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One day I was browsing in my local bookstore (all right, it was actually a Barnes & Noble), when I stumbled on an interesting book in the general travel section. It was a natural history guide to Glacier National Park. I had never really heard anything about Glacier, but I was taken with the book's cover photo.
It was a photograph of tree covered mountains surrounding a turquoise blue lake. I had never seen anything like that photo, so I started browsing through the book. I learned that Glacier, the country's third largest national park, is a million acres of glacially carved mountains and valleys teeming with wildlife. Glacier sits on top of the Continental Divide in northern Montana and was once known as the "Crown of the Continent." The book was not a travel guidebook, but I bought it out of curiosity.
I got bogged down reading the billion-year history of the rock formations of Glacier (those rocks seemed to be at the bottom of seabeds, then squeezed up and covered by glaciers more than once, and the history of rocks is a slow read), but loved the book's color photographs. I was intrigued by the information I read about the park's wildlife. According to the author, the park is home to grizzly bears, black and brown bears, mountain lions, packs of wolves, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, elk, eagles, and a lot more. Even better, most of the park is a true wilderness. Although many people visit the park each year, the overwhelming majority simply drive through the one road through the park (the "Going-to-the-Sun Road," a spectacular 50-mile drive trhough the park which crosses the Continental Divide at Logan Pass), stop at the visitor center, then leave. The rest of the park is a rugged wilderness with 700 miles of hiking trails.
As usually happens with me, I started to become a little obsessive about going to Glacier. It seemed like a crazy dream. Where would I fly to? How would I deal with all those wild animals? I didn't have the answers, but eventually I realized that I couldn't go backpacking in Glacier alone.
All the written information I was able to obtain about the park cautioned visitors that they should never hike or camp alone in the park, due to the presence of the grizzlies, wolves, lions and other dangerous wildlife. After a little research I discovered that there was one licensed outfitter that operated backpacking trips in the park: Glacier Wilderness Guides. I contacted them and things slowly took shape.
I am extremely reluctant to restrict my cherished travel freedom by joining a group. I didn't even like the idea of joining a group of wilderness backpackers, but the people at Glacier Wilderness Guides were very persuasive, so I finally signed up for a 6 day trip with them. Somehow, I even found a cheap flight to Kalispell, Montana: a place I'd never even heard of before located near the western entrance of the park. I had spent so much time deciding whether or not to go to Glacier, that all of Glacier Wilderness Guides' prime summer backpacking trips were already booked. I was only able to book a trip that left September 14. I was a little nervous about taking a trip so late in the season, but was determined to get to my new Shangri-la.
My first glimpse of the beauty of Glacier was a view that anyone who drives into the Western entrance of the park can enjoy. After arriving in Kalispell and getting a ride to West Glacier, I hiked into the park to Apgar, a collection of tourist shops and facilities at the western edge of ten-mile long Lake McDonald. It was late in the day and late in the season, so everything was closed, but it was a beautiful afternoon. Apgar has a small parking area in front of a rocky beach, where a small boat dock points straight across the long lake into a wall of snow capped peaks. I was awed by the sight and comforted by the fact that one of the highest peaks across the lake is Mt. Cannon (8,952 feet).
© 2000 by Robert Cannon
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