August/September 2024: At the end of August, I was able to meetup with my brother Jesse, his fiancé, Lexie and my 17-year-old nephew, who had never been on a plane prior to this trip, for a 5-day trip to Montana that included backpacking in Glacier national Park for a few days and exploring other mountains in Montana near Bozeman, home to Jesse and Lexie. I was exceptionally happy to finally visit Glacier national park, well regarded as one of the most beautiful national parks in the USA, which has eluded me until now. Our plan in Glacier was to hike and camp along the Dawson Pitamakan Loop trail, an 18mile that crosses two mountain passes at almost 8,000’the Dawson and Pitamakan passes and is one of the more challenging and less visited hiking trails in Glacier national Park
A trip to Glacier National Park and surrounding wilderness areas is not just a visit to a beautiful mountain range. It is a visit to one of the last safe havens in the lower 48States for the grizzly bear. The Grizzly survives only in a few areas of the lower 48. The two major areas are Yellowstone and Glacier National parks. Visiting a mountain range with grizzly bears adds a whole new element of planning and risk to a back country trip. The grizzly is a formidable animal weighing up to 1500 pounds, standing up to8 feet tall and having 3’long dagger sharp claws that deserves respect. Forgetting this concept could have deadly consequences and grizzlies can and have attacked and eaten humans. Although only 10 people have been killed in Glacier national park in the parks 105-year history, the low number of deaths is largely in part because of effective bear management that has resulted in visitors taking proper precautions to guard against bears when in the park especially the back country where we planned on spending sometime during our stay. In the back country keeping your campsite clean and seprating your food fromwhere you sleep and keeping it in secure bear containers can be the difference of having a good night of sleep and a grizzly bear bursting into your tent in the middle of the night demanding food. Hiking into the backcountry of Glacier means being prepared for bears. When we first obtained our permit in the ranger station, we were reuired to watch a video that included baar safety. One of the statements in the video that stood out the most was if a bear charges you do not run. If it attacks you play dead. If it starts eating you, fight back. We brought bear spray canisters that we kept handy at all times when in the park and our food was kept in bear proof containers that we kept separate fromour campsite. We expected to see a bear given the abundance of hucklberries in bloom and the high number of bears spotted on our route to Dwason passbut we never did see one.
We started our trip by waking up very early to get our permits. 70% of c=wilderness campsite permits are reserved in advance and 30 % are available on for walk in campers but you have to be at the ranger station early before the permits are taken by other campers. We showed up early and we were lucky to get permits to camp at old man lake. We were given sage advice from an elderly ranger with a southern drawl, who appeared to be in his 80s. He provided some pretty sobering admonishments about the risks involved in backcountry travel and how 3 people have already died this summer in in the park.
From there we spent the night camping in free National Forest campsites that were in the mountains across from the southern section of Glacier National Park. A winter storm had just passed through the area dumping a few feet on Logan pass closing off the pass. Lucky for us the weather was going to be perfect for our trip and in the high 70’s and sunny.
After a hearty breakfast at a local cafe, we set off to Medicine Lake to begin our trek into the backcountry. We loaded up our back packs and began our long hike of 7 miles with 60-pound packs uphill to Old Man Lake. The trail was mostly empty, and we saw few other hikers. The alpine meadows were rich with huckleberries and we stopped to graze on them and Jesse and Lexi collected a bag full of them to bring home.
Our campsite was pretty isolated but did not have the view of Oldman Lake we had hoped for. But we were nearby and quickly dropped of our gear, setup our tents and went for s=a swimming the refreshing waters of the lake. We ate our dinner by the lake while watching an otter catching fish.
I didn’t sleep too well. I was still congested from Covid and there were loud crashing sounds from some animal outside of our tent during the night. It might have been a bear but more likely a moose. In the morning, we decided to leave our packs behind and try camping a 2nd night at the lake and hope that others would no-show and instead of hiking the pass with our packs we hiked up without them on a day hike. We ended up miscalculating the campsite availability at old man lake and realized that on Labor Day weekend the campsites would definitely be full and we ended up walking all the way back to Medicine Lake on the same day and camping at night on Lake MacDonald after driving across the Road to the Sun coming from the east of the park.
The views from the pass were incredible and the hike not too difficult. We came across a herd of bighorn sheep on the pass with little fear of hikers.
The views of Glacier along the Road to the Sun, a narrow winding road carved through the mountains by Civilian Conservation Corps workers in the 30’s was spectacular.
We somehow managed to visit Glacier without seeing its iconic Rocky Mountain goats so my brother promised us we would easily see them in the National Forest by Bozeman on Sacajawea Mountain. So, we climbed the 10,000′ mountain and didn’t find them as expected. Jesse did spot a lone male along the steep slopes with his binoculars, so we tracked him until we were 30’away and I was able to get a good photo. We also saw a mother goat and baby on the trail. After the long grueling hike we went for a great dip in a cool mountain lake.
