Iceberg Lake and Ptarmigan Tunnel - Twenty Miles of Great Hiking!

Before we arrived for our twenty days at Glacier National Park, Denisa read an article about the ten best hikes in the park. All of these hikes are over ten miles, and most are rated as hard or strenuous. We were trying to decide which one to tackle next, and we had several fellow hikers in the park recommend Iceberg Lake. So we set the alarm at 5:45 a.m., and made the 1.5 hour drive back to the Many Glacier entrance to get one of those precious parking places at the trail head.

Most of the the trail reviews talked about bear sightings on this trail. So we opted to go with safety in numbers, and decided to wait for the 8:30 "hike with the ranger." After our bear safety training and orientation, we started the trail with around 50 other hikers. Denisa was the first hiker right behind the ranger. If we happened upon a bear today, she was definitely going to see it right after the ranger.

It was a beautiful blue sky day, and we are so thankful for the clear mountain views. After so many smoky days on the west side of Glacier National Park, we are liking the air quality much better here on the east side. Far in the distance on the right hand side of the picture below we can see the ptarmigan wall--a long rocky ridge that separates two sections of the park. We'll be talking more about that later.

We were traveling more slowly than we are accustomed, and we stopped for ranger comments frequently. Our ranger was good at keeping this large group together.

It was interesting to ask questions and get to know more things about our surroundings. For example, the closest patch of white is just a snow field. But the next patch fits the deeper and bigger definition of a free-standing glacier that moves independently of the mountain it is resting on.

But we realized thirty minutes into the hike that the slower pace and the extra educational standing time was hard on our legs. So we hiked ahead of the pack and onward down this beautiful trail. We also had another reason to break away from the ranger-led hike to Iceberg Lake. Last night while studying the trail maps, we discovered that two of the trails on that top ten list shared the first 2.8 miles. It was possible to hike both, but a little crazy to try to combine two difficult trails on the same day. But we never said we weren't crazy. So at the Y-intersection, we pointed our hiking boots toward the hardest incline up to Ptarmigan Tunnel.

After 2.5 hours of hiking, we got to Ptarmigan Lake. It was a beautiful morning, and the lovely blue-green lake was an oasis surrounded by mountains. Even though the grizzly warnings were a little frightening, we were still sad to see that there were no signs of wildlife around the lake this morning. But our eyes are fixed on that mountain behind it. If you look very carefully, there is a faint trail on that mountain face that switch-backs to the top.

We have been on a steady incline to the lake, but the trail takes a sudden turn uphill to get to the tunnel. We could see our trail zig-zagging up the mountain ahead of us.

The sun was beating down on us as we climbed up-hill. Why do we always attempt the hard part at the warmest part of the day?

We already know that a ptarmigan is a chicken-sized bird that hangs around these mountains year round. We had also seen the ptarmigan wall in the distance this morning. We found that this tunnel was built through that ridge at the top of a mountain to connect two hiking areas. We had to take the celebratory pictures at the top when we could literally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It is a dark walk through the tunnel.

But it's like a whole new world when we emerged on the other side. Where we had hiked up gray-colored scree, we now were greeted by red mountains on the other side of the tunnel.

There were several other people enjoying the cooler temperatures on this side of the tunnel, and we exchanged picture-taking duties with them.

While we were sweating in the sun while we hiked up the mountain, now we were in the shade. Where we had windbreak on the other side, now we were in the wind. Between the shade and the wind, it was time to get out our jackets. You can barely see Denisa now in her black jacket in front of that tall rock wall on this side.

Far below us is Lake Elizabeth, where many overnight hikers will pitch their tents.We ate our picnic lunch with views like this. Our blue skies are now partially covered with some interesting cloud formations.

We met a couple at the top of the tunnel that was celebrating their 50th anniversary this week. The fire inside the park meant that their anniversary reservations at the Sperry Chalet were cancelled. But they were still taking their planned hikes like this one to Ptarmigan Tunnel. We hope that we are still able to make this hike 14 years from now when we celebrate our 50th anniversary! We took that couple's advice to continue hiking down past the summit. That allowed us to see the dark red mountain side up close.

It also gave us a better perspective on just how big this mountain is. Walking another quarter mile also shows there is another entire mountain that had been hidden from our view. At the top, is another one of the 26 glaciers still left at Glacier National Park.

