Day 4
Itinerary: Red Eagle (Foot) to Reynolds Creek
Mileage: 14.3
Elevation Gain: 400
Elevation Loss: 500
Bear locker: no
Fires: yes
Today was supposed to be a long mileage day (for me), but relatively easy with minimal mileage gain, and should have been easier than the day prior going over triple divide pass.
My hiking partner usually takes off before me to get a head start while I tear down camp and do final packing. I hike a little faster and enjoy the solo hiking, so it works out and I usually catch up within an hour or so. I have a GPS, but that really is just for recording tracks, as I stay on trail and the park has excellent trails and signage. I try to look at the map to start the day to visualize the path: sections / profile, intersections, distances, etc. For today I was expecting a T intersection with St Mary lake trail and taking a left (west) as that trail ran along the lake (east-west) and Red Eagle runs north-south.
There was frost this morning on the tent, at which point I finally decided to cave and buy gloves for next year, as cold and wet fingers in the morning is dumb having done it many times.
One last look at Red Eagle Lake before leaving camp:
The trail follows the Red Eagle Creek towards St Mary Lake, with some nice looks back if you don't forget:
There are a couple suspension bridges and you eventually break out of the area, with some good views towards Logan Pass:
So I was cruising pretty nicely, finally getting my hiking legs. At the bridges there was always a trail split prior for the horse ford. I'm not a big fan of the horses (acknowledging they helped make the park is what it is today), as all they do is destroy the trails and bad word everywhere, which is unpleasant to hike in, but also ignores LNT rules humans have to follow, but I digress. So several trail splits around visible bridges, which I ignore as I know those are just horse fords, and I don't even bother to look at as they annoy me.
Well time went on, maybe 2 hours in, and I began wondering where was the intersection. Then I started seeing hikers without packs coming my way - they couldn't possibly be going to Red Eagle like that I thought, and then the wheels began to turn. So I pulled on the GPS, and I was over half way to St Mary's Range Station. Let me tell you, not a great realization when your 14 mi day just turned into a 20 mile day, and you have to hustle to makeup time such that your hiking partner doesn't panic and backtrack towards the lake missing you. So went from high gear, to higher gear. It was going to be a long day.
Made it back to the missed interaction in about 45 minutes:
Some really nice views across the lake, but I wasn't in the mood to fully appreciate. Really the titans of GNP in my opinion, and my favorite areas of the park.
Eventually made it to the waterfalls. Always fun to intermix with the bathed people. I was in pretty rough shape after just having stopped for maybe 15 minutes all day to refill water and eat a snack, so I got some looks for sure. The burn section after the split towards Gunsight Pass Trail was a pretty cool views:
Just as I was nearing the river and bridge, I saw my hiking partner coming my way without pack. Needless to say, we were both glad to see each other, fearing the worst (he that I was injured/lost and me that he had backtracked past me before I reached the intersection). Good old Reynold's Creek bridge, 2 for 2 now as a sign of a long rough day.
Here is the velocity profile. Right around mile 6 is where I realized my folly. I was doing pretty well at 2.5 mi/h up to that point, and turned it up to 3.5 mi/h and maintained as long as I could, slowly running out of steam, but kept it above 2 the entire day for 20 miles.
Definitely pushed the knees beyond what they could do, so IT band / overuse issues plagued me the last 1/4 of the hike, and those would carry over to the next two days.