Shuttle Bus to Saint Mary Lake

Hi Blog!  Today is Sunday, July 28, 2013. The weather forecast is calling for rain and heavy thunderstorms at the end of the week.  We are going to have to move our backpack up a few days. This won't give us much time to recover from our trip to Sperry Chalet, but so be it. We'd rather hike with sore legs than hike in the rain. It also means setting our alarm clock for 5:30 a.m. in order to get to the backcountry office by 7:00 a.m. to score a permit, but so be it.  We'd rather lose sleep than miss our chance to backpack in Glacier.  Since we have to be in the park that early, we decided to make a day of it.

After stopping at the backcountry office and getting our permit for camping at Arrow Lake (see the next blog entry), we boarded one of the free shuttle vans at the Apgar Transportation Center that take visitors up to Logan Pass, the highest point on the Going to the Sun Road.  At Logan Pass, we can switch over to the larger shuttle buses that service the east side of the road all the way down to the St. Mary Visitor Center. There is a vehicle size restriction on the road and Great White is not allowed, so we either rent a small car or ride the shuttle. We enjoyed the convenience of the shuttle, so it was an easy choice.  Here we are getting buckled in the shuttle van for the ride up into the mountains.

Here is a view of Heaven's Peak.  From left to right (hard to see but they're there), we see Stanton Mountain (7750'), Mount Vaught (8850'), McPartland Mountain (8413') and Heaven's Peak (8987').  Glacier Ridge is the long ridge to the right of Heaven's Peak.  Our backpack tomorrow, will take us up Camas Valley on the far side of this mountain.  We will pass under each of these mountains on the way to our campsite on Arrow Lake.

This is the view of the other side of the road looking up at Mount Oberlin.

The darker side of taking the shuttle van - you can't get out and take pictures, so you have to watch the glare on the windows:

Here we are at the Logan Pass Visitor's Center.

That big guy across the road is Pollock Mountain (9190'). Parking is hard to come by and most of the sites are gone by 10:00 a.m.  By now, we are glad that we took the shuttle van.  We hopped on the bus to St. Mary.  While the views were great, we found the St. Mary Visitor Center to be pretty isolated and without many services right at the visitor center.  We wanted to have lunch when we got off the bus; however, the actual town of St. Mary was still over 3/4 mile away and there was no public transportation. (Another dark side to the shuttle system.)

We got back on the next bus and stopped at Rising Sun where we could take a boat tour of St. Mary Lake. We purchased our tickets and walked over to the general store and grabbed a couple of sandwiches.  We ate at the dock while waiting for our ship to sail. As it turns out, the 2:00 p.m. boat tour also comes with an option to hike to St. Mary Falls.  We asked when the boat would return and they assured us we would get back in time to catch the shuttle to Logan Pass.

Here is the view looking west past Wild Goose Island.  St. Mary Lake and Going-to-the-Sun Road were featured in the movie Forrest Gump.  When Forrest tells Ginny about his run across America, he mentions a lake so blue it looked like there were two skies. The director used shots of St. Mary Lake.

As we cruised along, we spotted a bald eagle perched in a dead tree.  If you look at the right tree, you can just make him out sitting under the top branch.

We docked at Baring Falls to begin our hike up to St. Mary Falls.

As we climbed a little higher, the color of the lake water changed to a milky blue.  The glacier silt (or, as they call it, "glacier flour") only allows light from the blue spectrum.  The more silt, the creamier the blue color.  Tucked back behind Little Chief Mountain is one of the 25 remaining glaciers in Glacier National Park.  There were over 200 at one time.  They expect all of the glaciers to be gone by 2020.

Our hike was led by Ranger Meredith. Before starting, she briefed us on bear safety in the woods.  The idea is to make a lot of human sounds, so the bears know we are not something to eat.  The more human voices, the better.  Every time we came to a really brushy area or came around a bend or to a stretch where bears above or below might not see us right away, she would shout "Marco" and the rest of us would take turns saying "Polo."  We had a rowdy bunch of 19 hikers ranging in age from 8 months to over 60-something.  Dave and I volunteered to be sweeps.  Our job was to make sure no hikers were left behind us, but it gave us a chance to hang back and take photos.  It also allowed us to observe the parenting skills (or lack thereof) of our fellow hikers. Would you allow your daughter to drink unfiltered creek water? Would you stand, holding your baby, on the slick edge of a rock precipice to get a better view of the pool beneath the falls?  Ranger Meredith bit her tongue at the precipice walk, but quickly put a stop to the water drinking nonsense and lectured the parents on the dangers of giardia and other water borne creepy crawlies.

Here is St. Mary Falls. Kathy took her day hikers off and soaked her feet in the frosty glacier run off. (Yet another reason not to drink unfiltered creek water.)

Here we are posing in front of the falls.

The hike back to the boat was much quicker since it was all down hill.  However, there were numerous stops along the way to pick thimbleberries and huckleberries. Upon our return to Rising Sun, we learned that we just missed the shuttle bus back to Logan Pass.  Luckily, there was one last bus we could catch and still make it up to Logan Pass in time to catch the last shuttle van back to Apgar Visitor Center. However, the 40 minute wait was not fun. It also kept us wondering whether or not there would be room for everyone on the little 7:00 Apgar shuttle.  Yet another dark side to the whole shuttle thing.

As luck would have it, there was just enough room in the shuttle van.  In fact, some folks were only going back to their cars parked along the road, so by the time we got to the Apgar Visitor Center, there were only five people in the van.  Luckily, we don't need to take a shuttle for our backpack trip tomorrow. We learned a lot from this experience and hopefully, when we take the shuttle again, we will be better prepared.