A whole heckin’ day in Babb
Woke up and hightailed it over to Glacier National Park! Checked in at the ranger’s station to figure out my plan for the day - a 7ish mile hike to Grinnell Lake. I was feeling low energy so I went to the lodge to grab a cup of coffee. The woman at the coffee shop was so sweet, I expressed feeling not excited about my day and she totally hyped me up.
Thank goodness she did because this hike did not disappoint! There was a fork in the trail - one to continue to Grinnell Lake, and one to Grinnell Glacier. The Glacier trail was about 10 miles and was mostly uphill, I decided to give it a shot. Only one day in Glacier, gotta go for it!
At one point I had to stop because there were some big horn sheep crossing the trail. They had been hanging out for a while so there were a lot of people waiting above. I kept my distance but they decided to cross the trail right next to me. One of them stopped about 10 feet in front of me and didn’t move for a few minutes - just stared at me. I was standing so still and breathing so shakily, so nervous that he would suddenly find me a threat and send me sailing down the mountain. Eventually he moseyed up the mountain and I was able to keep going.
I was doing pretty good, but about a mile before the top the trail started getting too steep for me. I am so afraid of heights! There was a small waterfall that ran over the trail that required going up a sort of stone staircase with a very long drop off to the side. I went up it feeling very shaky but made it. I kept walking and saw that things were only going to get sketchier as I walked up - something that would be very difficult for me coming down. I decided it would be best for me to turn around - can’t navigate down hip-height steps and gravel with shaky knees (especially alone)! When I approached the waterfall I went down on my butt, getting completely soaked in the process (worth it). There was a man waiting for me, who told me to take my time. At one point I stood up and started getting really nervous and he grabbed my hand and helped me down. I was sooooo grateful. Here are the views were I decided to turn around and the waterfall (which doesn’t look very intimidating in the photos).
The rest of the hike down was beautiful. Ran into some more big horn sheep, but was able to give them a lot of space. Chatted with a woman on the way down who was on her way up. She was from Montana and had gone up to the glacier many times. She said that while the glacier is beautiful, the last mile of the hike was much steeper and more narrow, and that I did the right thing. She also told me a crazy story of a bear encounter she had where she and her boyfriend were charged from behind and had to use two entire cans of bear spray to get it to back down. Yikes!
When I was almost at the bottom, someone had to wait for me to pass them in a narrow spot. I apologized for taking so long and expressed that I was totally beat from the hike. They looked at me and said “I’m just proud of you.” I responded, smiling, that I really needed to hear that because I hadn’t made it to the top and they said “Whatever you did was enough.”
Made my way back to my car, found a spot at Swiftcurrent lake to jump in, and drove back to my campsite feeling really accomplished.
When I got back to the campsite, I went swimming, took a super hot shower, made myself some dehydrated dinner - chicken and dumplings - and crawled into bed.
