Day 3: Hidden Lake Overlook and Virginia Falls

*just another reminder that if you want the short version of the trip, watch this video : ).

Monday morning I woke up and made the drive into Columbia Falls for our groceries for the week. It's never an easy task to shop for 7 people's food for a week, but it's even more challenging when you're 1. not in your own kitchen and 2. needing food you can take on hikes for most lunches. I was glad to be done and returned to the cabin with MANY sacks full of food. The rest of the family was ready to go see the park by the time I got back, so we quickly unloaded the food, packed the backpacks with our food for the day, and headed into the park. On the agenda for the day was riding the park shuttle on the Going to the Sun Road and doing a pretty serious hike. We thought day one would be a good time to try out the free shuttles. Plus, we all felt a little more secure NOT having Rick behind the wheel the first he was viewing all these beautiful scenes. The Going to the Sun Road is the only road that goes across the park. It climbs up over the Continental Divide, passing by waterfalls, steep drops and splendid views of the park. The shuttles were a nice, convenient way to travel, but they took longer than we expected, with long waits to transfer to the next shuttle, etc. Here's a shot of some of the kids on the shuttle:
One of the many views from the Going to the Sun Road, the only place I've traveled that takes 2-2 1/2 hours to travel 52 miles, with stops for construction, and I never cared once. The views just never got old.
More of the day was passing by us on the shuttle than we had anticipated, so we changed up our plans a little and decided to do a shorter hike. Logan Pass is at the Continental Divide, and there was a nice hike to a lake that started at the Visitor's Center there. The plan was to take the 6 mile round trip hike to the lake, but when we saw the amount of snow covering the trail, we revised again, and decided just to do the 3 mile hike to the overlook and back. This is a panoramic view from the trail, looking back at the Visitor's Center and Logan Pass.

This picture of Dailie and Audri gives you an idea of the amount of snow on the trail. It was literally about 85% snow covered. The hiking itself was not very fun, and not a great way to get the kids excited about a week of hiking, but the views were amazing, just really spectacular.

We came to this stand of trees, and as the kids went in to escape the wind, they discovered bits of mountain goat wool stuck to the trees. Apparently the kids weren't the only creatures to take advantage of the shelter offered by these trees. They were so cute, going around gathering their wool. Some of them even brought home the wool as a keepsake from the trip.

I've never known a more grueling 1 1/2 mile hike. The snow, the wind and the cold really made it so much harder. This was our reward at the top. The view of Hidden Lake from the overlook. Look closely in the photo and you can see the thawed portion of the lake in the background. As the lake wraps to the foreground, it is totally frozen. You might not even be able to tell it's still a lake, but it is. We spoke to a fellow hiker who was local to the area and said he came to Glacier at least once a year (he was probably in his 60s). He told us this was the most snow he'd ever seen this late in the season. It was definitely a tough hike to start out with, but it also introduced us to the kind of magnificent views that can be obtained with a little hiking.
Our local friend also told us of a nice little hike that started just a little farther down the Going to the Sun Road. We decided to try it out, and it was a totally different experience. This time we hiked a total of 4 miles, and never had to hike through snow. Daniel actually did the first half of this hike in his water shoes, since his tennis shoes and socks were drenched from the snow. The rest of us had hiking shoes that did a nice job of keeping our feet dry. Poor Daniel's were soaked. Luckily, we had stuck the water shoes in the backpacks, just in case we came across water the kids would want to play in. Daniel was such a trooper, hiking up the trail in his water shoes. We hiked past 5 beautiful waterfalls on this trail. This was the first one, and second largest of the falls, named St. Mary's Falls.

Here's Rick, Dailie and Eliza at one of the three minor waterfalls on the hike.

It was getting late, and the kids had done a LOT of hiking. They were wearing down, but we encouraged them to keep going to make it to the final waterfall- Virginia Falls. When we got there, they were all so glad that we hadn't turned back. We reminded them of this experience many times throughout the week : ). Here's a view of Virginia Falls from a bridge below them. You can also tell from this picture how different the surroundings were on this hike, compared to the last one. In one day we were already seeing very different parts of the park.
We didn't even realize you could get right up to the falls, but it was amazing when we did. Eliza and I were the first ones to get there. She actually gave us quite a scare. Rick and I thought she was following Dallin and Dailie up the trail, but then we got to the bridge and saw Dallin and Dailie on it!! That meant that Eliza was headed up the trail by herself. In spite of all the hiking I had done that day, and the backpack on my back, I ran up that trail as fast as I could, calling her name. I caught up to her, and she wasn't scared a bit. We were nearly to the top, so we went the rest of the way and quickly decided we needed to let everyone else know how amazing it was to stand right at the base of this huge waterfall.
So, after 7 miles of hiking, we piled back onto the shuttle after a successful first day at Glacier National Park, and made our way back to the van and on to the cabin where we ate a late dinner and fell into bed to rest our weary bodies so that they would be ready for the next day's adventures.