The Lake Bid Chronicles

Pocket Lake and thanks to National Geographic

2010-08-27T20:29:00.000-07:00

Pocket Lake

Well, well, well…It’s August, 2010 and somehow this is my first blog entry. Instead of recounting my reasons for being so busy, I will recount the lake that jarred loose the keyboard.

Pocket Lake

Oh, but before I do that, I want to thank the people at National Geographic. In three days (August 30, 2010), there will be a documentary called Glacier National Park – Wild Spaces that will make its debut on the National Geographic Channel.

Any of you who love the park, have interest in the wild corners of the world, or just want to see me with a farmers tan jumping in cold water should tune in.

It is about the park in general, but for me it marks the first national exposure of the Waterton Glacier Lake Jumping Project. I’m obviously out of my mind excited!!!

So, where was I…?

Oh, Pocket Lake.

So, for the first time in this busiest of summers, my now wife Jess and I went on a backpacking trip. You get three days off together around here and you jump on it.

The trip started off in the tiny outpost of Goat Haunt which is accessed by going to Waterton National Park in Alberta.

We caught a tour boat back down to the southern end of the lake. From there, we struck off to the west towards an amazing area called Boulder Pass.

On the way to our first night of camping, we cooled off in Thunderbird Pond. This lake is on the list, but I got to it many years ago. Still good for a nice dip.

The first evening we camped at Brown Pass Campground which is just above Bowman Lake.

It has been a little while since we had been up in these parts so both Jess and I were super excited.
There was a bountiful crop of Montana’s famous huckleberries. Its funny. Although they keep you going, they also seriously slow you down.

But, there is no better distraction. Bears have it figured out, folks.

So, the next morning we drug our tent a few miles up hill to a site called Hole in the Wall. From here we continued up hill, the trail meandering through the rock bands to Boulder Pass.

Would you believe that in the earlier parts of the 1900’s this whole picture would have been filled with Boulder Glacier and the trail had to lead up on the moraine in the right hand side of the picture.
Lots of things have changed around these parts since then.

Its amazingly open up on top of Boulder Pass. It is so newly melted out that there is no vegitation hardly at all. Just open views!!

Just over the pass we had to go off trail to the top of a ridge.

At the bottom was the long awaited Pocket Lake.

We had to drop off of this ridge and work our way through some cliff bands, steep grass and flower filled slopes to get to the lake.
I don’t have any pictures of our way through the cliff bands. That is probably because I did not like it.

Funny thing about never being somewhere before. You almost always pick the less than perfect route.
Sometimes, you end up finding yourself with your heart racing as you hold onto a tree limb and try to scoot yourself down a wet rock band covered in moss. Just sayin’….Sometimes that happens…

Jess kept her cool and pulled me through. You’re the best! We made our way along a huge bench above the lake and then down broken cliff bands and grassy slopes down to the lake.

The lake was amazing. Somehow we scored three spectacular days of sunshine and calm weather. This would have been impossible if the storms moved in on us. This is one of the highest elevation lakes in the whole park.

So, I’d like to give a little shot out to the weather….
Lets give it up for the weather!!

Thanks everyone.

We still had to get out of this enormous “pocket” though. So since we were losing daylight we had to head out and climb back up to the pass.

Thankfully, there was a much more pleasant way back through the cliffs. Its always upon return that you figure this stuff out. We had to make our way back along the shelf to the grassy ramp in the top middle of the picture.

We knew it was “the way in” when we saw that there was a nice animal path up the ramp. Steep and slippery, but well more straight forward.

Once back up top, we bid Pocket Lake farewell and headed on. We still had miles to make.

The view from atop Boulder Pass looking back towards Goat Haunt is about as good as it gets in the park. Wow!!

And with the last hour or so of sunlight for the day, we dropped back down to camp. The light softening the colors on the peaks we were surrounded by.

To finish the story, we made a late morning of it the next day. Felt like we earned a bit of sleeping in.

Good bye Boulder Pass. Good bye, Bowman Lake. Good bye, Goat Haunt.

I would like to point out to anyone reading this blog for the first time, that I have many past adventures to read about. So, continue sifting through the blog. Check out all of the other parts of the website too. www.firstgiving.com/glacierlakejumps

Anyone that has searched out the Waterton Glacier Lake Jumping Projects website, Welcome!!

I’ve been trying to harness this project to raise awareness for childhood cancer and to raise money for Camp Mak A Dream. I have been working on the project for seven years now.

So, thanks for popping by.

If you donate,….well your awesome.

If you check out the site and enjoy yourself enough to tell others then, you are Awesome too.

I have 34 lakes left after the six I’ve done this summer so far. I’ll keep plugging if you keep reading and following along.

Till then, I bid you farewell.

