Sunday, August 2, 2009

Grinnell Glacier, Montana

For what sounds like will be a hot and sunny day, what better place to head then to a cool and refreshing glacier complex! Today's destination was the Grinnell Glacier with an amazing view of the turquoise Grinnell Lake along the way. Imagine starting a hike like this right out your front door! We drove about 45 minutes to Swiftcurrent where Adventure Designer and B's Bloke had set up camp in a cabin. Our trail was 5 minutes from their front door and it lead us to this! Well, after about 10 kms it did.

We arrived at a milky white blueish fairly newish glacial lake. If you click below you can see the ice still in the water. The glacier is slowly melting and the lake is slowing growing. Thankfully today, some ice and snow remains. With sunshine, no shelter to be had and the temperature hoovering just about 30 Celsius, I needed to cool down, not just my feet, but me and my drink.

The collage below shows scenes from along the way starting with the Many Glaciers Ranger Station. Before hitting the trail, we chatted with the Ranger and I stamped my notebook with the day's date and our location. Others choose for a shorter hike cutting off time and distance by taking a boat to another trail head at Josephine Lake down the trail. We took time to explore along the way only to find a big horn mountain sheep exploring too. The wild flowers stood out against the red rock where they looked like they were growing from.

Little did I know at the time that where I was glancing at would be a very important spot! What a beautiful scene to see this glacier lake up close at eye level.

This was a very long day with just over eight hours of hiking in heat. We appreciated the water falls along the way that we got to walk under and sit beside. This was even an opportunity to refill our bottles with the cold mountain water.

How fortunate to be able to experience something so amazing that it makes you feel like you are "on top of the world!"

1 comment:

  1. How gorgeous! I hope to one day hike up there myself. :)

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