Icebergs and Inclines


Category Montana
Tag glacier
This post was published on Saturday 3 August 2013.

Here’s what I wrote two days ago (on Thursday!) but couldn’t post because of the slow wifi..

So I am back where I was, exactly six hours ago, when I wrote my last update.  Except this time, I have just walked thirteen-and-a-half miles, and climbed 2,500 feet, gone down 600, back up 700, and then down all the way.  The first climb was to Iceberg Lake, the second to Ptarmigan Lake, and both were beautiful.  But the second climb—it did all that climb in a mile and a half, and boy was it steep.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I headed off after writing the last post, wearing trousers and a fleece, amid dire warnings of ice-cold winds and thunderstorms.  After less than a mile, they were off and I was back wearing shorts and a cotton shirt.  I then carried the trousers and fleece for the next thirteen miles!

Glacier14
Better watch out, then..

Although overcast, the walk was beautiful.  After I while I realised that, for most of it, I was heading straight for the lake.  I had already checked out the lie of the land, and I recognised the mountain / glacier formation.  It was quite easy: Iceberg Lake likes in a hollow, surrounded by peaks, so that it never receives direct sunlight (hence the icebergs in August).

The walk took turns between exposed mountainside and close-in forest.  There were plenty of dire warnings about bears, of course.  I think, possibly, that bears frequent the hiking trails less frequently than they frequent the wilderness areas.  I certainly think that bear spray is ludicrously expensive, and the signs scare tourists into buying it.

Here are some pictures from the walk up to and around Iceberg Lake:

The gentleman in one of the pictures of me from Iceberg Lake, decided he was a polar bear.  He waded out to the iceberg, climbed on it, and then shortly after that photo, jumped in and swam ashore.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man look so cold as when his head emerged after he had jumped in.  It was cold enough, just me standing there with my feet in the water cooling off for a couple of minutes!

On the walk back from Iceberg Lake, I passed the sign for Ptarmigan Lake, and decided to hike up there, as I had made such good time getting up to Iceberg.  It was a seriously tough, relentless climb up (roughly) 700-800 feet.  Thankfully it was a cool day, as I’m not sure I’d have made it all the way up in 35C+ temperatures.

The lake was a bit anticlimactic, if I’m honest, but I sat with my feet dangling in the (also freezing cold) water, and splashed my head and face with the deliciously refreshing water.  I was joined by a little squirrel; they are so used to people in the parks that many of them will clamber over your bag looking for food, if you aren’t too careful.

Eventually I left the coolness of the lake, and headed back down over 2,500 feet to the campground.

Here are the pictures from the rest of the walk.  Coming down, I didn’t take too many, I was more focused on making my feet and legs carry on making steps than on what was around me, I’m afraid!  Mercifully, the 80% chance of thunderstorms turned out in my favour, and I finished dry.

And here I sit, hungry and feeling like I have earned something unhealthy and tasty, probably to be washed down by beer!