elementalRain

When we picked up our updated itinerary the rangers warned us that the Ahern drift was extremely dangerous with ice axe, crampons and an optional belay recommended.  With the extreme heat the drift was rapidly melting and probably would last only another week or so before disappearing completely.The drift really is not that dangerous, but there is quite a bit of exposure.  We pushed across kicking some really solid steps in the drift and moving slowly.  If you were to fall you would slide at least 50 feet to the bottom edge of the drift.  If you were unlucky enough to be rolling then you probably would go most of the way down the scree slope for another 100 yards.    The drift is a couple mile north of the Granite Park campground in the middle of Glacier National Park. 

A little over a mile off the pass on a side trail is the Swiftcurrent Pass Lookout.  This is a tough side trail to take if you have just climbed out of Many Glacier carrying everything you need for a week in the backcountry.  There are lots of little ground squirrels all over so you can’t drop your pack and push for the summit unless you want to come back to no food.  Luckily we were in a large group so we could take turns hiking to the lookout.  The views from the top are certainly worth the trouble.  The little lookout building at the top is manned by two guys who spend all day looking for signs of forest fires.  While I am sure there are many who would love to have views like this every day all summer long, I bet it gets pretty old.

Day one of our Glacier trip gives us a nice 7.6 mile jaunt out of Many Glacier over swift current pass (side trip to the lookout of course) and down to Granite Park campground for the night. The trail leading out of Many Glacier is a spectacular way to start your trip.  The imposing walls of the mountains framing the valley make you wonder how you will ever get out especially with the 50 lbs pressing down on your back.

The schedule we originally planned is not going to work.  It seems that just this morning there were 6 grizzlies sighted on the trail to the Ptarmigan tunnel.  Everyone was pretty stressed as the rangers stated that we would have to go in through the Belly River or over Red Mountain.  Neither option seemed that good so we looked for other routes across the park.  Thanks to the unseasonably warm temperatures (90F today) several back country campsites that usually don’t open till August are already open.  Here is the updated route we were able to “walk in” and get.  Granted we had the last few sites reserved already but anyone who knows about these sites will be amazed that we could get Granite Park and 50 Mountain for 2 sites just by showing up.

The Ranger warned us that Cattle Queen drift and the Ahern drift were still pretty serious snowfields when the Ranger went through about 3 days before.

It looks like a decent route this year. A little long on the 4th day with a body numbing 14+ miles including the crossing of Stoney Indian Pass.

Looks like a decent set of sites although I would like to change those Mokowanis Junction nights to something else near by. Perhaps there will be some options when we show up and pick up our permits for at least one of the two nights. Since one or two of our party of five might have to bail out we might end up with 4 people total. If that happens we will only need on site making it much more likely that we can work something out. On the other hand you never know who might come out of the wood work looking for a chance to hike through Glacier with the wild flowers in July.