Day 10 - September 8, 2013
65 Degrees, Clouds & Some Rain
Many Glacier Campground (Site #41)
Hike: Cracker Lake (13 miles, 1,500 feet)
God, it was good to be back at Many Glacier again...though Bowman Lake and Sperry Chalet were excellent as usual...
Jumped out of bed at 5:15AM (I am always so ready to go whenever I'm at Glacier, no matter what time I need to get up)...
Checked out of the cabin and managed to scam a site at Many Glacier at 6:30AM (still a nightmare but not quite as bad)...I set up camp then headed to Swiftcurrent to check weather forecast...90% chance of showers...
Headed to MG Hotel to grab the usual sandwich and hummus from Heidi's for lunch as well as some coffee for now...
Plan was to meet Kim and the Louisiana gang by the Cracker Lake trailhead (the guys were going to get a walk-up for a backpack for the next day and Kim wisely left a message at the Ranger Station for them to meet us there as we missed them the night before)...
Of course, I'm first at trailhead...
The rest of the hiking partners arrived just about on time (impressive for Kim, chatter name kimmar, as she was staying near Belton Chalet in a rented house)...
The Louisiana gang (Gary, Roger, Chris)...
and Kim who I would hike with a few more times in the next several days...
Kim had worked at Lake McDonald for the season from 1980 to 1982...this was her first time back in many, many years and she was as enthusiastic about the
Park as I am...
Our plan was to decide whether we would do Cracker Lake or Snow Moon Basin...based on weather forecast (nearly a sure chance of rain), I recommended Cracker Lake as wet rock scrambles were more than I wanted after the scare on
Floral Park...all agreed...
You all know how I feel about this hike and since it was my 19th night at Glacier in 2013 and my 10th night this trip, I was overdue for some Cracker Lake!!!
We headed out in overcast skies...
The company was tremendous...I learned a lot about Crawfish, Cajun cooking, and LSU football from the guys...Kim shared some great stories about "the good old days" working in the
Park...
What a great group of hiking partners!!!
How can you pass "Pie Rock" and not take a picture??
The bridge had been rebuilt since last year...
We had some rain the second half of the hike to Cracker...but the cirque looked pretty amazing despite the clouds...
Finally, after all those teaser ups and downs, my sentimental favorite place came into view!!!
We traveled along the lake to the rock outcropping...perfect place for lunch...
It was windy and a bit chilly, Kim was feeling "under the weather" to begin with, a cold that she couldn't shake...but the warmth of the company and the scenery made it a wonderful lunch...the guys had plenty of beef jerky to share...
As we packed out from lunch, the rain started again and we made time to get back into the forest...we saw a cool snow cave along the way...
The trail was much more "soupy" as we did the last few miles...
But we finished a great time and journey...
I returned to my campsite (the rain had stopped) and cooked brats over the campfire to eat with some potato salad and "low carb" (remember that I'm a diabetic) beer...awesome!!!
Time to settle in to the campfire and some reading!!!
A GREAT day despite the clouds and rain showers....