Today we had a huge breakfast, OK it was really two breakfasts each, at the lodge and then hit the trail for Iceberg Lake, the other really good hike from Many Glacier. This is a 10-mile round trip hike that goes up the other side of the Two Medicine Valley from where the glacier hike was.
We headed through some forest where we saw an eagle soaring several times. We got to Ptarmigan Falls, made the turn and headed in the the main trail to the lake.
Here's the
far-away view. The lake hides in the cirque where the snow is. As we
get closer Catherine shows she is woman enough to take on this hike...
We finally made it
to the lake which did indeed have icebergs floating on it. We went along
the shoreline to get away from the crowds and sat down to enjoy a nice
lunch. We spotted a mountain goat an the slopes above the trail with
binoculars. I, of course, had to go into the lake to see how cold it
really was but I got a kiss for it. BTW, it was VERY cold and my feet
froze just trying to get this shot.
On the way out
we stopped at Ptarmigan Falls to hang out and take our boots off a bit, so did
lots of other hikers...
No bears today but we saw a sign of grizzly that was pretty unmistakable. These fields of glacier lilies were ripped up by a griz in search of the lily bulbs which are potatoes to the bear. These are right at the edge of the trail so you can see them very close if you are lucky (or is that unlucky?)
We got done with the hike and decided to head back to Going to the Sun Road to camp since we wanted to do a hike near Logan's Pass the next day. We set up camp at Rising Sun, cooked some chili and then for an after dinner stroll went about 1/2 way to Otokomi Lake. We had no packs, no camera, and more importantly no bear spray. There were bears in the vicinity as we found several piles of grizzly hair along the trail.