DAY FIVE.
Today was the day of our longest hike to Grinnell Glacier. It started with a really early start and a long drive to Grinnell Point at the Many Glacier Hotel for sunrise. Because we unexpectedly moved campsites, we had to rearrange some of our plans for the week. We had everyday planned out from where we would do sunrise, where we would hike, and where we would watch the sunset. Since we were father than anticipated from some of these locations, we were having to get up earlier and drive farther, but it was totally worth it. We made coffee and breakfast on the shore of Swiftcurrent Lake below the Many Glacier Hotel. This was the smokiest of sunrises, and admittedly one of the least grandiose of them all. The sun rising behind us was beautiful, but when we got down to the lake, we had a very small window of a tiny bit of pink clouds, which quickly were drowned out by smoke.
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Since the sunrise wasn't very appealing for very long, we decided to head out a little early on our hike. We ventured over to the trailhead for Grinnell Glacier, packed our bags, and were on our way!
On our way up the mountainside, we spotted this big guy and a friend right beside us! A group being led by a park ranger were in the same spot as us and the ranger said that in all of his years as a ranger for Glacier National Park, he had never seen a ram that big before. He was startling huge for a sheep.
We made our way up the rest of the mountain to an actual glacier. Once we reached the top and the landscape opened up to the lake, it was a totally surreal view. I had never seen anything like this in person before. The lake was bright turquoise filled with icebergs and surrounded by rocky trails.
The temperature swings throughout the day and locations were crazy. In the mornings it would be in the 40s, then mid hike it could be in the 70s or 80s, then by a lake it would drop back down to something like 50s. There was a lot of taking on and off layers throughout the day. Being by this lake was particularly chilly, so we layered up and settled down to make a hot lunch as we took in our surroundings.
We decided to roam around the glacier a little more before heading back down the mountain.
Halfway down the mountain, I caught a glimpse of something in the lake way, way below us. The only way to see what it was was to get out my zoom lens and take a picture. It was a bull moose! This was the only time in the trip that we got to see a moose, so this was a pretty lucky catch! We watched from above as he swam across the lake to the shore, ran around playfully, and drank some water.
This was such a long hike that our midday ramen and tuna weren't cutting it. Before we traveled to Montana and I found a place called Two Sisters Cafe who claimed to have amazing burgers and the best huckleberry pie. Some more things to check off of our list! We showered at St. Mary's Campground, because although it was closed to tent campers, we were originally booked to stay here, so we figured it was ok to use their showers every day seeing as Two Medicine Campground didn't have any. We arrived at Two Sisters Cafe ready for some food! Typically we wouldn't have been able to finish all of the food that we ordered. The burgers were huge and came with fries, we also ordered a beer and split a piece of huckleberry pie and ice cream. We crushed it all.
On our drive back to Two Medicine we pulled over on the side of the road to watch the sunset. This particular spot became a reoccurring stop on most days. We decided to drive into downtown Two Medicine to see what was around. We found a bunch of cute shops, coffee shop, Mexican restaurant, a seedy little bar, and the Amtrak train station which used to be one of the only ways in and out of Glacier National Park. After we spent some time in this tiny town, we returned to the campsite ready for day six.
