The end of the season-2007

Good evening,

It’s been an amazing summer, for sure.

In the last five or six weeks since I wrote alot has happened. I nabbed seven more lakes in Glacier. That brings the totel to 86. Then came the decision that I was going to include Waterton National Park in the lake bid project. So there was a push that incorporated seven lakes up there which brought the totel to 13. 99 in all, need one more before I leave.....I'm running out of time.

So, let’s get started.

I went to a place called Trout Lake.

Some of you may know this as one of the sites of the famous “Night of the Grizzly”maulings. For those that don’t know, here is a quick over view.

The first Grizzly maulings in Glacier NP were in mid August of 1967. Two different girls were killed on the same evening by two different bears in two different spots at virtually the same time. It had never happened before and now it happened twice in the same night.

My friend Pat and I went back there two days after the 40th anniversary.

Much has happened in the last 40 years in the world of bear management. Things are ran entirely different than they were back in 1967. That did not stop the weird vibe we got while we were standing there. Eeehhh….

So, we busted out Trout Lake, Arrow Lake and Rogers Lake. Rogers was a nice annoying thick bushwhack but the other two were right on trail. Great trip Pat. Hope Michigan is going well.

By far the biggest endeavor since last I wrote was finally tackling two of the five northern boundary lakes. There is a valley in my district that runs east west and was randomly placed by the mountain gods…directly along the 49th Parallel which is the line that delineates the border between the United States and Canada.


My friend Matt and I hiked up to the border and then dove directly into a pretty serious bushwhack. I think it was about five hours off trail just schwackin’ around in the berry bushes. You can see Lake Nooney and Lake Wurdeman from a real common trail in Canada. They are amazing lakes. Huh? This picture was taken many years ago and have been excited to down there ever since.
Matt thanks for helping me get these two.. I was impressed with you, those were cold lakes on cold days but we nailed em, huh? Great trip my friend.


By the way there is a jack-o-lantern face in this rock, huh?


Then there were the “worst” two lakes I’ve ever done…Nice distinction, huh?

Upper and Lower Howe Lakes. Two marshes on the western border of the park.
The trip was a good time though. My friend Clay and I headed back there one afternoon. He laughed the whole time cause all I did was lay down in them. I'll spare you the pictures.They had to get done, but boy it’s moments like that were I can’t believe I opened my big mouth and said this was my goal. Cold water does not bother me, but mucky, muddy, goo does.
…but suck it up Sally and get in the freakin’ lake, huh?

I had a really foggy drive over Going to the Sun road the next morning. This was my last time driving it for the year.Just so you know, that is about a 2000’ drop to the left of the tunnel. If you can see it or not…

So, there were a couple great afternoons that Jess and I were both off work at the same time. Thankfully we took advantage of them.

One day we headed up to Bertha Lake.

It’s a side valley that drains into Waterton Lake. We took our smaller outboard boat and docked at the trail head.

There were also cool new views of Waterton Lake and Goat Haunt during the hike up.

A couple weeks ago Jess and I were able to head up to a place called Angels Wing near Many Glacier Hotel. This was actually the site of our first date in July of 2001. Nice to get back there..

First you hike up to Grinnell Glacier and then head off trail up to the top of a huge sloping wing that comes off from the side of Mt. Gould.

We were on top of this thing. It's easier than it looks, almost always is...We had to cross the outlet to Upper Grinnell Lake which is the melt pond for the glacier.

From there we got to walk right up to Grinnell Glacier. It’s melting so fast, that it’s already well smaller than it was when I started working here in 2001. Beautiful though.

At the top, Jess walked out to the top of a big pillar that was about 2000’ above the valley floor. I don’t know if you can see it but she is one the top of the big rock.

A great second date to Angels Wing and what a place to dangle your feet..

Let’s see….

From there I did a two night trip up to a place called 50 Mountain campground. I met up with my friend Josh, for a few days.

On the way up I got a great view of the entire area that was included in the Nahsukin, Gyrfalcon and Redhorn endeavor. If you have any interest the posting should still be up from July.

Super cool to be able to trace the entire trip from beginning to end, and I could see it all from one overlook.



He met me in the middle coming from the west.


