Howe Ridge is apparently known as prime mountain lion habitat - a fact we didn't know until we were preparing this blog. That wouldn't have made a difference in our decision to take the hike, because we've hiked in other prime mountain lion territory - from Big Bend NP to parts of Yellowstone. We recognize the risk exists and we have a hunting knife which David wears. Since mountain lions typically attack from behind, the knife is cold comfort, but at least it offers, along with bear spray, some hope of defense. Furthermore, mountain lions are known to be shy of humans and typically do not prowl during the day. So, while this is an identified risk, we don't consider it the final word. There are just too many good reasons to hike into this beautiful country. If you want no risk, just don't get out of bed in the morning.
Kathy located a YouTube video of the hike we took. This video is almost exactly what we experienced and will show you just what we experienced, except that the author of the video hiked back out a different route than he took in. We hiked back out to the same trailhead we started from.
Here's a photo of David with Lake McDonald in the background as we climbed:
As we arrived at the top of our climb to Howe Ridge, Kathy expressed victory over a trail junction sign marking a now non-existent ridge trail that is still shown on maps:
After resting, we started a 1,300 foot descent over 1 mile, and received our first views of Rogers Lake, to the west:
At the bottom, we arrived at Trout Lake, known for its good trout fishing and the destination of many local fishermen. Trout Lake is less well known for one of the first two deadly grizzly bear attacks ever to occur in any national park - both on the night of August 13, 1967. A 19-year old woman named Michelle Koons from San Diego, who was working at one of the park concessions was camping at Trout Lake with friends. A bear invaded their camp, and while other campers climbed up trees, Koons was caught in her sleeping bag, and attacked. Coincidentally, another female hiker was killed in a separate incident with a second grizzly bear the same night in another area of Glacier NP. The two incidents spawned a 1969 Sports Illustrated article, a reputedly sensationalist 1996 book titled, "Night of the Grizzlies," by Jack Olsen, and a follow-up essay in 2013 by Chris Nunnally, titled, "Night of the Grizzlies, 45 Years Later." We heard about the incident after getting our permit, while we were preparing our hiking map and information. It certainly made us more careful about bears while we were hiking, and we spent much of our hiking time yelling, "Hey Bear!" and "Marco! Polo!" but bear attacks are so rare that the 46-year old attack couldn't have much relevance for us other than to reinforce what we already know about bear risks in the wilderness.
Here's a photo of Trout Lake, looking up toward the cirque at the end of the valley. Our campsite at Arrow Lake is about 2 miles up the valley from here:
After more uphill hiking from Trout Lake, we finally arrived at our destination - Arrow Lake, a real beauty:
We had come prepared for fishing but agreed we needed dinner first. Here's David enjoying his evening cup of Joe at our dinner site on the beach at Arrow Lake:
While we were sitting at dinner, not one loon, but TWELVE LOONS, all in a row, came swimming by us.
Over the three days, we observed their behavior and it was clear that we had stumbled on male and female adult loons with their brood of eleven little loons. That first night, mama (or daddy) was leading the little loonlings on a fishing lesson. They all paddled over to a spot right in front of us, and set up almost in a circle, bobbing under the water, then reappearing, randomly, hunting the tiny fish that inhabited the shallow water where the nearby creek was emptying food into the lake. Later that evening, the lesson over, the adult loons ushered the teenagers back to their nest somewhere on the east side of the lake.
We never did get to fish the first night, because a thunderstorm threatened before we could finish dinner. Tired after a full day, we decided to turn in early in hopes of fishing in the morning. Here's a selfy inside the tent as we prepared to shut our eyes (the headgear is routine for cool weather camping):
Tuesday dawned colder than we expected, and we didn't have the appetite to wade in the lake with bare legs, so we pondered the day's agenda over breakfast:
While we were munching our oatmeal, Kathy spotted a huge golden eagle as it swooped in front of our beach, surveying the lake to see how the fishing would be this morning.
