Animal Encounters Along the Trails

A week ago I would have told you’d I’d rather go on a fast paced walk rather than a hike, but my opinion changed this week. In Big Sky Country you can see for miles… if you take a moment to look up from the trail. That’s my problem, when hiking I tend to look at the trail to see where my next step will land so klutzy me won’t trip on a rock or root, and I miss seeing a lot around me. However, when in grizzly country you need to keep your head on a swivel and with a little practice I got better at enjoying my surroundings while maintaining an upright position.

Glacier National Park has an abundance of trails, ranging from nature walks to extremely difficult hikes. We stuck with the shorter distance moderate and easier hikes with five miles being our longest for a single hike. There was no shortage of wildlife either, we saw grizzlies, moose, mountain goats, and bighorn sheep. Read on for those encounters.

 

Overview of the Week

Before getting into each day’s workouts, here’s an overview of my workouts from this past week. Scroll beyond the infographic for daily details…

 

Sunday

Road trip: Day 18: East Glacier, Montana

Hiking: 4.7 miles
• Average pace: 23:21 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: 566 feet
• Start time: 9:55 AM
• Location: Paradise Point Trail, Appistoki Falls Trail, and Running Eagle Falls Trail in Glacier National Park
• Weather: 52° and partly cloudy, climbing to 66°
• What I wore: long pants to shorts, s/s shirt, and visor

This was the day of our first grizzly sighting and a little too close for comfort. Of course, in hindsight it was a cool experience and we’ll have bragging rights for years to come. The morning started with a hike to Paradise Point. Considered an easy hike, there were many other hikers on the trail which led from the visitors center and even though we were carrying bear spray, bears weren’t really on our radar.

 

From Paradise Point we walked the short distance past the visitors center and the rangers station to the trailhead of Appistoki Falls. After talking to another couple at the trailhead for a few minutes our party of four didn’t see anyone else until we got near the falls. As we rounded a turn we could see a group of people ahead near the end of the trail, but a herd of mountain goats (at least ten total) stepped onto the trail and started walking toward us. We stepped to the side of the trail while one billygoat walked past us – we were now blocked between the herd and the single goat. We perched ourselves on the hill next to the trail waiting for them to move on. Eventually, the male goat rejoined the herd allowing us to walk back down the mountain, never making it to the trail’s end. I wonder how long the group ahead of us were stuck behind the goats?

Once off the trail we started our walk back to our car to drive to the next trailhead. Just as we rounded a curve three grizzlies came bounding toward us running in the grassy strip between the road and forest. I immediately threw my arms into the air to make myself big while my husband started digging in his backpack to change cameras. We moved to the other side of the road to increase our distance from the bears who had darted into the woods, back out, and finally back in. Almost immediately two park ranger trucks drove by and when we asked to get in, they said no! The rangers turned their trucks around and shot some sort of M80 out of a launcher to scare the bears deeper into the woods.

In the collage below, the bottom left picture shows my son, d-i-l, and husband looking toward where the bears where while the two rangers’ trucks are parked to shoot off the loud noise to scar the bears. And in the top left is the cutest baby goat I’ve ever seen!

 

After the adrenalin rush from our grizzly encounter had settled down, we drove to the Running Eagle Falls trailhead for a short hike to the falls on a relatively easy trail. The falls were beautiful, but crowded.

 

Hiking: 3.76 miles
• Average pace: 20:20 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: 335 feet
• Start time: 4:24 PM
• Location: Beaver Pond Trail and Red Eagle Trail in Glacier National Park
• Weather: 68° and partly cloudy
• What I wore: shorts, s/s shirt, and visor

After a late picnic lunch, we drove to the Beaver Pond and Red Eagle trailheads. The two trails formed a loop route, were quite secluded and very overgrown, and other than seeing two other hikers occasionally we were alone. It was here that we perfected our song…

Ninety-nine grizzly bears on the trail,
Ninety-nine grizzly bears.
Spray one down 
And slap him around.
Ninety-eight grizzly bears on the trail.

 

Monday

Road trip: Day 19: East Glacier, Montana

Hiking: 1.86 miles
• Average pace: 27:33 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: 694 feet
• Start time: 10:48 AM
• Location: Apikuni Falls Trail in Glacier National Park
• Weather: 60° and mostly sunny
• What I wore: shorts, s/s shirt, and visor

Deep in the woods, we didn’t see anyone else during the entire hike, and other than hearing birds sing, there weren’t any wildlife encounters.

 

Hiking: 4.99 miles
• Average pace: 20:51 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: 308 feet
• Start time: 12:58 PM
• Location: Swiftcurrent Nature Trail and Grinnell Lake Trail (connected by two boat rides) in Glacier National Park
• Weather: 62° and mostly sunny, climbing to 66°
• What I wore: shorts, s/s shirt, and visor

While waiting for our boat ride we hiked partially around Swiftcurrent Lake – the back half was closed because of construction/repair in that area. While on our hike we passed a bride and her parents. Once back, we caught our first boat across Swiftcurrent Lake before switching boats to cross Lake Josephine. On the beach between the two lakes we came upon the bride and the rest of the wedding party about to start the ceremony.

