Glacier Episode II, Attack of the Incredibly Long Day Part 1

<== Wake up early in the morning to drive to Many Glacier, and the drive itself is a sight to behold.

A view of Sherburne Lake. ==>

<== Preparing for our ranger-led hike through the Heart of Glacier!! 10 miles round trip to the Iceberg Lake.

Making our way through the trail... ==>

<== One of the beautiful mountains that guard the valley...

The bear grass in full bloom... ==>

<== A view of the valley below as we move our way up the trail... once upon a time hundreds of massive glaciers carved these valleys out... thinking about this massive area covered in that much ice is mind boggling...

The glacial cirque of this particular valley awaits us. ==>

<== Tough terrain impedes our way... these snowy areas are called avalanche chutes... a slip and you could slide all the way down the mountain. There can also be water running underneath the snow, making it dangerous to walk on...

The view from a chute... the avalanche wipes out trees... ==>

<== There are also apparently tons of bears around... here our trusty US Park Ranger Monica shows us bear marks on a tree...
we have to make loud noises every so often to let them know we're around. I think we did too good of a job... not a bear to be seen... (although that might be for the better considering what just happened in Yellowstone)

More difficult terrain... it can get pretty hairy... our ranger turned back before this so we went on by ourselves. It wasn't *that* bad however, there were tons of people on the trail... ==>

<== The payoff... this is the view from basically inside the cirque... these mountains above us are almost 1000ft straight up, and are like razorblades perched between glacial valleys. On the other side are other glaciers that have carved out cirques of their own, so these mountains are jagged, sharp, and thin... I tried to take a video but it doesn't really capture the magnitude of the moment...

Inside the bowl of the cirque, there is a lake and a pond... the lake (known as Iceberg Lake, after the Iceberg Glacier) was still frozen over, but the pond was melted enough... it's perfectly clear, brilliantly pure water... ==>

<== And we decided to rest for a bit by the water's edge.

Making our way out... we took pictures from inside the cirque but there was no way we could take great photographs, so the best ones we have are from a distance away... ==>

<== I think this is the best we could do with what we have to capture us and the cirque together...

Keeping ourselves entertained on the long hike back... signing timeless hiking songs like "I Will Survive" and "Total Eclipse of the Heart." Besides making us look like idiots to the other hikers, it does a great job of keeping bears away! ==>

 

After a 7 hour, 10 mile hike through snow and ice and mountain, we decided to go to Bad Frog's Mexican Cantina for lunch... those nachos are as delicious as they look, and their burritos were even better. At least to us hungry peoples... We even got some $1 Beer30 Lights...let's put it this way, it made those PBR's we just had taste like premium craft brewed, amazingly full bodied, complex, flavorful beer...

This concludes part 1 of this day, I'll post the afternoon and more stuff tomorrow. It was a crazy long day!