Glaciers and Wind and a Grizzly... Oh my!

I woke up for Glacier Day 2 eager for some backpacking.  As my senses came to fruition, it dawned on me that there was rain, thunder, and lightening outside my tent. "Hmm...", I thought, "It's a good thing I'm in the mountains where the weather changes quick." So, I hid in my tent from the rain for 2 more hours... packing, dozing, and reading.  I finally came to the conclusion that the weather wasn't going to change immediately, so I bucked up and got out of the happy tent.  

That morning, I explored the area around my campground and went on a few baby hikes (the joy of embracing the rain is that most people don't so you don't have to share the good photo points or trails with anyone!).  Then, I headed over to Many Glacier to meet Lish and Aaron.

They came around 4:30...I got there at 11ish.  I had a delightful day walking around the gorgeous lodge and sitting by the fire reading and enjoying the heat and lack of rain.

When Lish and Aaron appeared, we decided that, since it was 5pm, we'd get some legit food and then head out on the Cracker Lake Trail.  So that's what we did.  I had a great veggie burger. 

Our trail was awesome... a bit more than 6 miles to the campsite with  moderate elevation gain... piece of cake.  

This was true until we came out of the woods and... lo and behold... there was CRAZY WIND!  Walking got significantly harder and the bit of rain made it significantly less warm.  Aaron used his umbrella.  I stopped making fun of him for having one.

Then, as we're hiking in the wind (and I'm in "get this over with" mode power trekking up the trail), Lish and Aaron stressed-out-whispered my name (You know that whisper... when you really want someone's attention but can't be loud).  I turned around and they pointed.  At the next ridge over (which was not very far), there was a grizzly bear.  He was just chilling... watching us walk by, fur a but tusseled, looked fairly stressed out... you know, just chilling in territorial bear style.  Then, he went up on his hind legs.  He was big then.  Really big.  Then, he went back on all fours and resumed his former "territorial bear chilled out stance".  

Assuming that he had asserted dominance and was now happy and that we best move away from the bear, we continued down the ridge trail walking backwards.  Walking backwards on skinny trails is awkward and we started speculating what bears teach other bears to do when you see a human "stand up on your hind legs, look scary, have a reputation for eating them, and then they'll walk away backward and you can laugh at them because they look like dorks."  Yeah, I'm pretty sure it goes something like that.

Anyway, eventually, we made it to camp.  It was gorgeous.  Cracker Lake was green, at the bottom of a glacier, and framed by mountainous canyon walls (MCW).  These MCW also were great funnels of wind... just like they were Suzanne and my first week at Red Rocks.  As we set up our tent, pieces kept trying to jump ship into the lake.  I ended up lying on the tent spread eagle as Lish and Aaron searched for more sheltered campsites that weren't right next to the bear hang (a sheltered area but a non-negotiable camping spot... WE HAD JUST SEEN A BEAR!).  They came back, which was a good thing because the wind gusts were threatening to pick the tent up from under me and sent it (plus me?) to the lake, and we decided that there was absolutely no way we could camp safely.  So, we had to hike out.

Keep in mind that we began this 6+mile, full pack journey around 6:30pm.  It was getting dark.  But, we strapped on our headlamps and hit the trail.  Realizing that we no longer had a way of seeing the lurking carnivorous wildlife, we had to resort to some means of advanced warning for them so to avoid bear scares.  We decided to sing, and sing we did.  We almost exhausted our repertoire of Disney songs and supplemented some quiet spaces with "Don't Cry For Me Argentina", the Discovery Elementary school song, Lish's school's fight song, "Fifty Nifty United States", and others. We sang until our throats hurt (it wasn't pretty singing...) and the hills got too steep to utter a tune.  Then, we resorted to hitting our sticks together.  Walking through the forest at night is creepy.

We got to our cars at 11:45... and crashed on Aaron's mom's hotel room floor... Thanks, Christine!