To Life,

Marc Ankenbauer

Upper Rowe and Linham Lakes

2009-10-21T08:59:00.000-07:00

This is a story about last summer. I never got a chance to create a blog for this until now. So, hope you enjoy a backlogged lake blog (say that ten times).....until I get something new for the year. Hope to a new lake before the end of May. Stay Tuned

So the story goes...............

Tradition has it that once, and it seems to be only once a year my friend Kieth and I go for a hike. He works for the boat company in Waterton and we tend to have contrasting schedules all summer. We were able to keep tradition going once again with an awesome day in late August.

We completed a feat that I have only had success with once before. We got five lakes in one day. It takes putting a large effort in, but more so it takes a cluster of lakes to be able to pull that off.

This project is about the lakes and the park, well more than my or anyone else’s efforts. If they want to allow things to progress. then I progress.

If not, then we kindly say thanks and slowly plod along to one lake at a time…. If you’re lucky.

So luckily the upper Rowe Lakes and the Linham Lakes are in general vicinity of each other in the middle of Waterton National Park.

We headed off pretty late in the day. I bet we did not hit trail till about 11:30 or noon. We had lots to do in a short amount of time. Up the Rowe valley till the Upper Rowe Lakes trail took a big, uphill left turn. I had done the single lower Rowe Lake last year, so to acquire the top two was a great hit for me.

We found a little bay behind a rock to take a dip because the wind was kickin hard. After it we walked the outlet creek to the middle lake.

What a lovely day for a bunch of dips. This would have been a brutal one if it were nasty weather. Five lakes would get terribly chilly going at it in the rain.

There is a nice goat trail that connects the Upper Rowe lakes trail with the upper reaches of the Rowe valley trail. It was nice because we did not have to drop that whole way back into the valley bottom.

We had to push up to Linham ridge and find a spot to hop over the other side of it. We envisioned that we just had to get to the prominent saddle and head down from there.

When we finished the huge uphill slog we got up to that saddle and there was a 2000 foot cliff on the other side.

Alright…Keep looking.

I had always been told that there was a perfect goat trail heading down to these lakes.

Gotta try and find it.

So, folks…

“Go find the off trail lake insight #73”

Sometimes you find the ideal way to the lake. But more often, you find the ideal way back from the lake. Often, you just find "A" way to the lake”….

This was one of those days.
On top of the ridge we saw a goat trail. Why not try it…Time is of the essence. Just go!!!

“Go find the off trail lake insight #74”

Albeit I owe this entire project to the goat trail leaving goats. There are lots of goat trails. Not all of them are going the direction you want to be going. There is always paths going in the general direction of any body of water. But there are also paths going down a shelfy, rotten rock infested chute also..

Goats are much better at this than you or I.

I promise.

Well, we had to follow through with it though. There was no more time to fiddle and fuss about a better route, we did not leave the excess time for that kind of thing on this day.

So, we just dropped off a crumbling, steep ridge.

Eeehh……

I’ve since seen where we should have gone. This was not it. But this was the ridge we dropped down. From upper left to lower right.
It did work though..

Once down we started just busting through these lakes. There are three of them.

We did not have time to dilly dally…

Enter that whole, we started at noon thing. It is becoming an important part of our trip

So, we hit the first lake which was pretty obvious. We were looking at it all the way down.

After him though, we started moving pretty frantically around this hanging basin trying to find the other two and waste as little time as we could.

There is an efficient and optimal way of doing anything in life. Finding and jumping in remote mountain lakes while working with serious time constraints is no different.

The second lake was over a wooded ridge.

The sun kept falling and creating that soft colorful light on all the rock walls around us. It is lovely, but when you know you have a long way to travel before you are back at the trailhead and in your car. It only creates a bit of anxiety.

Then, off in the completely opposite direction of our exit out of this valley to find the last one. It was right above the cliffs that drain the hanging basin. They drop off into Linham Falls.

There once was a trail up the face of the headwall that holds the lakes in place. It must have had a few cables and chains to hold on to along the sketchy route. At least one person fell to their death through the years, though. Needless to say, no one goes that way any longer.

Not being able to go that way, forced the “random, over the ridge and drop in" route to get to these lakes that we had to take. No matter how difficult it was to get here, at least we did not have to scale a crazy cliff to make our way…

Sorry, that was a tangent….
We found the last lake..

One of the truly ironic things about the project is the amount of work and time that it takes to get to these places… Most often I have to get there….take a dip,…and head directly back out again.

This place would have been a nice place to hang for a bit.

Oh, well…Maybe some day. Right now I just want to make sure that we get out of this hanging basin and back on trail before dark.

It is getting late and we have a big, ridiculous ridge to climb up and six more “on trail” miles to bust out.

So, out we head.

It is situations like this that I am very happy that I use trekking poles. Somewhere through the evolutionary process of most animals,. they found out that “four legs good, two legs bad” is a valuable thing to keep in mind.