 

After crossing Lake Josephine we hiked about a mile and a half to Grinnell Lake – we learned that the distance on mileage signs are almost always way off. After wading across the freezing cold glacier stream to the sand bar at the lake we were treated to a female moose walking into the lake about 100 yards away. She wasn’t phased by the gawking tourists who moved out of her way and was still enjoying her dinner of underwater grasses when it was time for us to hike back to catch our boat. BTW, we learned that moose can dive up to 18 feet underwater, enjoy eating grasses growing on the bottom of lakes, and can swim for up to ten miles.

 

Tuesday

Road trip: Day 20: East Glacier, Montana

Strength training: 1 hour of total body

Hiking: 3.15 miles
• Average pace: 24:28 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: 619 feet
• Start time: 11:42 AM
• Location: Logan Pass Hidden Lake Trail in Glacier National Park
• Weather: 64°, sunny, and windy
• What I wore: shorts, s/s shirt, and visor

We drove up Going to the Sun Road to Logan Pass where we hiked up to Hidden Lake. We had to stop at the overlook because the trail beyond was closed due to heavy bear activity, and for good reason, with his 600 mm lens my husband captured three bears in the lake. They can be seen in the bottom right picture (I almost cut off the bear on the far left when making the collage).

The hike was different than any others we’d done because of long lengths of boardwalk, many steps/stairs, and snowfield crossings. The view of Hidden Lake and the surrounding mountains was gorgeous and well worth the hike even though the last section of the trail was closed.

 

Wednesday

Road trip: Day 21: Drive from East Glacier, Montana to West Glacier, Montana

Hiking: 5.08 miles
• Average pace: 22:19 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: 776 feet
• Start time: 11:27 AM
• Location: Baring Falls Trail, Saint Mary Falls Trail, and Virginia Falls Trail in Glacier National Park
• Weather: 65°, sunny, and windy, climbing to 76°
• What I wore: shorts, s/s shirt, and visor

We packed up our car because later in the day we would be moving from our Vrbo in East Glacier to an Airbnb in West Glacier. The park is huge and staying for a few days on each side cut down on driving, giving us more time to explore by foot. Enroute to the hike, we saw a bull moose in a pond and stopped for pictures.

 

This hike ended up being one of our favorites. What started out as a hike to a single waterfall was expanded to our longest hike of the trip and covered three falls. We would have loved to hike the final two miles back to our car, but we were out of water and would have been in full sun the entire time so we played it safe and hiked up to the closest trailhead where we hopped on a shuttle back to our car.

 

Thursday

Road trip day 22: West Glacier, Montana

Strength training: 1 hour of total body

Cycling: 21.13 miles
• Bike: Salsa Warbird
• Average speed: 11.7 MPH
• Surface: mostly paved
• Elevation gain: 768 feet
• Start time: 9:50 AM
• Location: West Glacier
• Weather: 66° (feels like 60°) and cloudy, climbing to 71° (feels like 64°)
• What I wore: bike shorts, s/s jersey, and fingerless gloves

While the kids were white water rafting, we took our bikes out for a short spin. After noticing my husband’s Cannondale leftie front fork, a local cycling enthusiast stopped to chat as we were taking pictures. He assured me that in 30 years of biking in the area, he’d never been bothered by a bear even though he routinely sees sows and cubs feeding down below the trail. Once we got past the initial more secluded gravel trail that paralleled the Flathead River, we turned onto the Apgar – West Glacier Bike Trail where we saw quite a few other people enjoying the trail, including small children on bikes and my bear anxiety calmed.

 

Friday

Road trip day 23: West Glacier, Montana

Walking: 3.09 miles
• Average pace: 17:33 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: 201 feet
• Start time: 2:36 PM
• Location: West Glacier near our Airbnb
• Weather: 74° and mostly cloudy, climbing to 76°
• What I wore: shorts, s/s shirt, and visor

On our final full day in the park, we took a Red Bus Tour. Our driver Marv was very informative and entertaining. We learned that Glacier is the only national park to still offer tours in these iconic 1930’s buses.

 

Saturday

Road trip day 24: Drive from West Glacier, Montana to Billings, Montana

Strength training: 1 hour of total body

We said goodbye to our delightful little Airbnb, dropped our son and d-i-l off at the airport and made our way southeast to Billings for the night.

 

Questions:
  • • Do you enjoy hiking? ~ more than I used to, maybe it’s because I can no longer run trails
  • • Do you enjoy visiting national parks? ~ yes, very much so
  • • Which workout did you enjoy most this past week? ~ I certainly have a wide variety of workouts to choose from and would probably pick the three waterfalls hike as my favorite.

 

And that’s my rundown… Have a great week!