Highline trail, Glacier National Park, Montana, USA
In addition to glacier lakes and glaciers themselves, our reason for coming to the Glacier National Park was the Highline Trail - so called "hike of a lifetime". We even postponed our visit from June to August in order to be able to do it!
"What's so special about this hike?" - might you ask. It follows along the Continental Divide and offers spectacular views of the mountain ridges around it. The hike hugs the Garden Wall, so, though not walking on the mountain ridges, you are still very high up at all times.
The hack for this hike is to start at Logan Pass and walk west to the Granite Park chalet. Then, though the quoted elevation for the hike is about 3000 feet, save for 600 feet in the middle, you are walking all of it down!
The hike roughly follows the Going-To-The-Sun road, and you can even occasionally see it down below. Luckily, we didn't hear the noise of the highway while on trail because cars drive very slowly on that road...
Since the hike does not follow the ridge, but rather hugs the mountains on the side, there is tons of excitement about what you are going to see once you make the turn. And the views never disappoint :)
We heard a lot about mountain goats and were very hopeful that we should encounter them in the park. We were fortunate to not only encounter, but to walk behind this guy for 10 minutes, until he decided to get off the trail :)
Our lunch spot: generally the trail is a very narrow path with little space - the rock field here, though, offered a chance for us to get off the trail and eat our lunch away from other hikers.
Our lunch spot was right next to a large snow field:
Little did we know, that right on the snow field, very close to the main path, was one of the happiest mountain goats I have ever seen! :) I think he enjoyed lying on the cold snow immensely on this hot August day :) He even brought a branch with him for snacking! :D
Our huge hope was to see a mountain goat with a baby. And we did see them, well, sorta, see if you can spot them yourself :)
Our constant companions on the trail were groundsquirrels. They would generally jump onto the trail a couple of steps in front of you and run as fast as they could for a couple of meters as if you were chasing them :)
Overall, even though this trail was quite crowded, we tried really hard to walk between groups of people. This relative solitude has allowed us to have quite a lot of encounters with wild life. For example, this was our first marmot encounter of this trail:
And as we entered a part of the trail with more trees:
We saw an entire family of marmots! There were about 5 or 6 of them, all in the same place, feasting on the same patch of grass and trees:
But of course, there is always a special relative in every family ;-) While all the other marmots were just eating and paying no attention to us, this marmot was too curious to pass on the interaction :)
Look how close he got to me in order to sniff me! :)
And he got even closer to the Photographer: he was literally staring right into his lens :) We stayed there, looking at this marmot and his family for quite some time - watch the video at the end of the post to see more marmots! :)
I have tons of pictures of wildlife from this trip. Is anybody interested in a separate "cuteness overload" post with just the wildlife in it? :)
The final point of the Highline Trail for us - the Granite Park Chalet:
Panorama that illustrates where the chalet is situated. Can you imagine staying in this beautiful place, watching sunrises and sunsets, watching the seasons turn?.. Sometimes, I think that life was so much simpler before, when it was slower, less rushed...
I was very glad during our visit to the Glacier National Park that there was absolutely no phone reception. It was such an amazing complete disconnect for 3 days! Well, almost, unfortunately, the Photographer was able to get the signal right next to the Chalet. And just imagine this: we've just been walking one of the most amazing trails ever, reached a beautiful viewpoint, and suddenly he was completely lost in his phone, reading the news, instead of absorbing all around him... Life was definitely simpler before :)
Near the chalet we met this absolutely adorable deer. I've never seen them in such a beautiful color!
My favorite:
From the Chalet the trail descends steeply back to the Going-To-The-Sun road. You get to walk on an exposed, south-facing (aka really hot) side of the mountain, in the burned out forest... We felt really sorry for the people who hiked up this way. So do make sure to use the hack and start out from Logan Pass instead!
Another hack for this trail is to take the park bus: it has picked us up from our campground and delivered straight to the trailhead. Going-to-the-Sun road is fun, but not when you have to drive it after hiking for 13.5 miles!