Well, atop the ridge we took a few awesome pictures and dropped back into the valley on trail and headed back to the car. We got out about 30 minutes after dark. Never great, but it is so much better when it’s dark and your on trail. Dark when your off trail is "No Bueno"!!!

So,..thats that. Upper Rowe Lakes and the three Linham Lakes.

Check!

All went well. Keith and I got our annual hike in. I got to 126 lakes and busted out a great day with the help of a good friend and some crazy goats.

Hope your crazy goats are well!!!

To Life,

Marc

Carcajou and Wahseeja Lakes

2009-08-20T20:59:00.001-07:00

Good Evening,

Ever since I have started this project there have been lakes or groupings of lakes that people are always intrigued by.

When I tell them about what I’m doing, they get wild eyed and come up with the most remote, ridiculously hard, off trail lakes in the park and ask “Have you done this or that”?

One of the most commented on is a group of lakes near the Canadian border called the Northern Boundary Lakes. There are five of them and the last two fell on Tuesday.

So, I raise my glass to those five, because they have put up a heck of a fight.

On Tuesday, my friends Pat and Brian and I went to Carcajou Lake and Wahseeja Lake.

But, before that we had large plates of Cincinnati Chili.

For anyone who knows about this delicacy, you understand how happy I was to have a communal chili feed in the middle of nowwhere.

The next morning with a chili bomb in our stomachs we headed north to the northern boundary trail which is about four miles north of Goat Haunt. We said hello to the obelisk that marks the border and we headed west three and a half miles till we saw an entrance to a heavily wooded side valley that no one I have ever met has gone up. I’m sure its happened, but boy oh boy... would it be few and far between.

We had to cross Boundary Creek which luckily we had a few good logs to work across. Then into the guts we go.

It started off quite nice with some lovely meadow filled stretches.

That always ends and gives way to a thick tree filled mess.

This year has been one of the wettest on record. With rain come mushrooms. They were everywhere.

Huge ones.

Weird ones.

Also, that means that it was just wet. It had not rained in days, but the whole area was just moist.

Great moss.
After many hours working up a steep wooded valley we eventually dropped down to the creek that drains Carcajou Lake. Shortly after crossing it, we finally came to the first of our objectives.

Carcajou Lake.

We frolicked in the lake for a good while to get rid of the pine needles, grit and grime.

It was quite pleasant.

We took a nice little while here; even long enough for Pat to take a cat nap on the lake shore.

But, we had to keep going. There is no stopping and we had a long way to go. We were essentially going from one main valley to the next, but over, under and through the middle of nowhere.

We headed back out with the need to climb over a ridge to the lake on the other side.

It was thick and steep.

And hot! I had to wring out my bandana....Wanna see?

Along the way Brian made a friend.

We eventually just grabbed hand fulls of vegetation and pulled ourselves up a thousand feet of steep mess.

Luckily when we got towards the top, the blessed animals of Glacier National Park started to hook us up a bit. There was a perfect game trail over the top of the ridge that went on for a good while in the exact direction that we were headed.

It was amazing on the other side.

Lots of flower choked meadows.

If nothing else, just easier going since it was much more open. With that came huge views of the surrounding mountains.

In a past endeavor with a friend Matt I looked down on Wahseeja Lake.

I have been waiting for a long time to get back to it.

(I would also like to note that Matt just informed me today his wife Allison is pregnant!! Lets all raise a glass to their lovely, healthy, very tiny baby to be!!! )

Anyway it was very rewarding to get to this absolutely amazing lake. This was easily one of the most lovely that I have been to in all my time in the park.
We enjoyed it to the fullest. Seldom is there a perfect, large rock to jump off of. Well there is in Wahseeja Lake.

As to not carry around a bunch of wet clothes we all went naked.

So, fortunatly you get to just see a picture of me in the lake instead…No jumping pics.

But, like everything else in life, this too had to end.

There was a saddle about 300 feet above the lake that we had to get to and over.

On the other side was our destiny.

A 2000 foot steep grade going straight down towards Lake Francis and Lake Janet.

There was still many miles to go, onward and upward.

Only time for one last group picture of the lake.

Man that thing is nice.

The saddle proved to be big and wide.

It also had huge views of Mount Cleveland which is the highest peak in the park.

This hike just kept getting better.

But, down we went into the abyss. Not too bad, in relative terms. I guess the schwack up the Carcajou side of the trip was so nasty that this seemed quite tame.

2000 feet of extremely steep tame, but tame none the less.

Happily we gained the valley floor and headed our five more miles of trail back towards Goat Haunt.

A lovely sunset on the peaks above escorted us back to where we started.

I would like to extend a huge thank you to Pat and Brian. This was a very large endeavor and probably two of the ten hardest lakes that I have left in the park.

Without them I would not have just checked off lakes number 120 and 121.

All the best to everyone reading and to all a good night.

Ho Ho Ho

To Life,

Marc

Whitecrow Lake

2009-08-15T22:49:00.000-07:00

Good Evening,

I am going to tell you a tale. A tale of cold, wet water. A tale of a portly bald man with a farmers tan.