I actually wanted to apply for a “Cincinnati Bengals Fan of the Week” award. I woke up the day of the Baltimore Ravens/ Bengals opening week Monday Night Football game at 50 Mountain campground. Woke up at dawn, hiked 11 miles out to Goat Haunt, took a one hour boat ride, drove an hour and crossed two international borders to see my boys win it in the 4th. Don’t know where that went to in the last couple weeks, but that’s aside from the point. Great day.

I decided to add the 30 named lakes in Waterton National Park in Alberta to the lakes project. We are Waterton/Glacier International Peace Park. Why not include them.



So, I’ll spare you the details but I drove around Waterton National Park and dipped by body in six lakes in about three hours. They were all either right off the road or just a real short hike. One was right below the Prince of Wales Hotel.

Six is six though, huh?

Best story entailed in this day was that I went swimming in a lake with a moose in it. No one else, just me and the moose swimmin’ in Akamina Lake together.

Just for the record they were Crandel, Akamina, Middle Waterton, Lower Waterton, Linnet, and Maskinonge Lakes.

As I was driving around I had to give way to a little family crossing the street. Does that not look like the Abbey Road album cover?


Other than that we have finally lost summer. At best it’s fall. There has been many days that Winter was fighting a pretty good fight. I woke up in St. Mary lake week with 2-3” of snow on my car.


I then drove to Waterton over Chief Mountain customs road in which you have to drive over a pass to get into Canada. There was snow everywhere. I luckily got to follow the plow truck up the U.S. side.

On the Canadian side I just had to down shift and ride it out. Wild morning. Welcome to Canada.


We have had some serious snow fall in the peaks already.

The "International" is the name of the boat that runs between Waterton and Goat Haunt.

It actually celebrated it's 80th year on the lake this summer.

See you next summer International, sleep well.

So, I know that was all crammed into one blog entry, and it should have been about eight of them. I kept procrastinating and now it was either write it out today or risk it being December before I get this up here.

I am headed to Washington State to travel with my buddy Wub (yes that is his given name. He was named after his great, great Aunt from Borneo) and also to see my brothers.


Other than that I’m getting excited about ski season, moving to Missoula and setting up camp there. Enjoy town life for a bit.

I hope everyone’s summer went wonderfully. I feel like I was the most blessed guy on the planet. I kept telling visitors that I felt like I won the lottery.


Currently I am the “Lone Ranger” here in Goat Haunt. Only the second time in the entire summer that there is literally nobody else here. There are not even any campers since the weather has turned and the boat is no longer running.

So in thirty miles to the east, west and south and to the north ten miles, I am the only living soul. That is probably a stretch as I’m sure there is a backpacker somewhere out there. It certainly feels like it though.

I have a bad habit of bringing the bummer at the end. I would like to dedicate this entry to a guy named Mark. I don't know his last name, but he was cool and from Oklahoma. He worked out here for a few summers and we hung out and played some great music. He was a good guitarist, and a great guy. He died about a week ago, driving to work in Oregon. Either he fell asleep or his car gave out or something, but he went off the road and died. This park will miss him and he will miss this park. He attacked it in large bites, which is always admirable.

Now, since I'm sure Mark would prefer us happy...

I bring you a picture of a man hurding cattle with a 4 weeler on the side of the road in Babb, MT. Toto, I'm not in Cincinnati any more...

To Mark from Oklahoma...

and...

To Life

Marc

Sky Lake Bid

Speaker:
Good Morning everyone,
Can I see a show of hands…Who here has been to the Two Medicine valley of Glacier National Park? It’s in the southeastern corner…Huh…..
Great, that’s actually a good amount of you.

Speaker:
Yes, Maam? You in the back with the blue shirt on…Do you have a question?

Lady:
Dmoiunamdklsdfjlkoiwekdfasdklfj (enter Charlie Browns teacher sound.)

Speaker:
I’m going to repeat your question, I’m not sure everyone understood, uh…..heard it...

She asked: What is the highest mountain in the Two Medicine area? Also, is it true that the highest elevation named lake in the park is in a hanging basin on that mountain?

Speaker:
Well, you are very correct. The mountain is called Rising Wolf and the highest elevation lake in the park is nestled in a hole on the east side of it…

I know I’ve got a picture around here somewhere of that mountain…Gimme a second… While I look for it, allow me to recount the day my friend Laura and I scrambled up to it…

*(enter dream sequence sounds from movies like Wayne’s World..)

