We left the Blackfeet Reservation and headed into Glacier National Park. As soon as we entered Glacier, the mountains started towering above us. They are made out of ancient sedimentary rock making them very unique and beautiful!
Day 131 – Mile 2876.8 – East Glacier Park Village
Today we resupplied in East Glacier Park Village, our last resupply stop of the trail. We had 16 miles to go by 3 pm in order to get to the post office on time to pick up our packages. As we got close to town we saw two black bears, a mom and a cub, running down the trail away from us. They dashed into the woods and one climbed up a tree. We made it to town around 2 pm. We picked up our packages, went grocery shopping, did laundry, and took a shower. The grocery store was out of instant coffee. Luckily the hostel we were staying at sold individual Starbucks instant coffee packets for $1 each, so we bought 26 of them! Normally we buy 8 oz for $5, which is much cheaper and has much less waste, but it wasn’t an option for us to be without coffee! I guess you could say we’re addicted. Tomorrow we head back to the trail with the Canadian border as our next destination. -R
Day 132 – Mile 2903.1 – We’re in Glacier!
This morning hiking out of Luna’s Hostel and up into the mountains of Glacier National Park felt a little bit surreal. The CDT ends in Glacier, so we have been thinking of Glacier as the distant end since May… Now it’s here. We still have a few days of hiking through the park, but the end is in sight more than ever before. The mountains of Glacier are amazing! The elevation is not very high, but the relief is huge and the high peaks tower above big lakes below. It is beautiful. We walked to a ranger station in the park and picked up backcountry permits for camping. Having to get permits to camp was a little bit frustrating since almost all of the rest of the trail required no permit, but we were able to reserve an itinerary pretty close to what we were hoping for. On the trail we saw some bighorn sheep. We were caught in a lot of rain today which was discouraging after experiencing a few weeks of great weather, but it is fitting that we’re getting some rain at the end of our hike after so much rain throughout. When we got to our permitted campsite we bumped into a hiker named Metric Ton who we haven’t seen since the PCT in 2018! He had decided to camp at the site 3 miles earlier than the site he reserved because he was having a rough day in the rain, so we gladly swapped permits with him and hiked on three miles farther. Nice! -T
Day 133 – Mile 2926.1 – Thunderstorm
Glacier NP has small backcountry campgrounds featuring a few campsites, a pit toilet, and a separate spot for cooking and hanging food. Flounder and Moose were in the same campground as us last night and tonight. Over breakfast Flounder told us he was charged by a grizzly bear yesterday, which sounded quite scary. Everything was ok though, and he did not even have to use his bear spray. We started the morning with a big climb. We saw a moose on the way up. We had nice weather and beautiful scenery today. This afternoon we saw lots of waterfalls. When we got to camp this evening, Flounder, Mouse, and four other guys who were out for a week had a campfire going, which was our first on-trail campfire! When we were setting up our tent, it started raining and thunderstorming on us. We had to eat dinner in the rain, but we survived. Dirty Money predicts that the thunderstorm means cold weather is coming soon. Maybe we’ll finish just in time. -R
