Thursday, July 19, our final day at Glacier, we went through several plan changes. Everyone was tired of hiking, so we drove across the Going-to-the-Sun Road to the West Glacier Visitor Center, in hopes that there would be more to do there. It turned out to be much smaller than expected. After a brief visit, we drove back up the road to McDonald Lake and had a picnic there outside a restaurant.
Next we drove back to Logan Pass for a short hike at the visitor center there, toward the Hidden Lake overlook. (The trail from the overlook down to the lake was reportedly closed due to bears.) It was just the six of us plus Roy and Mary, as the Mississippi Taylors wanted nothing to do with it. Reese was probably fed up with hiking, and Craig wanted to join us, but had blisters.
The trail was mostly a boardwalk, with a lot of stairs, more uphill than it looked from afar. I convinced Eric to walk, thankfully, which slowed things down, but the rest of us were not keen on going all the way to the end, either. We arrived at an area where snow still crossed the trail, and it looked like it was going to get muddier. On the snow was a mountain goat named Fred (Lee told us, later.)
We turned around at the mountain goat and headed back, admiring the glacier lilies and other wildflowers, and marveling at the audacity of some visitors, who seemed to think the many signs encouraging us in no uncertain terms to remain on the trails did not apply to them.
On the drive back down we stopped at the waterfall at Lunch Creek. Mary wanted to get some pictures, and most of the rest of us went along. Colin and Eric stayed in the car, and I hung around in the vicinity in case they needed anything, then quickly made my way up the trail and back once the others had returned.
This concludes the chronicle of the Seattle Trombles Summer 2018 epic road trip. Tune in again soon for an account of our next national park visit: we're camping at North Cascades National Park this weekend.
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