Do not just ‘pass’ through. See, feel, breathe. Piegan Pass.

Original Post Date 7/18/2021

Gotta love that Piegan Pass. It embodies everything I love about this place.

This pass is awesome and has all the best things Glacier Park has to showcase in one simple hike.  The flowered meadows, the forests of dwarf alpine firs, the delightful mountain approach is like strolling around in the Alps wearing satin lederhosen.

That final mile-plus long switchback above the treeline provides open views of all the major peaks, waterfalls, and glaciers. You’ll gawk nonstop, but not without stubbing a toe. It’s a very well-maintained trail with oh so even grades. At 9.8 miles roundtrip and only 1850 gain, you get a lot payback for the effort with this one. For the opposite of this hike, visit my Lincoln Lake post: 

https://adventureswithgoatboy.com/?p=972

From the pass, you can enjoy all of the peaks of the Many Glacier valley as well as looking back at all those in the Saint Mary valley.  Jackson is staring right at you, and the glaciers hanging onto Mt Blackfoot and Mt Logan are very impressive.   It was almost a relief knowing all I had to do was go back to the car at Siyeh Bend, and not smash up my toes for the three hours of downhill to Swiftcurrent (this is the first time I’ve been to the pass for an in-and-out hike). 

I also needed to benchmark my time up and back.  I’m getting ready to start climbing peaks and have a pretty defined window of about nine hours from the time I roll out of bed to the time I need to get a shower before work.  Seems like a lot of time, but when you factor in driving crowded roads and hiking over uneven terrain with large gains, it can be tricky math. 

You can see there has been a lot of smoke in the park the last couple of days.   That’s what is keeping me from taking on climbs.  No fun to get to the top of something when the views look like the of the end of the world. At least there won’t be any zombies up here. That would take a set of lungs.

Stat for the week:

Current as of:	7/18/2021		Last Day:	9/2/2021		Days Left:	46
Category	Count	Miles	Elv Gain/Loss	Hours	Avg Grade	Avg MPH	Drive Miles
Hikes	12	144.0	29,100	58.2	7.7%	2.47	585.0
Climbs	0	0.0	0	0.0	#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!	0.0
Down Days	4						100.0
Totals	16	144.0	29,100	58.2	7.7%	2.47	685.0