Enjoying an alpine charcutier board. Best day ever. Thus far.

Original Post Date 7/20/2021

Today was a banner day.  Best day yet in spite of the smoke.  But you be the judge.

So instead of getting a healthy five hours of sleep, I had to bump it down to four.  A 4:15a up had me rolling at 4:30a and coming into the Logan Pass parking lot at 5:45.  Yeah,  that is pretty early.  And the lot was already half full.  Lots of families with smaller kids who were crying ‘but mom, I don’t want to hike.  It’s still night out.’  Lots of people who looked like they slept in their car. It was just like a Catholic Christmas mass — standing room only with an hour and a half before it starts.

Within 30 minutes of landing in my parking stall the lot was entirely full, with dozens cars circling hoping for someone to suddenly decide to leave.  Once filled, people then start parking at the pull outs on either side of the pass on the Going to the Sun Road and walk the pavement back up. Sometimes up to a mile away.

It is no fun to be walking a steep mountain road, with hairpin blinds curves with zero shoulder. That is also normally bumper to bumper with traffic. The other day I saw truck mirrors literally almost hit a guy in the back of the head while he pushed a double stroller.  I guess that is one way to wipe out your family tree in one fell swoop. Amazing no one has been hurt yet this year.  Amazing to see an entire parking lot fill while I was just lacing my boots. Pretty wild. And the line for the bathrooms was huge.

Today was going to be my fun day with no time pressures.  My plan was to hike the highline trail down to haystack butte, climb to the top, and just hang out for a couple of hours and enjoy the view.  But I’m here early at 6am for a parking spot, so why not climb Mt Oberlin?  Most commonly know as the easiest peak at the pass (if not the all of Glacier Park). But it has outstanding views.  Of course, the climbing trail is hidden, because it’s not an NPS trail and they don’t want people on it.  So you have to click 33 links on the GNP website to find out you need to go to the far end of the paved lot, climb over a handrail that says do not climb over, and follow a ‘well defined path’ with signs on either side that say ‘stay off revegetation zone.’  Love the NPS.  The non-trail then banks off to the west and takes you to a saddle. 

The route from the saddle is full of countless weaving paths through stupid cliffs you should not be on. Tourist have placed rock cairns all over marking a dozen different routes.  If someone was not familiar with the type of scrambling specific to Glacier NP, some of the chutes you must pass thru can be pretty hairy with some real (and unnecessary) exposure.  I know at least one person was scared, as I found some nice Leki poles at the base of a nasty chimney even I would not climb.  Later found out I was the only person on the mountain this morning, so they must have went down another route and were too spoked to go back for them.  Must have been scared as hell to kiss goodbye $150 in trekking poles.

After screwing around for almost two hours, I found myself on the summit.  Down below I could see the two ribbons of headlights on each side of the pass, feeding into the only parking lot for fifty miles.  The red taillights making it look like a throbbing, clogged, diseased heart in the middle of the pristine wilderness. 

Then I watched the other artery of people on the Hidden Lake boardwalk trail.  Hundreds of bodies walking up and down, trying to get this one hike done so they can move on to some other national park experience.  Smoky views, but they are still wonderful and open.  If you take the time to stand, look, and appreciate. I took the standard route down (old school from the 1980’s and before) and at the car in 40 minutes.  Thanks NPS for ******* up a trail that worked fine for over a century.

After re-gearing up and telling a thousand people I was not leaving the parking lot, I took off down the Highline Trail. 

On the Highline, I only climbed up as high as the meadows on the upper sub dome of Haystack Butte.  The ankle was a little sore from the Oberlin descent and I needed to save some strength for elevation for tomorrow’s hike. 

Some great pictures of the back side of the Garden Wall.  The haze came and went, but you can see forever up there.  Nice spot to break out my cheese/meat/humus/nut tray.   I will agree the presentation was not the best.   But it’s all about location location location. 

Also shot a little video up there.  Was nice to just be able to take in almost the entire Highline trail and see so far in so many directions.

I pumped out the four miles back to the pass in and hour and twenty.  Of course I had to politely excuse myself to about eighty people I needed to pass on the trail. But I found out if I offered to pass on the outside (cliff side) they seem OK with it. 

For those who did not accept my cliff -side-pass request or did not speak English, I equally found that “******* move over” in a firm but assertive tone was also the key to freeing the Glacier National Park trail gridlock.

Of course, at the pass, I could not just give up my primo end row parking spot.  

So, as I changed into drive clothes and swapped out footwear, I told another thousand people I was not leaving.  I took my camp chair over to the retaining wall to do some hydrating and read some maps.  A couple of non-law enforcement (NLE) rangers came by.  I asked them ‘How can you stand this total shit show every day’?  Seems to be a great opener because I ended up talking to them for 45 minutes.  They clearly were not into working on winning the hearts and minds of the entitled tourists this afternoon. 

And you would be amazed at how ugly people can be when fighting for a parking spot at 6600’. The rangers had some great stories.  Got a lot of info on what challenges the park rangers have been dealing with this season and they are clearly understaffed and underpaid.  

This was the first year for Ranger Christine, and she had started doing some off trail in the Swiftcurrent area on her off days.  She pulled out a notebook and I gave her a bunch of places to go and the best online and printed guides to use.  Glacier is a great place to work for the summer. Of course, only if you can afford it!  😊

Totally great day.  Wanted to keep it light for tomorrow, but the numbers still came out at 12 miles and 2600’.  I’ll post my dashboard at the end of my ‘weekend.’  I starting to throw up some real numbers now.   What I really should be tracking is my sleep.  That is what I’m missing the most as of late.