A tale…..Of Whitecrow Lake!

Whitecrow Lake sits at the base of the largest mountain in the park, Mount Cleveland. It also sits at the base of one of the most charismatic mountains in Glacier, Stoney Indian Peaks.

This Whitecrow Lake I speak of could have been anywhere on Tuesday, as it was shrouded in clouds.

Allow me to digress.

There is an amazing place called the Belly River Ranger Station and my friends live there. A few of us were given the luxury of staying there for our weekend, as long as we kept an eye on it in their absence.

A deal is what that is. A deal!!

To get there we hiked in six miles and at the time the views were amazing.

As we sat there waiting on the rest of our party, the rain and clouds rolled in. By nightfall it was as if there were no mountains. Only rolling forested hills could still be seen though the white misty haze.

A perfect way to start a large day with the intent of swimming.

On Tuesday morning my friends Pat and Brian and I headed off for Whitecrow Lake. This was going to be a long day.
To even get to the point that we could start moving off trail and up towards the bowl that holds Whitecrow we had to walk seven miles.

So, bushwhack aside, we had a 14 mile day plus what ever else we would find.

It passed rather quickly and we started working our way through brambles of vegetation.

UP and UP and UP we went. It was strange because although it was not raining at the time, we eventually walked up the slope far enough to have reached the cloud cover.

If you have ever stood in a cloud, you know that while it is not exactly raining, it certainly is not dry.
There is moisture suspended in air and it coats everything around you. Hard to explain, but you get wet. That is the main point.

The lake was still lovely as is, but it would have been much more spectacular on a nice day. To have the largest mountain in the park looming large above it and assisted by the gnarly spires of the Stoney Indian Peaks.

I can only imagine.

Imagine, I must.

For, there were no mountains. Only lake. And mist..

Thanks to the "Hairy Beans" going for a swim was not a lonely endeavor.

I would like to propose a toast to those knuckleheads that go swimming with me on a 50 degree day in a frigid lake that is suspended in clouds. Yeah!!

I would like to give a shout out to "The Babb Press" for one of the greatest sandwiches that I have ever eaten on trail in my life.

Look at this thing, I can hardly force it in my mouth....Thanks guys!!

Back to the story,...Oh, and the “Hairy Beans” is our band name.

We officially lost our mind on the trip and adopted that as our band name. Our main song was a Muppets tune. Most have never heard it, but it goes……”Mahna Mahna”…..Over and over again. Luckily there is a cool whistling part in it too. But the phrase for the day was “Mahna Mahna”. Look it up, it’s a killer tune. A crazy nonlingual muppet monster sings it. Good stuff…

This is your musical act for the evening. Lets give it up for the "Hairy Beans"!!!

Anyway…

We sang over and over again as we made our way back down through the alders and crud.
Alders make for great rappelling. They don’t get out of your way easily, but they don’t rip out either.

So you can rappel down the slope one alder after another…

For a few moments it cleared up enough to see Mokawanis Lake and Margaret and Ipasha Lakes. I still need the latter two.

Someday... I’m coming for you two...

It was great to get back to the ranger station that night. We found a stash of Spam and decided that it was high time for the “Great Belly River Spam Fry”.

It in no way was high time for the spam fry. It never was and never will be a good time for a spam fry. It was as terrible as you can imagine it.

Laughter it made, calm bellies it did not.

I wanted to include this very nice picture of Brian who acted as out official "get the mouse out of the trap" guy that weekend. Everybody say, "Thanks Brian"!!

All in all, a spectacular trip. Wet as it gets. On the way out had turned to absolute muddy muck. It has been a bizarrely wet season. We have had over three times the normal amount of precipitation.

Speaking of. As I write this it is raining and snowing out. Tonight the mountains around here are getting a nice dusting. August 14th…Eeeehhhh It’s going to make for an even shorter summer.
So, get out there and enjoy it. Its fleeting, that is for sure.

I wish all well this fine evening. Safe travels to where you may be going. Like a friend of mines dad used to say. “Keep it between the ditches”.

A great rule…Stick to it…

To Life,
Marc

Deer Lake-International Lake of Mystery

2009-08-07T21:40:00.000-07:00

The International Lake of Mystery….Duh, duh. Duh….

That last part was supposed to be pronounced like it just happened in a mystery movie and some important fact was just uncovered.

Try it again,

The International Lake of Mystery….Duh, duh, Duh…..

How’d it go?

One of the main things about humor that I have found out in my life is that it is not real great if you have to explain it. You certainly dropped the ball, if you are at that point.

Anyhoo….

In comes the saga of “Deer Lake” in Waterton National Park.

So, Saturday was a first for me. I had to access a lake and it was about a quarter mile into Alberta, but it was about two and a half miles from a road and was directly west of the customs station.

