We pulled into the parking lot at Logan Pass at 7:30 and got one of the coveted parking spots. We've been told that this lot will be full by 8:15, and there was a long line of hardy hikers right behind us. Many will head towards the Highline Trail that we hiked several days ago. Those looking for a shorter hike will enjoy the Hidden Lake Trail we are on today. As we started on the boardwalk, we can look over Denisa's shoulder to see the mountains we walked among on the Highline Trail.
As we look forward, we see Mount Reynolds, and the snow that is still hanging around at this high elevation in August. We're wearing jackets this morning because it is chilly. We think that's a really nice thing in August.
The boardwalk is laid over an alpine meadow that is adorned with some of the brightest flowers we have seen. They make a lovely foreground to the majestic mountains that ring this hike.
What a beautiful place to be for an early morning walk!
We're enjoying a blue sky moment this morning, something we haven't seen since all the gray smoke has blown into this area. But this picture is really about the grand views being enjoyed by the herd in the bottom right hand corner of the picture below.
Not too far from the trail is a herd of bachelor big horn sheep. They are used to the crowds on this trail, and they graze and amble without even noticing all the paparazzi tourists taking their pictures.
The herd moves out of the flowers and into the rocks. This guy is striking the classic National Geographic big horn pose on the steep slope.
We can see quite well in the early morning light around us. As we look to our east, the sun is just now peeking over the tall peaks and flooding light into the alpine valleys. The sun's rays can be seen in the smoke that is also in those valleys.
It's a pain to get up so early in order to get a parking space. But it does have its advantages. This morning there is a pair of ptarmigan close to the trail. If we hadn't seen them, we would have heard them. One of them was calling in a voice that sounded like the "mew" of a cat. This time of the year their mottled feathers help them to blend in with the mottled rock surroundings where they usually live. But this morning these sizable birds are easy to spot in the bright green meadow.
Its mate was curled up in the grass, but that allowed us to see her bright white underside. In the winter, these bird will dawn all white feathers to give them camouflage in the snow.
By 8:15 we have hiked to the view point, and we are seeing Hidden Lake for the first time. It's only 1.5 miles to this point, so this section of the trail was busy even in the early morning.
The views on down the canyon shows the layers of mountains behind the lake.
Many people turn around at this point, but the trail actually continues for another mile down to the lake. On this trail we can take pictures of the lovely flowers in the high meadow above the lake.
It was also here that we saw a lone mountain goat coming right down the hiking trail. He seemed to prefer the wide human trail over the narrow game path we could see in the grass.
All the hikers moved off the trail to make room for the guy with the horns as he passed by.
This trail continues around the lake, for more views from different angles. Mark should have kept count of the number of times that Denisa whispered, "That's so pretty!" But instead he knew that was the cue to hand her the camera for yet another picture of Hidden Lake.
We took this one in celebration of the fact that we could actually see clouds floating in the sky. All of our Glacier National Park pictures have gray smoky skies, so we were pretty excited to see a little touch of blue sky with puffy clouds instead of smoke.
The sun even came out to light up the face of Bearhat Mountain
(8684 feet) behind the lake. We could also see the snow-covered peak of Gunsight Mountain (9258 feet) in the picture as well.
Denisa likes taking pictures of flowers. But to get a whole meadow of flowers with snow in the background is unexpected in August.
The last section of the trail is very steep as we made our way down to water level. We are glad to have our jackets today, as it is a breezy 50 degrees this morning in the mountains.
The water is a clear blue, and we have managed to bushwhack our way around to the far side of the lake for a different view.
But to do that, we are hiking through the remote sections of forest that ring the lake. We know that no one has been here this early in the morning, and all the bear warning signs have Denisa spooked. So we left this peaceful place near the lake to head back to the noisier trail where the other hikers are.
We headed back up the steep trail, where we needed plenty of stops because we were working pretty hard. It also seemed like a good excuse to take pictures of the marmots that were scampering among the wildflowers.
It's close to 11:00 by the time we made it back to the viewpoint again. We took pictures for other travelers, and decided to take them up on their offer to take a rare picture of us together. It's finally warm enough to shed our jackets this morning.
Scampering among the wildflowers are these cute little Columbian ground squirrels. We have seen hundreds of them in Glacier National Park, and they are a pest if you try to eat a snack close to the trail. We think they have been trained to come when they hear a granola bar wrapper being opened.
We think it's pretty cool (in more ways than one) to still see so much snow in August.
The Hidden Lake trail is very popular, and we can certainly see why. With just a 2.5 mile round trip hike, visitors can hike to the viewpoint and back and see lots of wildflowers and wild animals. It gets a bit more challenging in length and steepness to make the trip down to the lake like we did this morning. But we feel like we barely broke a sweat compared to some of our hikes. This long line of hikers has stopped to see that herd of big horn sheep that has relocated to another spot to graze.
We of course joined that long line to get some more close-up pictures of these magnificent creatures.
It seems that this bachelor herd had some disagreements about who the alpha male of the group was. There was some head butting clashes while we watched.
Based on the big knot on his nose, it looks like this guy has been on the bad end of one of those conflicts.
Denisa had to take one more picture of the wildflowers along the board walk as we headed back to the visitor center at Logan Pass.
We had heard the stories about the traffic congestion and the parking problems here at Logan Pass. This is the trail head for two of the most popular hikes in this national park, and this parking lot fills up by 8:00 most summer mornings. Then there is a parade of cars circling the lot, hoping to see a car leaving. The local news reported the park's decision to make 60 of these parking spots limited to 30 minutes--just long enough to see the views and check out the visitor center and bathrooms. That will help the tourists just driving down the Going to the Sun Road, but will make it even more difficult for hikers.
The traffic was heavy as we headed down the Going to the Sun Road back towards home. It's a beautiful drive, but Mark has to concentrate on the narrow lanes to avoid hitting the rock walls or the oncoming traffic.
We are having a great time here on the west side of Glacier National Park! We are blessed to be wandering some of God's grandest wonders this summer!
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