The promised video with mountain goats, marmots and a deer in it! :-)
"What's so special about this hike?" - might you ask. It follows along the Continental Divide and offers spectacular views of the mountain ridges around it. The hike hugs the Garden Wall, so, though not walking on the mountain ridges, you are still very high up at all times.
The hack for this hike is to start at Logan Pass and walk west to the Granite Park chalet. Then, though the quoted elevation for the hike is about 3000 feet, save for 600 feet in the middle, you are walking all of it down!
The hike roughly follows the Going-To-The-Sun road, and you can even occasionally see it down below. Luckily, we didn't hear the noise of the highway while on trail because cars drive very slowly on that road...
Since the hike does not follow the ridge, but rather hugs the mountains on the side, there is tons of excitement about what you are going to see once you make the turn. And the views never disappoint :)
We heard a lot about mountain goats and were very hopeful that we should encounter them in the park. We were fortunate to not only encounter, but to walk behind this guy for 10 minutes, until he decided to get off the trail :)
Our lunch spot: generally the trail is a very narrow path with little space - the rock field here, though, offered a chance for us to get off the trail and eat our lunch away from other hikers.
Our lunch spot was right next to a large snow field:
Little did we know, that right on the snow field, very close to the main path, was one of the happiest mountain goats I have ever seen! :) I think he enjoyed lying on the cold snow immensely on this hot August day :) He even brought a branch with him for snacking! :D
Our huge hope was to see a mountain goat with a baby. And we did see them, well, sorta, see if you can spot them yourself :)
Our constant companions on the trail were groundsquirrels. They would generally jump onto the trail a couple of steps in front of you and run as fast as they could for a couple of meters as if you were chasing them :)
Overall, even though this trail was quite crowded, we tried really hard to walk between groups of people. This relative solitude has allowed us to have quite a lot of encounters with wild life. For example, this was our first marmot encounter of this trail:
And as we entered a part of the trail with more trees:
We saw an entire family of marmots! There were about 5 or 6 of them, all in the same place, feasting on the same patch of grass and trees:
But of course, there is always a special relative in every family ;-) While all the other marmots were just eating and paying no attention to us, this marmot was too curious to pass on the interaction :)
Look how close he got to me in order to sniff me! :)
And he got even closer to the Photographer: he was literally staring right into his lens :) We stayed there, looking at this marmot and his family for quite some time - watch the video at the end of the post to see more marmots! :)
I have tons of pictures of wildlife from this trip. Is anybody interested in a separate "cuteness overload" post with just the wildlife in it? :)
The final point of the Highline Trail for us - the Granite Park Chalet:
Panorama that illustrates where the chalet is situated. Can you imagine staying in this beautiful place, watching sunrises and sunsets, watching the seasons turn?.. Sometimes, I think that life was so much simpler before, when it was slower, less rushed...
I was very glad during our visit to the Glacier National Park that there was absolutely no phone reception. It was such an amazing complete disconnect for 3 days! Well, almost, unfortunately, the Photographer was able to get the signal right next to the Chalet. And just imagine this: we've just been walking one of the most amazing trails ever, reached a beautiful viewpoint, and suddenly he was completely lost in his phone, reading the news, instead of absorbing all around him... Life was definitely simpler before :)
Near the chalet we met this absolutely adorable deer. I've never seen them in such a beautiful color!
My favorite:
From the Chalet the trail descends steeply back to the Going-To-The-Sun road. You get to walk on an exposed, south-facing (aka really hot) side of the mountain, in the burned out forest... We felt really sorry for the people who hiked up this way. So do make sure to use the hack and start out from Logan Pass instead!
Another hack for this trail is to take the park bus: it has picked us up from our campground and delivered straight to the trailhead. Going-to-the-Sun road is fun, but not when you have to drive it after hiking for 13.5 miles!
The promised video with mountain goats, marmots and a deer in it! :-)
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