We decided to hike the 3.6 miles up to Camas Lake, further into the cirque at the end of the valley. The ranger had warned us that the hike is (in his words) "brushy." That was an understatement. The YouTube video of the hike, referred to above, shows the "brushy" nature of things at about 3:56 minutes into the video.
We started out around Arrow Lake and took this pretty photo of the lake looking back at our campsite at the other end:
Here's a photo of Kathy standing at the spot from which we took the photo above:
Between Arrow Lake and Camas Lake are five stream crossings. We mastered the art, using some new neoprene hiking/wading boots we just got for bare-legged wading when we fish. Kathy demonstrates:
The hike up to Camas Lake is another 1,000 feet of elevation gain, which made for lots of uphills and downhills. We were amply rewarded, however, with the grand views and with three waterfalls, two of which were in this open section of the valley:
The views back down the valley were spectacular. That's our campsite at the far end of Arrow Lake (in the foreground), and Trout Lake is in the background. We had entered the valley over the pass behind Trout Lake:
We reached Camas Lake, but had trouble finding the campground there. By the time we realized we weren't going to find it, we missed the opportunity to take any decent photos of the lake, but the video referred to above has a shot of Camas Lake at about 4:58 minutes in.
Heaven's Peak (elevation 8987 feet) reigns over this section of Glacier, and as we ascended to the high point of our hike, we could look back at Heavens Peak, shown in the photo below.
Another couple camping with us at Arrow Lake was there for three days to try to bushwhack a nontechnical ascent up Heavens Peak, which they first attempted the day we climbed to Camas Lake. When they got back to camp after we had returned, they reported that they hadn't made it - but it turned out that, on their return, they followed our path and recovered a treasured Appalachian Mountain Club bandana that Kathy had lost on the trail without knowing it.
While David cooked dinner, Kathy decided to throw a line into the water just in front of our campsite. She came up with two nice 8 or 9 inch trout on her first few casts! Here's Kathy showing her winning form:
We resolved to get up Wednesday morning and fish before hiking out. We did that, and chose the opposite end of the lake to try our luck. A very deep pool sits right at lake edge where a stream comes in to feed the lake, and it looked like prime trout fishing to us. We saw rises, but neither of us was able to snag anything other than more loon spotting, as well as this photo of mist on Arrow Lake as the sun was beginning to peek into the valley:
We fished until almost 11:00 am, and then began our hike out. The whole valley is full of Thimbleberry bushes, and the ridges filled with Huckleberry, and we filled most of a liter-sized Nalgene bottle with thimbleberries and huckleberries - so many that we had thimbleberry pancakes for breakfast this morning, and enough left over for meals of berry pancakes or berry whatevers! Much of Howe Ridge on the Lake McDonald side was burned in the 2003 Robert Fire. Thimbleberry was among the first plants to reoccupy the charred ground, and it literally filled the valleys and stream drainages. Of course, thimbleberry is a favorite item on a bear's menu in Glacier, and most of the bushes we saw had been eaten through - it being late July. Perhaps the main reason we saw no bears was that they had already eaten their way through Camas Valley. That being said, our intrepid video reporter showed a grizzly bear he encountered on the hike to Camas Lake in October, so, really, any time is bear time here.
As we sat eating lunch on the shore of Trout Lake, David heard a strange cry below at lake's edge and remarked to Kathy about it. We heard nothing more. However, as we started hiking, two otters were startled by us and Kathy spotted them as they scampered across the trail up the hill. They had been chasing each other down in the water. As they crossed the trail, they made the same cry we had heard earlier. We got a good look at their little brown weasel-like heads as we passed by and they hid in the bushes.
On the way out, we met a number of day hikers, as well as a new set of backpackers on their way to campsites at Arrow Lake or Camas Lake. After 3 hours of fishing and 8 miles of hiking back over Howe Ridge, we were mighty happy to see Great White, sit ourselves down in those comfy bucket seats, and RIDE home to our comfy RV with our comfy bed and our comfy cats. Sorry, Baxter, no bear stories for you this time.
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