In the early 1900's there were around 150 snow masses that fit the glacier definition in the mountains of this national park. Now we are down to 26, and they continue to dwindle. With the unusually warm July Montana experienced, they think all the glaciers will be gone before 2030. We're glad to be here in 2017 when we can get views of the beautiful mountain lakes and one of the glaciers in the same shot from the top of a mountain.

We spent a good hour at the top of the mountain. Mark is standing beside one of those tall red walls at the top of the mountain. If you look carefully, you can see that he is pointing at the tiny dark square. That is the tunnel opening.

It was cold and windy when we made the trip back through the tunnel to the sunny side.

It didn't take us long to shed our jackets on the sunnier side. The good news is that we are heading down-hill this time. We tried to take a panorama picture to give a better feel for the long zig-zag trail that one must traverse for the final leg of the trail to the tunnel.

As we looked down on the brilliant blue Ptarmigan Lake, we were once again scanning the shores for wildlife. This looks like a great place for a moose or a bear. But after 17 days in this area we are beginning to think they don't really live here at all.

The trail is predominately down-hill towards home, so we were feeling pretty good when we got to the Y-intersection again. If we went to the left we could be back at the car in 2.8 miles. A turn to the right would take us 2 miles to another of the top-ten hike destinations--Iceberg Lake. But it would mean that we wouldn't be back to the car for many hours. Guess which way those crazy Engelmans turned?

You're right! We turned right and headed towards Iceberg Lake because we had heard so much about it. Our legs are feeling surprisingly good, and this is a beautiful place to hike.

It's a more level trail to Iceberg Lake, but the last push is uphill. That extra hiking was worth it for the first glimpse of the lake.

Sure enough, there are really icebergs floating in the lake.

That means the water temperature is something barely above freezing. We decided that a cold water bath would be good for our tired feet. That is Denisa sitting by the lake in the bottom right hand corner of the picture below.

But the water was truly freezing! After only four seconds in that ice water, our feet just ached from the cold.

Of course, there are plenty of people that must take the Iceberg Lake challenge. We walked to the left side of the lake, where this duo was having second thoughts about taking the plunge.

But they did the countdown, and jumped in at the same time.

They jumped out just as quickly. The good news is the weather is warm, so sitting in the sun today thawed them out pretty quickly. Denisa didn't know when she got dressed this morning that she was going to wear a blouse that could be described as Iceberg Lake blue.

We continued taking pictures of the rugged mountains and the beautiful blue water. We have certainly wandered to another of God's wonders!

After walking as far as we could to the left side of the lake, we decided to walk to the right side of the lake as well. All this extra hiking is piling on the miles to our already long hike. But the wildflowers along the lake make this a pleasant stroll.

We also spotted a family of mountain goats relaxing on the side of the mountain. We're sure they were talking about the crazy humans that were splashing around in that cold water.

The really crazy people stay in the ice water long enough to swim to one of the floating icebergs, and then climb aboard. We talked to the two guys that were still recovering from that escapade. Mark is smart enough not to consider doing something that is life-threatening, because staying too long in this water can make you so cold you are unable to get back to the shore.

It was interesting to see the top of the bergs were considerably smaller than the large part under the water. I guess we are just seeing the "tip of the iceberg."

By the time we circled back to the front of the lake, we got one more view. We had spent another hour of our day exploring Iceberg Lake. We stopped for one more look back to another of God's wonders.

It was 4:30 when we left the lake, and it was another 5-mile hike back to the car. We didn't take many pictures since we were focused on finishing the trail in the late afternoon light.

By the time we got back to the car, Denisa's garmin showed the total mileage we had hiked today. 20.46 miles is a new daily record for us, just beating out our hike a week ago by a quarter mile.

Our car had been taking up a precious parking space at the trail head all day during our hike. But we were surprised to see a note on the windshield when we got back to it. Was this a parking ticket? No, it was just a good-natured citation from some of our new friends that recognized our car. I guess we'll need to be visiting their camping site soon to avoid serious consequences!

We had gotten up at 5:45 this morning, eating breakfast during the 1.5-hour ride to the trail head. By the time we got back to the car after the hike, we still had another 1.5-hour trip to get home. So we left the house at 6:30 a.m. and didn't get back home until 8:30 p.m. Our legs had stiffened during the drive home, and we weren't sure if we were going to be able to climb those six big stairs up into the motor home. It was a long and beautiful day at Glacier National Park. We have learned not to complain too much about the long hours we spend having so much fun, because our friends working back home don't have much sympathy for us. It was truly a long and lovely day wandering God's wonders!