So, this meant that the path of least resistance was hiking the boundary swath.

What is that you ask?

If you knew it or not, there is delineation that visually and physically separates the U.S. from Canada. In some places it might just be markers like this one.

In the plains they may just mow a separation.

When there are forests, there is a 40 foot wide swath or clearing that runs east/west along the 49th parallel. So, since Glacier and Waterton are on the border, there is a boundary swath running east/west and separating the park the whole way.

I swear!!!

Why, I’m not entirely sure…But there is.

So on this particular day the route to the lake was an animal path that runs willy nilly up the boundary swath. I was happy to see that there was even a path, but I suppose the animals think it’s pretty cool that we keep this big clearing for them in the middle of the forest.

My friend’s cousin, Curtis and I drove through Canadian Customs. Had a really nice conversation with the nice men at the port and headed down the hill.

At the bottom of the ridge, we had to ford the Belly River. The water is low enough now that it is safe. Earlier in the summer it would have been terrifying.

The deal with this whole hike was that we had to stay in the swath. If we left it, it had to be to the north. We had entered into Canada, so we would be illegally entering into the country if we walked out of the swath to the south and back into the U.S.

All of this sound odd and a bit silly? I agree, but that is international law. I’m lucky that they extended this option to me to begin with.

After the river we found a nice mucky swamp and because of this tiny little rule, instead of walking around the swamp to the south, we had to walk straight on through. There was no end to it if you walked north...

Straight on through it was. The muck on the bottom of the swamp almost sucked my sandals off of my feet. I then lost my balance and basically fell face first into the swamp. I dunked my boots and half my stuff. I came out smelling awful. Note* This was not the swamp, it was the swamp after it that we could walk around. I have no pic of the awful boundary swamp. I am sorry.*

But we were in compliance with the law!!! I want to continue to make that very clear!

So, finally we headed back up the other ridge after the dreaded boundary swamp. It was really a pleasant walk. The animals cleared a great path the whole way until we had to deal with that “1/4 mile into Canada” part.

It is funny to be walking through a perfectly clear and very wide path with thick, impenetrable forest on both sides. Odd feeling, for sure.

So, we schwacked our way over, under and around the forest for a good while until we found a pretty pleasant lake. I was surprised because many of the small, forested lakes are really not too pleasant.

I spoke with a few guys who work for Waterton National Park and they said that they had both flown over it through the years. One said it was almost dried up at the end of a hot, fire filled season. The other said that he saw a moose swimming in it.

Now I have.

Lake #118

On our return we even found an amazing moose skull hidden in the willows. Great find!

Thanks for the escort Curtis! Nice to have met you.

Hope all are well and enjoying their summers. I’ll keep you posted…

To Life,

Marc

BIG NEWS and OLD MAN LAKE

2009-07-27T21:33:00.000-07:00

Big News !!

So, in the future when you hear about some knucklehead roaming around in the middle of the mountains trying to jump in every named lake in Waterton and Glacier National Parks……..It very well may be while watching a documentary about Glacier on the National Geographic Channel.

What?

Yeah!!!

No…Really…

What?

A very nice guy I know that holds a pretty high position in Glacier was contacted by National Geographic because they were doing a documentary entitled “Wild Spaces - Glacier National Park”. It is an installment of a series about the wildest National Parks in the country.
They were hoping to find a good human interest story about the park and he passed my story on to them.

They then contacted me and we worked out the specifics.

Actually it was funny, I checked my email one day and this was the subject title.

FW: National Geographic – Man who jumps in lakes.

I stopped for a moment and thought…Wait, that’s me…..

I was absolutely floored when I read the email. As you can obviously imagine.

They wanted to make sure they were doing a lake that I had never done before and capture the whole process on film. That is not that easy to accomplish these days, as most of the lakes that I have not been to are getting to be extremely removed and inaccessible.

Luckily, for the last few years while I was making major strides in the project there has been a lot of grizzly activity at a lake called Old Man Lake. The campground at the lake has been closed for the last couple years, so I have been essentially ignoring it.

We really lucked out. There is nothing as beautiful and simultaneously still on a trail as Old Man Lake.

So, I drove to East Glacier on Wednesday and met Brian and Chad at the Two Medicine Grill for breakfast. Brian was the producer and Chad was his assistant.
We got to know each other a bit and off we went.

Perfect day for a swim. It was warm, blue skies, and not too much wind. Just enough to keep the bugs from being real bad.

They would stop me at a section and set up their video camera. Then they would have me walk across a foot bridge and then pan out to all of the mountains as I walked into the far distance.

The hardest part was a bit when we hit flat trail and the producer wanted to ask me some questions while we walked backwards. He was walked slowly backwards and would ask me interview questions with the camera in my face.
He would like what I had to say, but I would say “um” or walk off screen in the wrong direction, or look at the camera instead of him.

He would then have me say it again.

