May 12th

Today was less than expected, but still pretty spectacular. I got up at 9:00, made myself some breakfast, played guitar, and hit the road around 11:30. My game plan for the day was to make the 1:30 drive to East Glacier, hike up somewhere, eat lunch, hike back down, and make it to West Glacier’s Avalanche Lake Trailhead by 5:30 to make the 2 hour hike and return home.

I hit the road while it was raining quite heavily, but that didn’t matter because I was headed over to East Glacier. The skies to the east looked beautiful, so I seemed to be in luck. Once I got about 15 miles into my drive, it began hailing quite heavily and did not stop until I reached the continental divide. There the skies were blue and gorgeous. I drive beside a turquoise river for about an hour, and I noticed that there was a distinct change in the shape and texture of the rock at that altitude. Things were much rounder up there – even the mountain peaks were not as jagged and harsh as the ones surrounding Lake McDonald. I finally reached the town of East Glacier, population 362, and followed the road leading to the entrance of the park. I went through a small street of vendors, and drove about 20 miles further until it started snowing extremely hard. The skies were quite overcast, but snow was not something I expected until it was right there. The scenery was beautiful under the light tinge, but visibility wasn’t good. I turned back before getting to the park gates, but when I drove 10 minutes up the road, it was merely sprinkling sleet. I went into a restaurant to get some lunch – by this point it was already about 2:00. The place was great. I got a burger and a huge helping of fries and wanted to top it off with apple pie, but decided against it from being so full. The man that was at the bar next to me was saying that it would be snowing four inches in East Glacier that night. Since he looked like he knew what he was talking about I decided to drive home. Once again, a quarter way up the ascent, I found myself in the bright and shining rays of the sun. To make the most of it, I stopped at several sights along the way. One stop was a short hike to the edge of a cliff looking down 200 feet into the valley below. I walked out to the point, where I met a great family who were really into sightseeing. They walked with me for the last 200 yards to the point, and about 1 second after arriving there, the boy yelled “there ya go!!! Some sheep.” I looked up and low-and-behold there were 6 mountain goats perched on the side of an extremely steep rockslide. They were moving around, and I noticed one start to make his way down a 60% incline to forage for food and nutrients on the middle section of the slide. I learned that the goats lick the rocks in that area to gain vital minerals that are integral to their diet that is built to maintain in such harsh conditions. By walking a while through the woods I got within about 100 meters of them. Their coats were bright white, and the males had pointed horns extending upwards. The leader of the group was apparent, and there were two that were extreme enough to chance a descent down the precipice. I journeyed back to the car, and continued my drive west. I arrived to hail in west glacier, followed by heavy snow. As I went into the park, to see if it was any better up near the trailhead, it subsided and I was amazed at the early evening glow to the air. As I came around one bend on the east side of Lake McDonald, I saw that the place that I was going had some bad weather. I took it slow until I hit the rain, and then I turned around and sat awhile at a rocky beach. There the sun was shining and the wind was less, so it gave me a chance to reflect on the day. When I got back in the car I decided to head to the other side of the lake just for fun. It was snowing heavily of course, and so I went up just about 15 minutes before heading back home for the day. As you have noted, today my big lesson was mountain weather. I’ve heard the saying, “if you don’t like the weather, then wait ten minutes,” to describe Houston during the winter. Here, I would cut that time down to 30 seconds. I absolutely deem this day a complete success, and am currently sitting inside Rita looking out at hail beads melting in the sun. Oh… I think it’s starting to rain.

These pictures summarize the day perfectly: