A Goat Trail...Literally...

Glacier National Park is by far my favorite U.S. National Park. Every time we visit, we are truly amazed by its beauty, and find myself saying "wow, that's so pretty" countless times. Now, I may be biased since it was the first N.P. we visited together, and I have family in the area that has provided us insider tricks and tips throughout our five visits, but... the first of 28 National Park visits so far....I still vote Glacier National Park (GNP) as number one.

This is our first visit to GNP this late in the season and the yellowing aspens could not have been prettier.

We are traditional early risers when it comes to hiking. First your chances of seeing wildlife dramatically increase. Second, you beat the general rush and especially the high volume of flip floppers, who cruise ship you left and right. Let me explain. These individuals come in all variations, but one thing they all have in common is that they are NOT prepared and have no self awareness of space, their surroundings, or you. Top 5 signs of a flippy flopper who you are about to get cruise shipped by:

1. Typically they have in appropriate foot wear - whether that's actual flip flops, ugg boots, or some sort of wedge....

2. Lack of water or any water. Usually spotted with one plastic water bottle in hand. Now this is quite acceptable if your doing a short hike, but 3 plus miles and 80+ degrees you might want to reconsider....

3. Questionable attire for the activity they are about to pursue.

4. Generally cannot read or observe the large "please stay on designated path, restoring natural habit" signage that is abundantly found along the trail. Isn't natural habit why you are here?

5. Two examples of this one. Individuals who are disappointed that the National Park doesn't have wildlife sitting on the side of the road ready to entertain them, and complain that they saw nothing..... And when they do see WILDLIFE they run towards it, with their camera's out, while using their outdoor loud voice.

Now... I am happy to say that we don't see too much of this list above at Glacier, but you will see 1-5 at Yellowstone National Park, consider yourself warned in advance. Anyways, back to Glacier National Park in October.

Hidden Lake Overlook is a spot we visit every Glacier trip (minus being fogged in, in 2019). If you look back at past GNP photos, you’ll see me in an American Cancer Society Relay For Life t-shirt in every overlook photo, sort of made it a thing. Anyways, after our first overlook visit, I’ve wanted to hike down to the lake, instead of only up the board walk to the overlook. For this visit we decided hike Hidden Lake, Mt. Reynolds or Highline (which we’ve done before). Unfortunately, Hidden Lake down to the lake is notoriously closed due to bear activity and was the case for this visit. And as we’ve never done Mt. Reynolds, we decided to give it a go.

Board walk to Hidden Lake overlook

Mt Reynolds is approx. 6 miles round trip and does not have a designated trail marker. As you head up to Hidden Lake Overlook, you’ll see an unmarked trail on your left that says climbing route, this is your trail head (in photo above - follow the ridge on the left). Research for this hike can be challenging, but they do say there’s some scramble on the trail, which did make me pause on doing this hike. Since I literally froze and cried on the Crypt Lake hike, I’ve had a complex around trails that include varying levels of scramble difficulties, hikes that includes ladders, caves, climbing rocks on a cliff, or traveling around a blind skinny corner. But the scramble up to Dragon’s tail wasn’t too bad in my opinion and was manageable. The trail has many forks in the trail and we always took the lower route as we neared the top. In retrospect this is how we missed the trail to the actual top of Mt. Reynolds. As we approached the saddle between Mt. Reynolds and what is known as dragon’s tail a big horn sheep crested the plateau.

The trail splits two ways at this point and we were not sure which direction to go, thinking that the trail up the hillside simply connected with the trail we didn’t choose before (which is true), but as we learned on our descent, this connects you to the trail to summit Mt. Reynolds. We choose the trail that seemed the most natural progression and consistent to our ascent (Northeast), which we later learned took us to an area called Heavy Runner.

At this next saddle we stopped and grabbed a snack, as we were once again a bit confused on the direction of the trail for summiting Mt Reynolds. Thinking we had to proceed to the left, following Mt Reynolds, we became distracted by two mountain goats sunning themselves on some rocks. We proceeded towards the goats as it appeared that this was the trail. We had noticed a fresh hiking boot print on our accent and saw the same print and later a cairn on this route – we thought we must be going the right direction…..Well… after we passed the two goats, the “trail” became more and more of a scramble. As we approached our third goat with difficulty, we determined we were not on the correct trail, and if we were, we were no longer pursing its completion. Several nerve racking minutes later (like 15), we were back to where we made our mistake.

We ended up "hiking" just below the snowpack, but we now believe the trail is well below the next ridge.

Back to two feet and standing straight up, we walked out on the plateau to take a few deep breaths. If you've listened to Rob Lowe's podcast, Literally..., put that sound bite in your head, as we were Literally...on a goat trail.

Standing there was an amazing view and one perspective of Glacier you never see from the road. As it was a sign that the worst of the day was behind us, we heard an elk bugling from the valley below.

On day two we took a trip to Polebridge, another part of the park we had yet to visit. Let's just say we will be back to this part of the park. If you plan on visiting the area, we took the road from Apgar, hearing that the this route is better. There are some paved parts of the road, but the majority of the road is gravel and good conditions vary. I would recommend visiting in the spring or fall, as it is pretty dense and we have heard that it can be pretty buggy mid summer.

Bowman Lake

Bear Claw

Check out additional October Glacier National Park photos HERE and videos HERE.

"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." - John Muir