But the problem is that I don’t know what I said. I would then start to preface what I said earlier.
I realized that restating something with the same enthusiasm and as genuinely, over and over again is very tough. I give credit to actors.
I can’t recreate and plan spontaneity. It goes against the main tenants of the word spontaneity. Odd.

We got it though. When it comes out on video, hopefully you won’t even notice a difference. I did though.

We got to the lake and shot an interview and the actual swimming portion after lunch.

Actually, I did not eat lunch till after the shoot. I felt like if there was ever a moment in time that Marc Ankenbauer did not need to have a big lunch it was right before he took his shirt off for a documentary for National Geographic.

I was all fine with all of this. I mean it was a great honor and a once in a lifetime experience.
But, come on. Any of you out there that would like to be the big, bald, kinda frumpy bald guy with a farmers tan that was filmed for an hour with no shirt getting in and out of a mountain lake in broad day light.
I imagine if everything goes right and I make the editing process; you may very well be watching the sun bounce off of my white Montana farmers tan chest for many years to come in syndication while sitting around on a lazy Sunday afternoon watching TV on the couch.

Eeehhh..

It is what it is and I am very lucky to have gotten this much exposure. (Literally and figuratively) Ha-ha..

I was able to explain that I was raising money and awareness for childrens cancer. I’ll do most anything for that kind of help.

Anyway, back to the scene. All went wonderfully!!. They really went all out. They even submerged themselves with an underwater camera and had me swim over them and swim at them. Crazy. I still can’t believe that this happened. Know?

I mean they had me in a 40 something degree lake for about an hour off and on. Getting out, getting back in. Getting back out again. Swimming back and forth and back again.

Camera’s are funny things I’ll tell you..

I was told that this will not even air on National Geographic Television until about November of next year. We have plenty of time to wait.

Anyway, that is my story. Old Man Lake was number 117 in all. I have 51 left and it is high season for busting out some more.

I hope the summer is treating everyone very well.
Get out there and enjoy it. You will have your winter coat on before you know it.

To Life,
Marc

Akakola, Winona and Mud Lakes

2009-06-17T09:33:00.000-07:00

The ever forgotten Akakola Lake and two mud holes…..

One was even named Mud Lake.

Yeah!

It’s really not the cold lakes that are the short end of the stick in this whole gig. It’s the warm ones. Many people think instantly about how cold this idea is.

Jumping in glacial lakes…On purpose?

But they are the greatest refreshers in the world.

It is the Winona and Green Lakes of the project that are my arch nemesis.

I would hike three days, and up hill both ways to get to a nice, high alpine, cold, blue lake instead of the easiest walk up, warm, marshy lake.

Anyway, you take the good with that bad.

This year I started off with a few that are perfect for the early season.

What I mean is that the higher elevation is still full of snow. Most of the lakes I have left in this project are very remote, high alpine lakes at the end of long off trail valleys. So right now it was nice to hit a low elevation lake.

Also, the two marshy ones would only be a thousand times more nasty if I waited until August.

So, I made a concerted effort to hit Akakola Lake which is in the northwestern corner of the park.
The trail leads out of the Bowman Lake valley. It was a perfect day, warm, clear and free of snow. The weather this May and June so far has been amazing. It was certainly one of those choice days.

After I finished Akakola and enjoyed a nice dinner with a friend, I headed over to Winona Lake. It is on a remote road in the northwest corner of the park. Its name used to be Mud Lake and I suppose the “powers that be” thought that was a bit unflattering. So, a while back it became Winona Lake.

Number 112 and 113!

Then my brother came to visit me and along with many other wonderful hikes we undertook Green Lake. It is in the middle of the forest off of Highway 2 near Marias Pass.
The forest was wonderful. No one goes back in that area, and you can tell that the animals have made note of that.
There are rub trees and animal sign all over the place. That made the day worth while no matter what.
This was possibly the most ridiculous lake I have ever been in.

As it is a marsh. Not a lake. Not even a pond.

It is a clearing in the trees that holds water and grows lots of grass. I laid down in it.

Literally, I laid down.

I did not even get swimming trunks entirely wet. Pretty nasty, but its now off of the list and it brought me to a very prideful 114 lakes.

So, I expect to get to a few higher elevation or more remote lakes pretty soon. If this latest bout of snow and storms moves out and lets summer begin. I’ll keep you informed.

Until then, I wish you all well. Get out there and lay down in a marsh somewhere.
Or not…. It is up to you…What ever you do…

Shaheeya Lake

2009-04-27T09:28:00.000-07:00

First of all this is a misleading photo, it is from this trip, but not of Shaheeya Lake. I just liked it and it ended up downloaded on my blog twice. So I wanted to find a place to put it. So at the top is where is landed.

I wanted to tell you about a lake endeavor called Shaheeya Lake. This trip actually happened last year, but since I am working on this website...and I wanted to get some stories up on this blog...well, here is a story.