It was a slow start to a hot and sunny day, as the residents of the St. Mary trailer park awoke. There was the normal scramble at the end of the night before attempting to figure out what to do for the next day. Laura and I had the day off and we were staring at the Glacier map that is tacked on the living room wall. This thing is tattoed into our subconscious but it’s still nice to have map. We could, blah, blah..or maybe blah, blah….

As the morning drug on I was enjoying too much coffee and lazy conversation…Laura was being patient, but forced me to decide… we decided that the only day hike left on the east side of the park that ends in a lake and could be started at noon is Sky Lake in Two Med.

Off we go, zooming down the east side border of the park in Laura’s trusty steed TT. As we approach Two Med we peer down into the valley at our day’s project.

The mountain on the far right is Rising Wolf. The red scree slope in the center is directly above Sky Lake in a small hanging valley. During the early season there is a spectacular waterfall that jets right out of the hanging valley and runs a couple thousand feet to the main valley below.

This is a very short yet angular route. I looked at it every day while I worked down here in 2005. From the Two Medicine Ranger Station you can see that you simply walk straight up the side of Rising Wolf for 2500’ to the top of that ridge to the right of the summit. Easy as that…huh?

It can’t be more than a mile but you raise 2500’. From the second you walk off trail and head through the brush you are headed up hill.

We picked our way through the cliffs and loose rock.

If there is a positive, it’s so steep that every time you take a step you are about a foot higher on the mountain than you were before. You gain some serious elevation quick.

Here we are looking back down on Two Medicine developed area. The campground is to the left next to Pray Lake and then the ranger station, picnic area, camp store and boat docks are to the right on Middle Two Medicine Lake.

Nearing the top you can see that this was an amazingly steep incline.

We are happy to gain the top of the ridge.

We could not drop down the other side at this point, so we had to climb around on the top of the ridge to a better spot for decent on the lake.

We got further down the ridge and we found a spot that was “acceptable” to try and climb down.

Laura led the way through the cliffs, this girl is a goat.

She quickly was down bottom waiting for her slow hiking partner.

So, a quick interjection. I lost my sunglasses right before this hike. You don’t go hiking around in the windy/sunny mountains with out sunglasses. Well, what do you do then?
You take sunglasses from anyone that can offer them, and that includes your female friends. That is how this picture came about. Thanks for the glasses Anna.

While we were climbing back up to the ridge top, I snapped a picture of where the waterfall normally comes out of the lake. So, remembering back to the first picture, this just reinforces how much this basin is just perched on the side of a mountain.

From the top of the ridge you can see out into the plains that start rolling east as you get out of the park.

After a good boot picture we started climbing back down. There was a band at Charlie’s which is the best bar on the planet. We got things to do..

So, down, down, down it is…

When we got back down to Laura’s car I ran into one of my mentors. Mr. Pat Hagen who is a naturalist in the Two Medicine Valley and has been since before Rising Wolf dated Sinopah. Sorry, a little Two Med humor.

Pat wrote a book a few years ago called Seasonal Disorder, well worth the read. It’s about the mental and emotional affliction that is seasonal work addiction, but using well more funny words. Check it out on Amazon.com. So, anyway, he read my blog and knows of my deranged lake idea, and he is under the impression that I should take my stories and write a book. He has gotten in my head since then, I have been thinking about it a lot since. Any opinions? I’m open to them..

So, to all of you… I miss you much and wish you well. Summer smells of fall and cooler temperatures. We got our first light dusting of snow in the highest of the peaks the other day. It went virtually unnoticed and burnt off within hours. Go enjoy that summer weather while it’s still there..it’s fleeting in some peoples backyards.

Other than that,
Thanks for taking care of us, Rising Wolf..
You have always been a good mountain to me….

To Life,
Marc

Nahsukin,Gyrfalcon,Redhorn Lake Adventure

This Blog Entry is Dedicated to "Billy", most know him as Brad. Have a great year back in college. This trek would not have been done without you.

Good Morning everyone,

That’s right, I’m casting off my nighttime literary window and trying the morning. Hopefully this entry will be fueled by the big mug of coffee that is sitting next to me and the refreshing light that is streaming in my front window.

I have some things going on that start in the late morning, so for right now I would like to tell you a story of what is easily the most elaborate lakebid, and one of the most hectic trips that I have ever taken in all my days of hiking.

