Day 3, Night 3
So it ended with us spending the second night of trip in East Glacier. As a regular recurrence and a regular theme of this trip everyday morning, it was Sriram who got up first bright and early and thus getting ready. Poorni followed next, then it used to be either Preethi or me, whoever was up by then.
Next day was the scheduled and much awaited hike to Grinell Glacier. One of the few glacier in 48 contiguous states which did not melt completely even in summer, but with the advent of global warming, this along with other glaciers in Glacier NP was supposed to disappear in the next 10-15years time. I for whatever silly reason, was hell bent on going to Grinell Glacier. Only glitch was it was no way an easy hike. Made moderately easier by taking a boat ride along Lake Swiftcurrent and Lake Josephine which reduced the hike by 2miles one way, it was still a 8miles hike with a steep 1800ft elevation gain going towards the glacier. Needless to say it was touch tiring, and even more so for the ladies. But they somehow labored through and we got treated to some beautiful vistas including a nice view of Grinell lake from the top.
The descent was absolutely swift. 4miles in 40mins flat. Unbelievable fast by everyone and we made it to the point where the boat picks people off and well in time, for even the earlier boat to take us back. It was at that time, I made a drastic mistake of relying on time printed in the tickets instead of checking the timing at the lake shore. You see the ticket had a time for another boat leaving the shore in 1hr and 10mins time, while the last one was further two hours after. Considering that the walk to Grinell lake was an easy flat walk not too far, we decided to skip the one that was standing in front of us and go check out the beautiful turquoise blue colored lake that was fed by the melting glaciers.
But that turned out to be a disaster. Either the distance was much more than what was mentioned, or it was because we were too tired from the prev hike to the glacier, we walked for a substantial distance only to never find the lake. After quite a distance, we evaluated the time, and thought it would be best to return back now so as to make the boat back to Many Glacier Lodge. Another quirk of fate and we observed that the time mentioned in the ticket was not mentioned in the lake shore which meant, we sat there till 5:30pm doing nothing just waiting for the boat to arrive. Total disaster wasnt it? We did spot a marmot that lived very close to the shed built near the dock and that guy was eyeing the cookies which totally freaked out the ladies.
After that time, there wasnt much else to do and we started driving around the GNP since the logan pass was closed so as to reach the West Glacier where our stay for the night was. Surprisingly this drive was actually faster than going straight through the GNP itself. We ultimately reached Tamarack Inn on the western side of GNP (town of Hungry Horse) well after it was dark, which means it was quite late. That's because you see in summer, up in Montana, there was light well upto 10pm.
Sri drove brilliantly fast and well controlled and we shacked up in nice looking Tamarack for the night.
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