Glacier National Park - Day 2

Today we split up to do different things. 

Vince and I drove to the Many Glacier area of the park. One of the hikes I was looking forward to the most was Iceberg Lake. It's a long, 10 mile round trip hike but I thought I could do it knowing the rewarding views we'd see. When we went to the visitors' center yesterday, however, the ranger told us that the trail was closed about half-way up at Ptarmigan Falls. She said the bridge was out and the trail to the lake was snow covered. So we decided to do the 5.2 mile trip to the falls. 

The trail was lovely, as expected. 

When we got to the top of the falls we saw a group of park employees resting in the shade and a newly completed bridge!  We decided to continue on until the snow cover was too difficult to traverse. 

We ran into a few patches of snow, but nothing too bad. A park ranger was heading down the trail so we asked him about the trail ahead. He told us today was the first day the trail was open. The trail was completely snow covered near the lake but hikable with our walking sticks. 

We arrived at the lake and it was breathtaking!  We'll worth the effort of the long hike. 

We took a break at the lake before we headed back down. Our hips and feet ached at the end but it was all worth it. 

We drove back to the hotel to meet up with Kasey and Amanda for dinner and hear about their day. 

They took the park shuttle to a hiking trail just west of our hotel, Sunrift Gorge. They hiked to St Mary Falls and Bering Falls before returning to the shuttle stop to return to the hotel. 

(Pictures coming soon)

We all went out for dinner at the Park Cafe, just outside the St Mary park entrance. 

The food was really good but the pie was amazing. We shared a slice of huckleberry and a slice of razzleberry. We plan on stopping by for more pie before we leave Glacier. 

After filling up on pie we drove back to Many Glacier to look at our trail options for tomorrow. Amanda has been wanting to see moose so we wanted to find out which trails go through moose habitat. We decided on the lower part of the Grinnell Glacier trail. 

On our way out of the park Kasey spotted a moose eating in the meadow along Sherburn Lake. The lighting want very good - it was about 10 o'clock in the evening - but Kasey got some decent pictures. 

(Pictures coming soon)

Hopefully we'll see more moose tomorrow.