Waterton Lake is fed by the Waterton River which flows north into Alberta. It then connects to larger rivers and eventually to the Arctic Ocean. The headwaters of Waterton River is called Nahsukin Lake. It is about 11 miles south of Goat Haunt, but after 7 miles it becomes a valley without a functional trail and clogged with downed trees, alder bushes, and every other random piece of wildly thick vegetation that grows in the Northern Rockies. This lake will be the base camp of what is now called the Nahsukin, Gyrfalcon, Redhorn Adventure.

At this point every year, Glacier National Park becomes very fire prone and quite smoky from fires that pretty much rip holes in the mountainous west. This year is no different. Although there are no fires in Glacier itself, it gets a lot of smoke from fires west and north of it, and that smoke actually makes for amazing sunsets. It’s particulate matter in the sky that makes sun sets vary in color and intensity. Honestly, that is why many cities have great sunsets, odd concept.

The evening we left was no different.

My partner in crime, Brad and I hiked five miles south before sunset.

As we left, the sunset was amazing. The tour boat came in for it’s last run and the lake was washed with a classic wildfire/smoke orange glow.

Mt. Cleveland was glowing with an amazing alpen glow as he headed south to our cabin for the night.

In the morning we waded across the Waterton River and dove off the maintained trail that we will eventually yearn for through the next few days. There once was a trail to Nahsukin Lake……about 50 years ago. Many trees fall, and vegetation fights back to reclaim a lot of trail in 50 years. Luckily, animals still take the path of least resistance and in this case some of that least resistance is the old trail…Let me impress upon you that just because I say the word trail does not mean that it is anything more than a spot between bushes that is slightly more trampled than the rest.

You start looking for trees that have broken branches or an old log that has been torn up by hooves and paws, a slight path through the grass. Nothing obvious, you have to be paying attention.

Often there was absolutely nothing to follow. We just decided that to keep the same direction as the lake, and dive right on in there. Maybe wear sunglasses, to protect from a random branch to the face.

You fall a lot, which Brad did quite often on this trip.

You take a good old spider web to the face more than you can count.

You even eventually, start losing your mind and decide that walking straight up a creek drainage would at least be without thick vegetation.

But, after four miles, you eventually end up at Nahsukin Lake. A wild place where, Brad saw a wolf for a split second, before it dipped back into vegetation.

By the time we got to the lake, it was time to crash. Ate a slight bit and just went to sleep. We had a long day to be ready for, so right now the best thing we could do was just sleep. Morning will come very soon.

Morning on Nahsukin Lake is a place that the local animal population does not expect to see human beings. One or two people a year may force their way up here. Not enough to make animals change their natural routines. We were pumping water from the lake shore in the morning and two Wolverines were running down the shore directly at us. When they saw us they quickly turned 180 degrees and run halfway around the shore line. It was amazing to watch how they effortlessly hopped rock to rock inches above the lake with no thought that they might lose their footing and end up in the drink.

In this picture, Brad is pointing towards the direction they ran. In the background you can see a very thick dark green section of vegetation directly above the lake shore.

The wolverines ran on the rocks, we as human beings can’t cling to those same rocks so we have to thrash through that vegetation. What took them about a minute to get past, took us about an hour of sweaty cussing as we “walked” through the alder thicket. It’s like this stuff is alive, it grabs you and has a thousand squiggly branches that pull you down. We were on a 70 degree angle essentially standing on alder as we swung from branch to branch. When I neared the end, I noticed I had lost one of my prize trekking poles. I looked for 20 minutes, but it was gone, gobbled up by the alder bushes.

Brad had broke one of his on the hike in yesterday, so I figured that this was the oman of the trip and I should just sacrifice it to the lake gods.

So, after the alder, we climbed up the bowl at the end of the lake. It was big rocks and angular streches of slick vegetation, but it was also early in the day and we over came this section in about an hour.

Allow me to tell you now, we eventually hike for 14 hours today before we stumble with bleary eyes back to Nahsukin Lake. Big Day Folks…Big Day…

At the top we look down on an amazing view of the entire Waterton River drainage and Nahsukin Lake. The furthest left hand mountain is Mt. Cleveland which is directly above our ranger station.

Our camp was at the far end of this lake towards the mountains.

