The odd day off. Keeping it simple.

So I got an odd day off. Kind of my fault since I did swap to help someone else out. Then swapped to help myself out. Now I have an orphaned day off in the middle of my tour cycle and not sure what to do with it.

Immediately I want to jump on my wish list of 20-mile hikes I’d like to kick out this summer. Kind of a make-every-day count sort of thing, seeing how this Jammer tour job thing is really getting in the way of throwing up some ridiculous high-hiking miles like last summer.

But I pulled my longest day ever the night before. A solid 14 hours by the time I got the bus washed and put to bed. Finished at almost 9 pm. Hard to plan a hike when you are that tired and DO NOT want to get up at 4 am to drive to some forsaken trailhead and then climb some enormous pile of scree. Hmmmmm.

Maybe some lower-elevation stuff? With some exploration for potential future hikes and climbs I might get to with a little luck before September rears its ugly head. Well, there are always the waterfalls near Lower St Mary Lake. And everyone knows how I love Sun Point. And isn’t there a trail that wraps around to the south shore of the lake? Maybe do about eight miles in, get a feel for the approach for a climb up Red Eagle, and cap off a sixteen miler with less than a thousand feet in elevation? Yeah. That’s the ticket.

I got to sleep in (6 am). Then chewed the fat some with my roommate, watched everyone prep their buses for the day, and finally took off for Sun Point (just past Rising Sun). Didn’t lace up the boots and lock the Dodge until almost 8 am. I felt like such a tourist. Which is funny, because I was STILL the only car in the parking lot.

So the trip was going to be easy. First Bering Falls, then a stop at Xmas Bridge and Sunrift Gorge, then St Mary Falls, then Virginia Falls, and then see how far I could get on the south St. Mary lakeside trail until my TBD turnaround point.

It was a cool morning, and I could see some weather wafting around the Logan Pass area. But little wind, so there was not anything moving anywhere fast. Since I was walking thru the 2016 burn, there were some nice, filtered views of Dusty Star Mtn.

But I just had to say hello to my new old friend Going to the Sun. I don’t like the Jammer narrative on how that name came to be, so I’ve pretty much cut it from my tour. But it was nice to hang out with him along the trail. Look at that wonderful layer of Grinnell argillite (that DID stay in the tour narrative).

Did I say Logan Pass was looking a little gloomy? Some high weather clouds were starting to creep past Fusillade and slowly move East.

My initial view of Bering Falls was less than spectacular, but I still gave it a chance.

I think in the right light this could be a nice little gem. Especially given how easy it is to reach from either the GttSR or the SP parking lot.

Of course, you have to take the extra side trip up from the falls and say Hello to the Depression Era (but very happy) Christmas Bridge and its little pal the Sunrift Gorge.

Walking along the lakeshore was pretty and pleasant. I was still enjoying some of the blue skies and the views were always rewarding.

Even the old 2016 Reynolds Creek burn had kind of a poetic serenity to it. I was early enough to have the trail almost all to myself. That would of course change in another hour or so when the hoards of families descended after getting their kids out of bed for the day.

I start to approach St Mary Falls. Kind of embarrassed to admit, with all of my hundreds of miles in the Park and all of those mountains I have climbed, I had NEVER been to St Mary Falls.

I can see why this is a popular hike now. There is a great approach to the trial. There are a couple of jumping-off points to start from. And this thing was just raging still with the spring runoff. Hi there Mr. Rainbow.

The water flowing into the morning sun was nothing to sneer at either. Only saw one other couple on the bridge that crossed at the base of the falls.

The water flattened out into a beautiful divided stream, slowly working its way out of the Park to Upper St Mary along Hwy 89. The colors were great and the roar was mesmerizing.

This is clearly a must-do for anyone coming into the Park for the first time, or for the one-hundredth time. Before those storms clouds came in the backdrop was even more impressive. And by my standards, still is. In that raw, angry, don’t get too far from your car and hope you have raingear way.

Of course, the weather was changing a little quicker now. I had to give a shout-out to a true old friend, Goat Mtn. And the long ridge to the left that eventually finds its way up to the summit of Mt Siyeh. That was a really fun climb last year. I was a lean mean ungulate machine.

But just up the trail was one more waterfall. And it would only take about 3-400 feet of gain to make it there. I was getting a lot of moisture on my camera, so these photos don’t do it justice. But it was raging and spraying even more than St Mary Falls.

Of course, I had to find a little blooming Beargrass for a foreground shot.

You can walk right up to the base of the falls. There were quite a few people there (a LOT of kids, which surprised me, who were WAY too close). Great photo ops. This would be a perfect hike on a hot day.

Now for the fun part. I wanted to do 4 to 5 miles along the south St Mary lakeside trail. And off I went. Hmmmm. But the trial was looking kind of feral. Like it hadn’t been used for a while. Did I mention it had rained the night before and every leaf of every plant hanging over the trail was holding like ten gallons of water?

Yeah, this was miserable. After the first 100 yards, I knew my boots would be soaked from the inside out regardless of if I had my Gortex gaiters or not. This kind of brush soaks everything from the waist down.

I’m not afraid to hike with wet feet. But doing possibly 10-12 miles in it is another thing. Plus the sky was looking like some rain would be coming in. And soon. Oh, and yeah, if there was a bear within 200 miles, it would definitely be on THIS trail. Sleeping. Waiting for someone stupid like me.

But I was crossing an avalanche slide area. That is where vegetation gets stripped away fairly often so I would expect this kind of lush-ness. A great word I just made up. Feel free to use it.

So I fought about a quarter mile thru this Cambodian jungle until I could get into a forested stretch. And see if the acidity of those wonderful subalpine fir needles was doing their job with soil toxicity and keeping this Jurassic Park stuff at bay. This is what I found.

Yes. The trail is in there. Somewhere. No way in hell. The trip was done. This trail had not been maintained by the NPS in years. And the real kicker? Most of this is thimbleberry. Bears love that stuff. In two weeks this will be a Grizzly Farmers Market, and I’m not planning to be the token protein at the event. My curiosity about the south lakeside trail has been satisfied. Dave out.

I started working my way back past all the waterfalls and met a LOT of people. This is why there are always so many cars parked along this section of the GttSR. They were all tourists, but polite and I could get by them easily enough. I spotted my favorite area, Sun Point, and was walking up to the truck just as the wind and sky unleashed their torrents.

That blue sky kept getting pushed farther East as the front advanced. It would end up blowing in rain all day and into the early evening. Then an early lunch at Rising Sun and back to BGRV to do some laundry, study some maps, edit some posts, and prep for tomorrow’s tour.

A simple life. Perfect for a simple man. Or a simpleton. I’m good with either/or. They both get to smile a lot without having to put a lot of thought into much of anything. Kind of like the Pooh Bear. Ohhhhhhhhh, botherrrrrrrrrrrrr.