Day 5 – The Big Hike to Many Glacier Hotel.

Glacier National Park is one of my favorite national parks…so far. I guess I’m reserving my vote on a favorite until after my visit to Badlands, Cave Land, and Grand Teton National Parks.

This trip is my 4th visit to Glacier. (Spoiler alert – Glacier will always be my favorite 🤗)

Ok, back to the story. My very good friends, Lisa and Dustin, planned an adventure which entailed a “12 mile” hike into the Many Glacier Lodge located on the east side of the Glacier National Park. (LOL, a 12 mile hike…..actually 15 miles each way!) The plan was to hike in over Piegen Pass to stay one night at the lodge, enjoy a good meal, get a restful sleep, and hike back out the same route the next day back to the staged vehicle.

Now, I would like to point out you can actually drive to this lodge in a vehicle. It would take approximately 3-4 hours to drive to this lodge via the Going To The Sun Road which takes you from west side of Glacier over Logans Pass to the east side of the park.

In 2016, during my first visit to Glacier NP my friends Lisa and Dustin drove me to the lodge and we completed a day hike to Iceberg Lake. It was a wonderful hike!

But…Why drive to the lodge when you can walk? 🤷‍♀️

THE HIKE TO MANY GLACIER:

The hike was glorious! It was challenging as we hiked up over a mountain pass at 7000 + feet, across rock scree, across glacier creeks, on slippery snow patches, and through thick vegetation. The wildflowers were in bloom!

It’s hard to imagine looking far into the mountains across the valley that we hiked the whole way. It took us 9 hours each day to hike the 15 miles.

We stopped at every creek and jumped in! The freezing ice water helped to cool off our feet and numb the aches. Try ice headache on your whole lower body 🦶🏼☠️🥴. It actually felt wonderful. The turquoise colored lakes are actually run off from real glaciers which are still in the park. There are actually several glaciers still live in Glacier National Park. 25 live glaciers to be exact. We hiked under and by the following Glaciers: Grinnel, Gem, Piegan, Siyeh, Swiftcurrent, and Lupfer.

We had planned to save a few miles and take the lake boat from Lake Grinnel to the Many Glacier Lodge. But as my luck would have it….it was filled with tourists and we actually needed pre-paid reservations to board the boat….which we didn’t have.

We continued the additional 2-4 mile hike along Swiftcurrent Lake and Lake Josephine to the lodge.

We were blessed to see Moose feeding in Josephine Lake! And there was a baby MOOSE!! So on the positive side….if we had been on the boat we would not have seen the moose.

When we arrived at the lodge we were hot and exhausted. While Lisa and Dustin checked in, I scampered up the wooden staircase to the restaurant and scored us a table. I’m sure the hostess was happy to get me away from him as I was dusty, smelly, and “Hangry”😹.

We stuffed ourselves! I had a nice glass of red wine with Chicken Piccata. Followed by a warm dish of huckleberry cobbler with creamy vanilla ice cream on top. Oh it tasted like heaven!

After our meal we waddled down to the lake shore….for you got it….a cold lake soak. It made for a perfect setting for some per-sunset photos.

Staying in the lodge was such a big treat! It is really hard to get reservations at the lodge. We had a lake view on the 2nd floor. I could’ve sat and stared at the mountains forever. Here is a link for the mountains that surround Many Glacier Lake and Lodge if you are curious. http://www.americanwesttravel.com/montana/glacier-national-park/many-glacier-region/

THE HIKE BACK OUT FROM MANY GLACIER BACK TO THE CAR AT GTSR (Going to Sun Road):

Morning greeted us with SORE muscles and sore feet. Not to worry…Advil and glacier water did the trick to numb the pain.

On the way out we stopped for lunch at one of the creeks where we….you got it….soaked our feet. What I didn’t mention earlier was Lisa had a broken toe she was hiking on. So, icing her foot as many times as she could helped ease the pain for her. Lisa is one tough lady!

There is a theme in my life with my girlfriends named Lisa. They are tough warriors and love the adventure!

While we were finishing lunch, Lisa looked up and sighted a Wolf running across a game trail in a snow patch. She was able to point it out for me just in time to see it as it jumped from the snow patch into the rocks. What a sight! Wow, how lucky we were to see the Wolf…at a distance of course. I wasn’t able to get a picture of it but I will never forget the experience.