  And what a day I made of it. 

Quick stats: 52,443 steps, 5320 feet gain/loss, 22.2 miles roundtrip, total elapsed time trailhead to trailhead just at 10 hours.  Needless to say, it was a long day. And yes, I had some trail confusion so maybe there is an extra mile or so on me.

I cleaned when I got back to the RV park, laid back in my hammock next to the cabin, kept the feet up to reduce swelling.  Woke up at 10:30pm and then crawled into my bed until about 8ish the next morning.  Feeling pretty good for passing the 100-mile mark at only two weeks in this adventure. 

I am not a big fan of Sperry Chalet and often spurn it every chance I get. Probably just because I think the Granite Park Chalet is much more beautiful and better located.  Plus the trail up there is just miserable: open, hot, dusty, crowded, and horse traveled.   Maybe I am just not into paying 400 a night for a room and a compost toilet with no shower for what I consider a overcrowded wilderness experience. But knowing now that staying at Sperry saves 3300 of gain from the valley floor, which effectively buys you easy day access to what I consider some of the best that GNP has to offer, it might be money well spent. And a good way to take it easy on that dwindling knee cartilage. Just saying. I love how I can learn something new every day about a place I’ve been coming to for over 35 years.

The 3300 up in six miles to the chalet wasn’t bad with a early AM start.  Even with the forest burned mostly away, you get shade for the first couple of hours by being so deep in a really huge valley. You actually have open views as you grind out the miles from LMD.  The real magic starts when you take the junction to the Sperry Glacier just short of the Chalet. This was all terra incognito for me.  Sure, it still another 4 miles of trail with a hellish 2000 gain, but it is the best hell you will ever experience.   Hands down, in my estimation, I would rank this stretch of trail in my top five places of the park to visit.  It is literally that good.  And sadly enough, 99.99 percent of visitors will not have the legs to get there (at least not as a day hike).   That’s probably why it is still so pristine and simply jaw dropping.  There is such an enormous upfront physical cost, more than most human bodies have the bank to pay. As always, it is the mind you need to train. The body will follow.

The trail takes you steadily along several wonderfully long switchbacks across Feather Woman Falls, and other fantastic cascades. Then you climb to the upper basin with more waterfalls and two incredible little lakes (Akaiyan and Feather Woman, the latter still floating a lot of ice). 

Finally the last leg takes you to Comeau Pass, which ends in a fifty foot wall the that a narrow channel has been blasted thru, with some pretty steep steps and a green garden hose for safety.  Most people stop there, but I spotted a half dozen rock cairns clearly put it place to call those adventurous of spirit. If you are willing to lose about 300 feet of well-earned gain and cross a another half dozen steep and slick snow fields, then it’s time to go Texas Holdem style: All In. 

At the last one cairn a beat-up sign stating the obvious – Sperry Glacier.  And I had it all to myself.  Now I was in the center of the Sperry basin, and it was glorious.  I could easily spend a couple of days in this giant bowl.  So many peaks to scramble, tons of melt ponds and meadows to explore.  And although the glacier is a mere shadow of its former self, it was just incredible to be totally immersed in th heart of this environ. It felt like another planet. And again, I had it all to myself.

Here is a little panoramic video. One of my first. But you can feel how immense this place is:

Every peak from Logan Pass is visible from a pretty unique angle. You can look deep into the Lewis range and see forever.  From the fauna and flora, to the rock formations and snowfields, and the wide diversity of ecosystems, this is one hike for the books.  Well, at least those last four miles.   The first six pretty much blow.  The cost of admission is pretty steep (ha ha)., but this is one of the few times in life you get more than what you paid for.

Bonus:  saw a family of mtn goats still shedding winter fur with two kids in tow.  And the first of what would be many marmots this summer. The light was much better in the afternoon and I was able to capture some great angles as I dropped back into the LMD valley.

I’m almost done milking hikes out of the LMD valley.  Soon to add more commute time as I will start looking towards what Logan Pass and beyond has to offer. Ah, there is so much for the taking. Six classic peaks you access from the pass alone. Only two weeks into the Summer of Dave.