An Overnight Hike to Sperry Chalet, Glacier National Park

On Wednesday after we arrived in Kalispell, we gather information on Glacier National Park to try to decide what interests us.  One of the items we found was an article on two mountain chalets in the park - Granite Park Chalet and its sister chalet, Sperry Chalet.  Both are very popular, and reservations for nights' stays in the two chalets sell out in MINUTES after the reservations open each October for the next season.

As it happened, Sperry Chalet had one opening on Friday night, and we jumped on it.  We got the reservation and, after making our preparations on Thursday, headed up the Sperry Trail from Lake McDonald Lodge on Friday morning.

The hike to the chalet is 6.5 miles - all uphill, with an elevation gain of 3500 feet.  Nevertheless, the hike is gorgeous.  Here's Kathy enjoying the primeval forest on a beautiful, sunny morning:

As the hike progressed, the trail opened up out into the sun, with views down to Lake McDonald and up toward the chalet:

Our first view of the chalet came when we were 2 miles from it.  You can just see it perched on a rocky point in the upper left corner of this photo, overlooking a beautiful, green amphitheater:

The chalet was built in 1914 by the Great Northern Railway.  It suffered devastating damage by an avalanche in 2011.  In the process of planning the rebuilding, it was discovered that the chalet also had significant failures in its septic system.  All of this resulted in a repair and reconstruction that cost millions of dollars.  But the chalet retains its historic structure and charm:

The dining hall seats 40 and meals are served restaurant-style.  For dinner, we sat with two couples we had met earlier in the day after our arrival at the chalet.

The view from the chalet is striking, with a peek at Lake McDonald in the distance:

After a refreshing lemonade and a rest when we arrived at the chalet, we decided, on the recommendation of one of the very friendly young staff, to hike up toward Sperry Glacier, one of the few remaining accessible glaciers in the park.  The entire hike would be 7.5 miles round trip, which we couldn't complete before dinner, so we just hiked about halfway up, to some small tarns in a morain boulder field below a headwall beyond which lay the glacier.

As we set out on this 4 mile dayhike, one of the hikers we met offered to take our photo in front of one of the many glacial waterfalls that spill down into the cirque or bowl over which the chalet is perched:

Here is a photo looking DOWN on the chalet (on the right in the middleground of this photo) from our trail around the cirque after we switched back up toward the glacier basin:

When we got to the first headwall, we encountered some spectacular waterfalls splashing down the vertical face of the headwall:

By this point, we were at 7500 feet, above treeline, and we encountered some patches of snow:

We rested our sore feet overlooking a little glacier tarn, with the chalet in the far distance below and Lake McDonald yet impossibly further away and below:

We had encountered some mountain goats on our climb up, and in one case had had to scramble up some rock scree around the trail, which had been occupied by a mother goat and her kid.  However, on the way down we had at least four intimate goat encounters (if you could call them that).  Here was one of them, with two young mountain goats playing around on the rocks:

Their momma rested placidly on a large rock while they gamboled and their older brother (sister?) tried to emulate the mom.  Dad was busy digging in a crevice by the trail.  We had to pass him.  Here's a photo of dad:

We found the goats would just not move out of our way.  On the other hand, they weren't aggressive, and they either let us pass, or occasionally finally left the trail as we approached.  We even had a chance to get up close and personal with a mother goat and her little one - close enough to get this short video.

Back at the chalet, we had a hearty dinner and good companionship with the other hikers, sharing our various stories from the day's hikes.  We lingered until sunset, which lent a colorful hue to the sky over Lake McDonald to the west:

The chalet bedrooms were unlit and unheated, but we had big windows (which we left open because of the warm evening weather) and plenty of warm blankets on the beds.   Before we knew it, dawn came and we were up at 7:00 am for breakfast.

As we walked back from breakfast, Kathy spotted a hoary marmot perched on a rock below the chalet.  He kindly posed for a profile photo:

We bade a reluctant goodbye to the chalet and its very friendly staff and started our trek down the mountain.  About a mile into the hike, we ran into this chubby little hoary marmot, who, while he didn't like us near him, would not leave the trail.  Finally, he reluctantly let us pass and offered us a pose for our camera:

The rest of the trip was uneventful.  We stopped by Great Northern Brewing Co. in Whitefish, sampled their beer, then brought home some luscious Wild Huckleberry Wheat Lager, some Good Medicine Imperial Lager, and Fata Morgana, a Belgian strong ale.  We're enjoying a bit o' the Good Medicine as we write this blog entry!  Slainte!