Day 2: July 3rd, 2012, written by Geoff

Rain clouds coming over the mountains towards our campsite 

Today is supposed the coolest of the week.  The high was about 52 degrees with periods of rain and high winds.  Some nice sun came through every so often and helped keep it "warm enough".  It took a little longer this morning to get ready but it's the first day of being at the park.  Once we got our breakfast organized, we made some scrambled eggs and sausage links.  Pretty good and super easy to make.  Thank goodness for disposable foam coolers.  We also picked up some good dark coffee yesterday.  Now that the perfect picture is painted, I can tell you that it was raining while I was making said eggs and coffee.  Not hard, but enough to make me work efficiently.  And then eat in the tent.  Once we cleaned up we were off to our first hike of the trip to see Virginia Falls.  

Nothing like a hot breakfast on a chilly and wet morning

 The trail head was on the Going to the Sun Road so getting there was easy and only a few minutes away.  The trail follows the northern shore of St. Mary Lake up to St. Mary Falls but we added a little extra on to see Baring Falls.  A little smaller but worth it.  St. Mary Falls was, well, amazing! The water was moving so fast and a bridge crossed so you could get a good view.  Virginia Falls was another mile further (also uphill). This water fall was taller than St. Mary Falls and well worth the extra distance.  So remember how I said it was raining during breakfast? We ate our PB & J bagel sandwich while hail fell. Yeah, it rained off and on for the whole hike, 5.6 miles in 3 hours.  We have good gear, but it's still rain.  On the way back to the trail head, it was nice to be able to smell all of the pine trees since it rained so much.  It kind of smelled like Christmas.  

St. Mary Falls

Taking shelter from hail but a view of Virginia Falls

Once back at the car we headed up to Logan Pass to check out the Visitor's Center.  It was pretty busy but one of those places that you have to stop at.  The winds, though, were crazy - 40+ miles per hour!  It was so strong you could get blown over if you weren't careful.  And on the way back we stopped at all of the turnouts so we could read about the park and take pictures.  By this time now it had stopped raining.  We were able to get a good picture of Jackson Glacier and Heavy Runner Mountain.  Since it was still only mid-afternoon, we went to the St. Mary Visitor Center to check it out, too.  They talked a lot about the Native Americans who had originally owned this land.  

Jackson Glacier.  We think the ultra white section in the middle is actually the  glacial section

It's a couple hours later and we're back at the campsite waiting out the next round of rain and planning dinner so we don't end up cooking in the rain.  That's it for now!  Oh - I forgot that we spotted a couple grizzlies by the campground!  

Close enough for us!