I will hopefully be able to start adding to my numbers within the month. Lately, many of the lakes that I have left are really removed, high up, frozen right now....you know. Things like that. So, it will be a little further into the summer by the time I get one going. With that said, please stop back and I will be sure to get some blog entries up on as soon as the next lake falls.

Until then, here is the story and some pictures from Shaheeya Lake.
Be Well,
Marc

My friend Matt came to visit and the poor guy ended up on a quest for the lost Shaheeya Lake. It is not exactly that it was lost; we knew where it was…it was just crazy rough to get to it. There is a ridge that is just south of the Canadian border and smushed up in multiple pockets in this ridge are the “Boundary Lakes”. There are five of them and all of five are completely off trail. They have been looming over this project like a little mini lake project to them selves. There has been two separate endeavors and we have only gotten to three so far. There still stands Wahseeja and Carcajou Lakes, which are going to prove to be the roughest, most, removed pockets in the series of five. Ah, those are for another day… This is Wahseeja Lake, I'm looking down on it during the Shaheeya trip.

It is funny; I have heard that you only run another marathon after you have forgotten how much the first one hurt. When we left for this hike the idea was to hopefully get Wahseeja Lake also, but like I said,…for another day…A day in which I have forgotten the pain of the last marathon.

So we started entirely too late,…mid morning out of Goat Haunt. Shaheeya lives about 3000 feet above Lake Janet and over on the other side of Shaheeya Peak. So there really is no special way to get there, it just just “UP!!!” Unfortunately “up” does not mean an easy scramble up a drainage or up a nice gradual ridge line.

The Waterton Valley is known for it’s dominating ground cover. Tree’s too, but where there are not many trees on this route, but there is alder and sub alpine fir and every other burly northern rocky mountain short angry ground cover known to foot travel. This is exactly what we dealt with for three thousand straight vertical feet. We started climbing up an avalanche chute that runs directly north of Lake Janet. With in minutes, we were already in tree/bushes/crud that was over our head and we had really just begun. It got so rough at points that I literally got on my belly and crawled under some bushes because they were so tightly woven that it was the path of least resistance.

After about 2000ft we popped out into shelves of rock and this at least afforded us some nice spots to stop, eat and admire the northern expanses of Glacier Park. The going kept getting steeper and steeper until we eventually hit one last thick strand of sub alpine firs and popped out right below Shaheeya Peak. Not exactly our intention, but it handed us one of the best mountain top views of my life.

Often on these endeavors; I begin, I toil all day and still never really leave a thick valley bottom in search of these bodies of water. It is tough to complain when indirectly you get to climb a really remote and amazing peak in search of a swimming hole. That is exactly what happened today. This is Matt on top of Shaheeya Peak.

So we enjoyed the summit for a while and then found our lake, which we had to drop a thousand feet back down on the other side of the ridge to get to. The bugs were rough, we had to keep moving which is tough to do when you are dead tired and have to switch into some swimming trunks. Funny that no matter how hard you try, there really is no where without mosquitos. NOWHERE!!

So we thought that the hard part was over and we made our way to a different drainage to descend. You never know what you are going to get. Although, do I know of a couple people that have gone up and down this way. Seems that maybe it would work better if you came up and then you would in turn know how to go back down. But, down we went none the less.

Much of the day had already been spent by this point and the surrounding mountains were starting to get that amazing late day glow. Down we went. It was actually going quite well, we had solid rock chutes to climb on and the going was a bit easier than in the avalanche slope. Down we went……

Till about half way between the ridge top and the main trail in the valley bottom we hit a cliff band. There is a term in the world of mountains called “cliffed out”…no matter what your experience with mountains, I would imagine that you can guess what that means. It happens to everyone, once in a while. Lucky, many times you can climb back up and try another route. Although when it is already 7pm to 8pm at night and you spent ten hours getting to where you are currently, that is less of an option.

This is were Matt flys in with a cape and mask combo pack and saves the day. He commited to climbing down a few cliffs that would be virtually impossible to climb back up. The day grew on and the sun dropped further. Eventually, at the exact last minute he found what he thought “might work”….”might work”….?

There are moments in life where you simply have no choice but the follow what “might work”. What other option do you have? That there my friend is life. When there is no nice bow tied on the top and you don’t have a catered lunch sitting there for you,…sometimes…you go with what “might work”…And we did.

What “might work”,…worked! We now had about a half hour of day light. We thrashed out way down through alder and all the wonderful other vegetation that the hillside supported so well. Eventually hitting the trail at exactly dark.

This is why one does not endeavor into the wilds without a head lamp. Always bring that head lamp. All those times when you are annoyed that you are carrying around these “emergency supplies” and your back hurts and you think that you “got this one”….BRING THE HEADLAMP!

We hiked the last four miles out in the dark. Funny how giving a yell to warn bears of your presence increases frequency by a lot when it is pitch dark out and you are the only two knuckleheads roaming around in the dark night.

