Whew, I felt pretty good on Thursday , and we decided to hike to Avalanche Lake.
It was Thursday Sept. 19th, and first we stopped off at the West entrance to get our pictures taken. We’d seen people stopped here most times we entered the park and decided now was a good time.
Avalanche Lake is a very popular hike and there were lots of cars parked in the lot where we found a place after circling around a few times.
This might have been the most crowded hike we went on, but it wasn’t bad. And really beautiful! We started around 11:00.
Near the beginning of the hike we came to this swirling waterfall with many DANGER! STAY AWAY FROM THE EDGE! signs.
I could imagine that not-very-bright people might have fallen, but they’d have had to have been very very reckless. And possibly drunk.
please watch the video at the end to see the swirling water in action.
i just loved all the tall trees in the forest.
and how about that giant rock!
We hiked to the water’s edge, and other people were there, so we decided to keep hiking all the way to the far end of the lake. a few people were sitting on a log, and we struck up a conversation with an intrepid young woman. she’d been hiking all over the place, all alone. She was willing to take our picture, and took a bunch of good ones.
She’s been hiking on Lookout Point in East Glacier when she’d had to step off the rail because a herd of bighorn sheep was walking towards her.
She saw bears a couple of time; once, she startled a bear who was foraging for food. the bear was staring her down, so she quickly looked away and waited for the bear to continue eating, and then slowly crept backwards and out of the way. whew, that would have been scary.
She also said that when she hiked up to Grinnell Glacier, a ranger had been shepherding people off the trail while at the same time talking nice to a bear who was blocking the path!
“That’s Ed!” we told her. She hadn’t gotten his name, but we explained that we’d seen him on bear patrol when we’d hiked that path. Clearly, Ed was earning his ranger salary as he kept the hikers safe.
We asked the woman if she wanted us to take a picture for her, but she wasn’t interested, she just like pictures of nature, no people. i think we talked to her for a while, because for some reason i’m pretty sure she told us she’d bought almost all her christmas presents! how odd that i remember that, but can’t remember the context.
When we’d hiked down to the end of the lake we’d gone off the path, but climbing back up, we saw this sign. I found it funny but very informative.
The clouds and the water were doing such amazing things…
As we hiked back i saw this crazy root coming out of a tree.
Panorama!
There’s a good shot of the three waterfalls coming down at the end of the lake. Our hike was almost seven miles, but i don’t remember it being really challenging.
that evening we went out to eat at a delicious place called Josephine’s. our friend’s sister has a place near Glacier, and she met us there and it was a fun evening.
ok then,
g.