Since the dawn of Christianity people have wondered where Hell is. I can tell you it’s only 10 miles away. You’ll find it toward the end of this 12 mile hike. It doesn’t seem like a long way, it only has a 1400 foot vertical, and Cracker Lake is striking, but we just ran out of gas on the way back.
The first four miles (and hence the last 4 miles too) are kind of dull. There are a lot of trees and no views. But hold out, the hiking guides say, keep going, Cracker Lake is spectacular. For those who want to keep track, but can’t do the math, that’s 75% dull so far and 25% awesome. Still, that’s better than life by the time you count sleeping, brushing teeth, mowing grass, taking the dog to the vet, and cutting yourself skinning a cantaloupe with a potato peeler because it might go faster that way.
We got up at 5 a.m. to make the 3 hour drive from Kalispell to the Many Glaciers Lodge parking lot. Then we reset our alarms to go off at 6 a.m., arriving at 9. But, you say, aren’t photographers (the great ones at least) supposed to get up at the crack of dawn to get the best light? My reply is, has anything good ever come of something named in full or in part with the word crack? Any noun that comes before or after crack is usually up to no good. This being in the mountains, the sun takes a while to crest over the peaks, so sometimes it makes sense to wait for the light in order to get a well lit shot.
Many Glaciers lodge is an amazing circa 1910 lodge sitting at the edge of Swiftcurrent lake. The name of the lake doesn’t make any sense because it really is quite calm, reflecting the high peaks that surround this area. I presume the guy that discovered it had the cool last name of Swiftcurrent. “Hi, I’m Jack Swiftcurrent,” he announced lakeside one morning two hundred years ago to the surprised Native Americans. “Get the hell off my lake.” Since Disney long ago stole my last name for its own ends, I have longed for that one day if I ever become someone famous, or perhaps a starship captain, I might have a cool last name. Of course, Swiftcurrent is taken, so is Disney, but still, I hope.
Desperation, fear, hunger, profuse sweating, extreme thirst, and exhaustion are all words I would use to describe this hike, as well as my teen years. Still I would also use the words amazing, colorful, wild, scenic, and “bear.” More on the last word in a minute. I will let the pictures speak for themselves beyond the few words I have mentioned. Toward the destination of the hike to Cracker Lake, we reach what looks like a dam. Aha, I think, the lake must be behind this dam. Prepare yourself for the payoff I say to myself. Just beyond this dam is the azure blue of Cracker Lake nestled in the high cliffs of the surrounding mountains. As fast as we can, we scale the rubble pile of rock, grown over with grasses and pines stunted from being near the tree line. This dam was probably about 100 feet tall. At the top…nothing. There is more trail ahead and a Coyote. But more about the stunted pines. I have read that these are quite old, somewhere around 400 years old. I tell my hiking friend this factoid and we both scratch our heads. Although we are tired and a little delirious from our exertions, we still grasped the magnitude of the accomplishment of these twisted, gnarled plants. I am only 50 and find this hike quite strenuous, how did these amazing 400 year old plants get up here? One suspects Native American involvement, but no one was here to record it so we’ll never know for sure. We stop to drink some of our water and push on. As it turns out, we were still about a mile or so from the actual lake.
Cracker Lake is blue because the water is a suspension of glacial powder. The small Siyeh Glacier, which clings for dear life to the cliff-side on some of these photos, is still active, grinding away at the rocks underneath it, producing a fine powder. This powder flows into the streams running from the glacier into the lake, turning the water a vivid blue. If you take a close look at the glacier, you can tell by the nearby moraine, which also clings to the mountainside, that it used to be about 5 times larger. And then it hits you. What you thought was a dam a mile down the trail, is actually an ancient moraine deposited perhaps thousands of years ago when the glacier filled the valley.
The trail back was very similar to the trail going in, except for the fact that we ran into two bear. One was a rather sizeable grizzly about 50 yards away (a grizzly can cover this in about 2 to 3 seconds). At times like this you are either seconds from death, seconds from severe injury, long lingering pain, and death, or years away from forced retirement on public assistance, and slow death. None of these is pleasant to ponder, yet this is exactly what we faced on the trail at that moment. As fate would have it, forced retirement prevailed. The bear wanted nothing to do with us and quickly left the trail. The next bear was a little scarier for a different reason. It was a black bear, about 20 yards away, and some horseback riders ahead of us on a series of switchbacks scared the bear into our area of the switchback. As this was happening, a couple of 12 year olds were running on the trail unaware that they were running toward the bear. We stopped them and in doing so, in our minds, we saved their lives. Gratitude? No. Offer to wash my car or at least buy some car wash tokens since my car is out of state? No. Offer to pose with the bear while we take photos? No. Offer to make some sort of contribution to relieve the poverty of my forced retirement? No.
When we returned to Many Glacier Lodge, it was about 7 hours after the start of the hike. We were both very tired but decided to have lunch there. It would be a few more hours before we would get back to Kalispell and a late lunch after a long hike with no food is always fantastic!
The wildflowers were more abundant than I have seen in many visits to the park. This was taken on the road to the Many Glacier Lodge about 2 miles from the lodge.
Taken in a location similar to the previous one, this shows wildflowers and a weather system near the top of the mountain. This mountain is near the Many Glacier Lodge, and is one of the peaks that reflects in Swiftcurrent lake.
This photo shows Cracker Lake. On the mountain-side you can see Siyah Glacier and the morraine. Once the glacier is gone, the water will lose its supply of powder and its blue color.
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