Here I go again!

Biked with Will from Chevy Chase to my house in Capitol Hill and back. Went via Capitol Crescent trail / M street and came back on the Mall and up Rock Creek park... feeling without much energy.

After work, ran to Clarendon to meet with my friend Duygu, who brought me some fabulous baklava (Sp?) directly from Turkey! Delicious! We had some dinner and then I ran to Rosslyn and took the metro home.

I had a very bad stomach ache from eating all that baklava last night... ughhhh... so I didn't run, I don't think... Too busy at work finishing things up to go on my trip! 

Boring travel day... that's what sucks about going West, you have to spend an entire day getting there and another getting back...

Will took me to the airport early morning and I left for Missoula. Uneventful flight. My roommate Betsy picked me up from Missoula and we drove to her cousin's house in Kalispell, where we spent the night. I cannot begin to tell you how beautiful that house was. It has a view of the whole city with the mountains in the back... need I say more? Very cool people, very generous. Packed our backpacks for a 2-night, 3-day trip, checked out possible routes, and went to sleep.

Woke up early and drove to Glacier NP. Went to the backcountry office in the park where they told us about snow conditions (snow in July, yes!) and we figured out a nice 2-night, 3-day trip.

The one-way route started in St. Mary and ends at Two Medicine, so we parked the car at TM and took a shuttle to St Mary.

Thursday, Day 1: 9 flat miles from St. Mary to Red Eagle lake; camp by Red Eagle Lake.
Friday, Day 2: 14 difficult miles from RE to Morning Star, via the Triple Divide pass, elevation gain of 3,000 feet; camp at Morning Star lake.
Saturday, Day 3: 12 difficult miles from MS to our car in Two Medicine, via Pitamakan pass, 2,000 ft. elevation gain and about the same drop.

Heavy packs, even though we are light-weight campers. Sad that we can't make fires in the park... but after the fires in 2003, it makes sense. I worked in the park in 2003, when almost the entire park burned. The place where I worked, Rising Sun, was the ONLY place that remained open the entire season. All other hotels in the park were closed because of the fires. It was so smokey!

The hike was great, blue skies, beautiful weather. Sad to see everything burned down, it takes so long for the forest to recover!

Had some breakfast and left for the next campsite... Very hard day. Almost ran into a moose and saw 6 sheep, three little ones and three adults. Very cute. Got to campsite and jumped into Morning Star Lake - I have pictures to prove it. There was still snow surrounding the lake. It was cold. We were the only ones at that campground that night, which was nice but a bit scary at the same time.

Happy Independence Day!

A bit of rain in the morning - amazing how fast the weather changes there, it was blue skies and the next thing you know, it's raining. It didn't last long though, and the rest of the hike had great weather. Very difficult hike due to lots of snowfields, but at least there were tracks to follow. Gorgeous gorgeous views, breathtaking, literally! Betsy's achilles is hurting, but she's so tough, she didn't complain much. Finally we made it to the car and jumped into Two Medicine Lake.

We went to get Betsy a nice steak at the famous Cattle Baron steakhouse, I had fish, very good. Then we camped at St. Mary's campground, a bit crowded but it was ok. Fireworks from the town of St Mary's were nice!