Cracker Lake!

June 16/17, 2007
Glacier National Park, Montana

Brad & I at Cracker Lake

It had been a little while since we'd gotten out for some backcountry adventure, and as summer drew closer the number of weekends available for a trip became fewer. Since we'd never been there, Brad and I decided to head to Glacier National Park for the weekend.

We left town on Friday night, and just under two hours later we were setting up camp at the Many Glacier campground. This weekend would be the first time trying out my new tent and Brad's new sleeping bag and pot set- new gear is always fun! Because the border guards had confiscated our salami and we hadn't planned for anything else, we went shopping for supper. A half hour and a weird conversation with a clerk later, we were frying up hot dogs. A culinary delight.

We took a short walk (4km) up the Swiftcurrent Pass valley after supper, and happened upon a moose at Fishercap Lake. It didn't seem too concerned with us watching it muck around in the water for a few minutes. We continued on, and managed to snap quite a few nice photos. Photos were important to us this weekend because of the lack of summer pictures in our collection. Believe me, we took lots! Soon enough, we tucked into the tent for the evening to read guidebooks and go to sleep.

When morning came, I headed to the ranger station to see about a backcountry camping permit for the evening. Our original plan was to hike to Poia Lake, set up camp, and then day hike from there. However, that campground was full and we got a permit for Cracker Lake instead. It was no loss as we'd heard it was beautiful. After some delays at the ranger station, and having to suffer through a 15 minute backcountry awareness video, we headed to the trailhead. We were hiking by 10am.

The hike into Cracker Lake is a 6 mile (9.7ish kms) trip. It was a pretty hike that started in the trees before heading up into the alpine. There was one set of switchbacks on the trail, but no real crazy elavation gain (300 m). Along the way, we met a nice park ranger who was out investigating reports of a grizzly sighting. She didn't find what she was looking for, but we found answers to a lot of our questions about the park! As we hiked on, clouds rolled in and it started to lightly rain. We kept a good pace and arrived at Cracker Lake in 2.5 hrs. We didn't see any wildlife along the way, but there were fresh digging marks from bears along the trail that made us nervous at times.

As we set up camp, the skies really opened up. We ate a hurried lunch in the tent, and when the rain subsided we headed out to explore the area. Cracker Lake is the colour of "Blue Raspberry KoolAid" - typical of glacial fed mountain lakes. It is framed on all sides by steep mountains, and is cordoned off by Mt.Siyeh and the Siyeh Glacier from the rear. We hiked out towards the glacier to explore for the afternoon. We climbed over the gravel moraines, up a snow slope and then down onto Siyeh Glacier. There's not much ice left here, and the glacier is more akin to a residual snow field. We played around for a few hours on the hillside, visiting a waterfalls and taking pictures. Brad was also determined to find a mountain goat that would "apprentice" him, but aside from fur stuck on branches we had no luck. Around 5 o clock we headed back to camp, but along the way stopped in to visit an old mine site. It must have been a lot of work to dig that out so far away from civilization!

We made ourselves some supper, and sipped red wine from the "tetra pak" style box wine we'd bought the day earlier. We had no cups, so we had to drink right from the wine juice box. Classy. Since we'd neglected to bring any reading material, the only thing to do was to sit around and admire the view. It was not a bad thing to be stuck doing.

It started to rain again, so we headed to the tent to get ready for bed. After looking through the day's pictures, we drifted in and out of sleep. During the night a major storm rolled in, and on several occassions hard rains woke us. Thankfully, the tent was of sound construction and kept us bone dry (yeah!). However, when we woke up in the morning the winds had picked up and were threatening to collapse the tent walls. The weather was crazy, with gale force winds driving snow parallel to the ground. We packed up hurriedly and carefully, and didn't bother trying to light the stove for oatmeal. It was at this time that Brad discovered that the campground's resident marmot had visited us during the night and chewed on the padding of his pack. Luckily the damage wasn't too severe, or we'd have had marmot for breakfast instead!

The weather eased as we hiked out, but it still rained steadily the whole way. We were back at the car 2hrs and 15 mins after setting out from Cracker Lake. Everything was pretty wet, but luckily we'd stayed pretty dry because of our hardshells and gaiters. All in all, while the weather wasn't ideal for some it was perfect for us. It didn't get in the way of the weekend, and allowed us to test the limits of some of our gear. Smiles and success all around!