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Adventures of the Spirit Eagle - Glacier NP - Introduction

  by Jim & Ginny Owen

Once again, Ginny and I had to decide what to do with two weeks vacation this year. Obviously we were going to hike - but where? After last year’s adventure in Colorado, we wanted to go to Glacier National Park and see another part of the CDT. But my work schedule looked like it was going to interfere, so we procrastinated about sending in the backcountry campsite permit request. Finally, the work situation resolved itself and about 5 weeks before we were to leave, we wrote a letter to Glacier NP telling them that we wanted to hike from Waterton Lakes in Canada to East Glacier Park at the southeast edge of the park on the CDT and requesting the permit. We didn’t really expect to get what we wanted, since it was so late and parts of the route we wanted are very popular, but, as someone once taught me - "If you don’t ask, you don’t get". So we wrote the letter - and then started making alternate plans.

On Monday, July 6 - less than 3 weeks before we were to leave - the Ranger at the Glacier Backcountry office called and told us we could have the permits for what we wanted to do - if we could be flexible about the dates, distances, etc. And our answer was a resounding "YES". That meant we had to start hiking a couple days later than we’d planned, do some longer (and shorter) mileage days than we would have liked, and take 2 layover days at Red Eagle Lake. Cool.

So — why Glacier? First, because Ginny’s wanted to go there since she was 8 years old. Second, it’s one of those high snow areas that catch a lot of thruhikers. Karen Berger and Dan Smith, for example, got caught by early snow and had to road walk the last couple hundred miles of their thruhike. Others have had to either finish or start their thruhikes via the alternate Belly River/Chief Mountain route, which is a lower altitude route, rather than the Highline (designated CDT) route. Knowing that we might get caught the same way next year, we wanted to do the Highline route this year so we’ll have done it even if we can’t do it next year during our thruhike. Third, doing the Highline/CDT route in July/August would also give us a chance to see Glacier at it’s best - during high summer.

Once again transportation was a problem. We could drive to Montana, but that would take 3 to 4 days and we’d start the hike exhausted - and then have to drive back home - even more exhausted. Amtrak was a possibility, but neither of us liked the thought of spending 2+ days each way on a train. Since we got the permits so late, we were also too late to get the low-priced air fares, but I wasn’t about to let that stop us. So the final arrangements were a combination - we flew into Kalispell, MT, stayed overnight and then caught the eastbound Amtrak the next morning to East Glacier Park. Thanks to Mark Howser, we picked up the permit, stayed at East Glacier Park overnight on Tuesday and then caught the shuttle to Waterton Lakes Park in Canada on Wednesday. Expensive - but it worked. In fact, 80% of our expenses for the two weeks were the transportation/lodging required to get to the trail and get home again.

When we picked up the permit, we also made arrangements to use the 2 layover days at Red Eagle Lake for some off-trail bushwhacking. We intended to use the old Red Eagle Pass Trail to get to Red Eagle Pass and then do the Norris Traverse across Norris and Triple Divide Mountains. This is a 4 mile section directly on the Continental Divide.

Resupply was no problem. With the consent of the Rangers, we sent a mail drop to the Ranger Station at Many Glacier, which was the destination on our fourth day of hiking anyway.

The altitude for this section of the CDT varies between 4000' and 8000', but is not such as to require extensive acclimatization. Most of the campgrounds are located at less than 5000' elevation, so we wouldn’t be sleeping at 12000' like we were last year. That made it a lot warmer, and we didn’t have to worry about altitude problems.

We used the Trails Illustrated map for Glacier/Waterton National Park along with Jim Wolf’s "Guide to the Continental Divide Trail, Volume 1: Northern Montana" (published by the Continental Divide Trail Society). We supplemented the Trail Guide with sections from Erik Molvar’s "Hiking Glacier and Waterton Lakes National Parks" and the "A Climbers Guide to Glacier National Park" by J. Gordon Edward. We also carried a couple USGS 7.5' topo maps to cover the Red Eagle Pass and Triple Divide Mountain areas that we intended to bushwhack. The TI map has the alternate Belly River route to Chief Mountain marked as the "CDT" whereas the real designated route is the Highline route to Waterton Lake.

For the journals, we’ve included everything we wrote - including getting to the Trail and getting home again because it’s all part of the experience. What we’re not gonna tell you is how hard it is for us to come back - suffice to say that NO ONE talked to me at work this last week. No one wanted a repeat of last year when I made no secret of how close I was to quitting that first week back from the trail. So -

on to the main event ----

Day 1

© Copyright 1998 Jim & Ginny Owen