Glacier National Park - 8/2/11

On our many trips up to Logan Pass, we kept passing the Trail of Cedars/Avalanche Creek turn out so this morning we decided to investigate. We'd seen pictures of the Acalanche Gorge, and wanted to shoot there, but were not able to find it specifically on any of the maps we had. Our intention was to just go for a hike, maybe take a few pictures then move along.

The Trail of Cedars is a really nice and well maintained boardwalk that meanders through a beautiful grove of Cedar trees and makes a loop up part of one side of Avalance Creek and down the other. It is really nice there too because it is handicap accessible so it is not difficult for all people to go and enjoy it. When we reached the turning point it was at Avalanche Gorge and we quickly ran back to the car to get more gear to properly shoot this breathtaking feature.

The gorge is this slot that has been carved by water into the piled up rocks from the glaciers. It has sliced a beautiful meandering path through these rocks that is pretty deep and narrow. It is quire spectacular!

The moss is everywhere from all the spray of the water and, with the use of stacked ND filers, I was able to slow the shutter enough to make the water look like milk!

To the right of the bridge that straddles the gorge is a trail that goes up to Avalanche Lake and follows the creek.

Eventually you get above the rocks and the creek flattens out a lot. Again, this trail goes to Avalanche Lake which is a 4+ mile round trip and is apparently an upward hike for the most part.

The surrounding forest was pretty darned thick, but occasionally you would see little patches like this where the light made it through and lit up the ground cover.

Because the creek is pretty fast moving it does cut into the sides causing errosion and subsequently trees falling into the creek, like this one. But because of all the water they still manage to thrive, just horizontally!

I loved th color of the water - again, glacier fed.

All totalled, we spent about three hours shooting here. John got bored waiting for me (and who can blame him), so he hiked a little further up the trail while I continued to shoot within a 1/4 mile stretch along the water's edge.

We left Avalanche Creek and went to the Lake McDonald Lodge where we grabbed some lunch then took the free shuttle up to Logan Pass as we were determined to try and hike the Hidden Lake Trail. Of course we needed t o get a picture next to the Continental Divide sign!

This was taken on the drive up. That road to the right is the Going-To-The-Sun Road amd is literally carved into the side of the mountain. It is the only road that traverses the middle of the park.

Having determined that there was still too much snow on the Hidden Lake Trail, we opted to see what we could manage on the Highline Trail. This one too had a little too much snow patches in all the wrong places so I didn't continue, but John went a little further and said it was a bit intense.

This is a panorama from on the Highline Trail (at the beginning).

This is a panorama from Logan Pass near the visitor center looking to the east.

After picking up the shuttle and making our way back to Lake McDonald, we drove to a turn out for John Lake. We'd seen the signs all week and it looked like a pretty reasonable hike. Naturally John wanted to take a gander since it shared his name. It turned out to be more of a large pond - or mosquito sanctuary!