Logan Pass --> Hidden Lake

My mentor's been gone a lot the last few days so instead of doing work on monday, I got to go out and hike. Nate, Jeannie (the other girl working with the same mentor as I) headed up to Glacier and drove up to Logan Pass, which is the steep valley through which the road goes to get from the west side of the park to the east. it only opened up on last friday, because they had to clear out all the snow and deal with flooding from runoff, so it was exciting to drive up through there. we parked at the logan pass visitor's center and took a trail from there to a little lake called hidden lake. in the first mile of the trail, there's lots of people because at this time of the year there's still snow covering everything. tons of people went walking by in shorts and tanks toting their telemark skis and snowboards as well, trekking up to the top of the slopes. it was pretty exciting to hike through snow, especially since i've been pretty deprived the last year. we saw lots of mountain goats along the way, and even a kid. the peaks around us were so majestic and still snow-capped. it's sad though.. i was just reading that only 35 glaciers still exist in the park, down from 150 when it was first explored back in the mid 19th century.. all thanks to climate warming in the area. we hiked down a steep slope to the lake, which was still mostly covered in ice and relaxed for a bit. we ran into a one-horned goat that people had warned us was pretty mean, but he didnt seem too bad. we hiked back out towards our car and did some serious sliding down the snow in our shorts on the way, providing entertainment for all the people still on the trail. when we arrived at our car, we found a big ole bighorn sheep waiting to greet us. all in all.. pretty awesome.

quartz lake

our cabins


bowman lake


me, nate, and robert down by quartz lake

so finally the weather's gotten beautiful... it's gotta be in the high seventies at least which is pretty nice. it's warm but definitely not too hot (like i hear ny is..) as much as i loved hawaii.. i love montana more. it's more my domain.. the mountains, amazingly clear lakes, lots of rivers and creeks, and gorgeous boreal forests with lots of trails to hike through. i hear missoula's a cool town too.. we have a friend working down there now so i think we're going to have to go check it out. yesterday we did a 13 mile loop called west lakes trail in glacier np. it took us about 2 hours to get there because the actual trailhead was at the nw corner of the park, about 45 min past the main entrance at west glacier. the main road through the park is finally opened up too since last year, so that's exciting. the rivers are down already, so i think the biggest part of the melting is over. the loop we did started at bowman lake. it's probably the most still lake i've ever seen in my life. the picture looks fake because the reflection is perfectly symmetrical. i regretted so badly not bringing my kayak out here with me when i saw that. there was a mule deer just chilling in the parking lot when we got there too. the trail started out by going over this ridge, then you peaked over it and could see down into the valley where lower, middle, and big quartz lake are. it's really quite a sight walking down towards the main lake, because all the forest on that side of the ridge had been burned in fires in 2003. you could see everywhere because there werent big tall pines blocking the view anymore, but it was amazing how much had grown up already.. lots of short new pines, and lots of lupines, paintbrush and other wildflowers. the national park service had a policy for a lot of the last century that called for putting out any fire, naturally (like lightning) or human caused, immediately. that means that all this underbrush is building up since the park service is stopping the natural fire cycle, so when you do get fires starting that you cant stop, they are out of proportion since there is sooo much material in the understory to burn. we hiked down around the lakes and they were all pretty and mosquito laden. the hike back over the ridge was pretty tiring, but all in all it was a pretty nice day hike. we stopped at cajun mary's on the way home for some good bbq chicken.

weekend at glacier

anonymous art down by the lake...


golf-ball sized hail, 2nd day in a row..

so this past week, we got some more interesting weather ... cold more than anything. we did some moderate hiking, checked out this place called the nyack flood plain. the rivers are incredibly swollen from all the snow and seasonal ice melting. apparently this year's runoff is a 5-year runoff (this volume comes about once every 5 yrs), so it's pretty big. on friday, we celebrated the end of our first week by checking out this new little brew company, the flathead lake brewing company, a little bit north up the east shore from us. it was a really nice place with lots of cool sailing regalia decorating the walls and a sweet deck overlooking the lake, and of course good beer. on saturday, we ventured up into glacier NP for an overnight trip to lincoln lake. though the hike was only 8 miles which isn't that long even with big packs, it took us about 8 hours to get to the lake. the trail goes through lots of bogs, and of course with all the snowmelt, there were lots of streams crossing the trail that weren't normally there.. making things even more interesting. we eventually got there and found a small bluegreen lake with a huge cascading waterfall coming down the sides of the valley walls, and lots of big majestic snow covered peaks around us. the night was pretty cold, but fortunately we had no grizzly friends visiting us during the night (we basically had to bear bag everything..) the hike back was nice because it cleared up a lot, so it was a tad warmer, and a whole lot more downhill than getting there :) we got to the end and found two rangers patiently waiting by our car for us.. apparently the lady that gave us our backcountry permit issued it without listing the license plate, so they were staking the car out to try to figure out who had been parked there for so long. and of course on the way home we had to stop and get ourselves a verrry big meal :)

at home in the rockies

So after more than 2800 miles and about 6 days, I am at last in Polson, Montana! It was pretty boring at times being by myself, but it was pretty nice too after constantly being around people last semester. Since I don't have a CD player and was usually too lazy to hook up my iPod, I mostly relied on the radio. Needless to say, I know about 100 country songs by heart now.. In Mitchell, SD, home of the Corn Palace, I met up with two guys from Virginia and West Virginia who are in this program as well, Nate and Robert. We checked out the Badlands, Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse monument in SD, Devil's Tower in WY, and LIttle Bighorn Battlefield and the National Bison Range in MT.
The weather was moslty nice except for some scary golf ball sized hail in WY and some crazy wind in MT than just about knocked my bike off my car. Everything has been so incredibly gorgeous.. its so different driving myself out rather than sleeping through alot while dad drives. The black hills of SD were gorgeous, and of course all of Montana and Wyoming, and even the hills of Wisconsin that I camped in.

The program that I'm doing is called Research Experience for Undergrads, or REU for short. It's a grant from NSF to U. Montana that allows us to do it.. schools all around the country have similar programs in varying subjects. The Biological Station is on the east shore of the lake. The lake is just stunning.. it's bluegreen because its so clean and has lots of glacial sediment in it. and its cold hehe. It's actually a pretty huge lake, largest in MOntana. BEhind us you can see snowcapped peaks, the Mission Range. To our northeast is Glacier NP, and Canada. There's about 40 of us students here, living in little 2 person cabins. 10 of us are REU'ers and the rest are taking summer ecology classes. For now we're all just settling into things, starting to figure out what we're gonna be doing. It's pretty cool, because we're really independent. I've basically been exploring a little, reading articles, hearing some talks, and today I got to tag along with my mentor's class taking out our bio station boat on part of the lake. we went to a little island called wild horse island and had breathtaking views from the top of a knoll overlooking the lake. In typical fashion, the boat overheated a tad on the way back , but we eventually made it back. It looks like already next week, I'll be camping out with the class again, deploying a wave gauge out on the lake, and possibly rafting down a river from the canadian border to take some hydrological measurements. very exciting :)
and it hailed again last night!