From here we continue to climb up sloping rock slabs to a lake called Gyrfalcon Lake.

Through this process we are walking literally on the continental divide. There are actually two lakes that are astride the continental divide.

Interesting to look at, they look like two normal lakes. But the left one flows east to the Atlantic Ocean and the one on the right flows west to the Pacific Ocean. This “continental high point” is easy to see normally when it is a jutting mountain, but when it’s a slight hump of dirt and rocks sepertating two lakes it’s much more difficult to visually understand.

Gyrfalcon Lake looks amazing on a map, high in the mountains and surrounded on all sides by glaciers and rock…well above tree line. This is the last little tree I saw, think it has a windy rough winter up here?
Gyrfalcon Lake has been on the agenda for years, to finally arrive was pretty great for me.

In celebration, I went swimming….

Not to linger too long, because we have hardly even begun today’s endeavor. From here we head north along the west side of the continental divide and attempting to decipher which of these two saddles has to be gained and climbed over.

On the way we came across a bunch of small lakes, they were great.

No names though, so along we went.

Through much mapping and debate we eventually pick the higher elevation of the two saddles and climb our way to the top of it.

I’m was so happy that we picked the right one, if not we would have had to down climb the same thing and keep going. From the top, I looked down on one of the most remote lakes in the park.

Redhorn Lake. Although it looks plain enough, the valley that it lies at the head of has never had a trail and is a long, bear infested bushwack…..or you simply climb all the way around Nahsukin mountain and come in from a saddle above it….

That’s obviously what I planned here today..

The wooded ridge behind me is what will eventually be climbed to start making our way back towards Nahsukin Lake. But for now, we have a long slog back down this rocky slope to Redhorn Lake. By this point we were about 10 hours into the day and this was just getting long.


Just from the completely different angle. The major snowy section of mountains that I was looking at that morning in late June was where I was standing right now. Much drier and less terrifying than it would have been then.

At the bottom of the valley I found an interesting thing. A 20 foot tree suspended on top of a 40 foot high rock.

It made me think, boy there must be a lot of snow here in the winter. That tree was placed there in the middle of winter as it slid down a slope in an avalanche and got stuck up there. There was a snow in this spot that was at least 40 feet high. Welcome to the Northern Rockies…Jeez

Then, that’s right, we went swimming…Great lake, loved it and really not too cold at all. Refreshed me for what I had to come.

We climbed directly up a vegetation covered Stairmaster. This was one of the steepest things I had ever walked up, honestly...

From this point we had to continue over this real big, broad ridge to get above Nahsukin Lake. We went though a big avalanche blow down and up and over all kinds of what not to get to the end of this ridge…12 hours in now…

We walked up to the edge in a spot which was in no way where we had planned on coming down….We casually walked up to the edge and expected to see a big slope covered in grasses..rough enough at this point, but instead we popped out right on top of a monster cliff looking down 2000’ at the lake…Ahhhhh..

So, we had to thrash back through the woods to find the slope we had planned on….We eventually found it and side stepped, fell down and cussed our way along for two hours…

Trying to work at a 45 degree angle back towards our camp…I’m sure it was because we were working on hours 13 and 14 of the hike, but this felt like it was by far the worst part. Add on top of that, we were running out of daylight…

Would you believe that we ended up at our tent at about 9:45 PM about 10 minutes before dark settled in….There was no interest in eating food or anything else…We climbed in to our tent and went directly into the most needed sleep of my life…

In the morning we work up, and swam in Nahsukin Lake.

I had to look directly at the alder thicket that held my trekking pole captive. I had no interest in looking for it. I was beaten by the alders and they won the trekking pole battle.

On our way back out, Brad broke his second pole and we broke out in what was the most insane, off our rocker laughter. We had both lost our beans on our trip and we had nothing left but to cackle like crazy men…

We thrashed back through our 4 miles of forest until we finally found our beloved maintained trail. Seven more miles of trail and we arrived back in Goat Haunt…We may have won the war, but we lost many, many battles…

If in your hiking life you ever question what it is that trail crew does for you….Just ask me... Cause if you just jump off of that magical maintained pathway…You will want to buy them dinner by the time you get back on it….At least in the brushy, wild Waterton Valley..

…To the trail magicians of our parks…I raise my glass…PROST!!!

TO LIFE!!!!!!!!!

Marc