This honestly was one of the most intense, physical and emotional outputs in the form of a hike in my entire life. I have to dedicate this one to Matt. When the going got ugly and we just wanted to get back to the burritos that were waiting for us at the end of the trail…

Matt found what “might work” and nailed it. So to you my friend and faithful hiking partner. I appreciate you watching my back and bring us down the mountain. Sleeping under the stars down not sound like as much fun when you are on a 45 degree slope and 1500ft above the valley floor…Esecially when those burritos were getting cold.

To Life,
Marc

The end of the season-2007

2007-09-28T19:02:00.000-07:00

Good evening,

It’s been an amazing summer, for sure.

In the last five or six weeks since I wrote alot has happened. I nabbed seven more lakes in Glacier. That brings the totel to 86. Then came the decision that I was going to include Waterton National Park in the lake bid project. So there was a push that incorporated seven lakes up there which brought the totel to 13. 99 in all, need one more before I leave.....I'm running out of time.

So, let’s get started.

I went to a place called Trout Lake.

Some of you may know this as one of the sites of the famous “Night of the Grizzly”maulings. For those that don’t know, here is a quick over view.

The first Grizzly maulings in Glacier NP were in mid August of 1967. Two different girls were killed on the same evening by two different bears in two different spots at virtually the same time. It had never happened before and now it happened twice in the same night.

My friend Pat and I went back there two days after the 40th anniversary.

Much has happened in the last 40 years in the world of bear management. Things are ran entirely different than they were back in 1967. That did not stop the weird vibe we got while we were standing there. Eeehhh….

So, we busted out Trout Lake, Arrow Lake and Rogers Lake. Rogers was a nice annoying thick bushwhack but the other two were right on trail. Great trip Pat. Hope Michigan is going well.

By far the biggest endeavor since last I wrote was finally tackling two of the five northern boundary lakes. There is a valley in my district that runs east west and was randomly placed by the mountain gods…directly along the 49th Parallel which is the line that delineates the border between the United States and Canada.

My friend Matt and I hiked up to the border and then dove directly into a pretty serious bushwhack. I think it was about five hours off trail just schwackin’ around in the berry bushes. You can see Lake Nooney and Lake Wurdeman from a real common trail in Canada. They are amazing lakes. Huh? This picture was taken many years ago and have been excited to down there ever since.
Matt thanks for helping me get these two.. I was impressed with you, those were cold lakes on cold days but we nailed em, huh? Great trip my friend.

By the way there is a jack-o-lantern face in this rock, huh?

Then there were the “worst” two lakes I’ve ever done…Nice distinction, huh?

Upper and Lower Howe Lakes. Two marshes on the western border of the park.
The trip was a good time though. My friend Clay and I headed back there one afternoon. He laughed the whole time cause all I did was lay down in them. I'll spare you the pictures.They had to get done, but boy it’s moments like that were I can’t believe I opened my big mouth and said this was my goal. Cold water does not bother me, but mucky, muddy, goo does.
…but suck it up Sally and get in the freakin’ lake, huh?

I had a really foggy drive over Going to the Sun road the next morning. This was my last time driving it for the year.Just so you know, that is about a 2000’ drop to the left of the tunnel. If you can see it or not…

So, there were a couple great afternoons that Jess and I were both off work at the same time. Thankfully we took advantage of them.

One day we headed up to Bertha Lake.

It’s a side valley that drains into Waterton Lake. We took our smaller outboard boat and docked at the trail head.

There were also cool new views of Waterton Lake and Goat Haunt during the hike up.

A couple weeks ago Jess and I were able to head up to a place called Angels Wing near Many Glacier Hotel. This was actually the site of our first date in July of 2001. Nice to get back there..

First you hike up to Grinnell Glacier and then head off trail up to the top of a huge sloping wing that comes off from the side of Mt. Gould.

We were on top of this thing. It's easier than it looks, almost always is...We had to cross the outlet to Upper Grinnell Lake which is the melt pond for the glacier.

From there we got to walk right up to Grinnell Glacier. It’s melting so fast, that it’s already well smaller than it was when I started working here in 2001. Beautiful though.

At the top, Jess walked out to the top of a big pillar that was about 2000’ above the valley floor. I don’t know if you can see it but she is one the top of the big rock.

A great second date to Angels Wing and what a place to dangle your feet..

Let’s see….

From there I did a two night trip up to a place called 50 Mountain campground. I met up with my friend Josh, for a few days.

On the way up I got a great view of the entire area that was included in the Nahsukin, Gyrfalcon and Redhorn endeavor. If you have any interest the posting should still be up from July.

Super cool to be able to trace the entire trip from beginning to end, and I could see it all from one overlook.

He met me in the middle coming from the west.

I actually wanted to apply for a “Cincinnati Bengals Fan of the Week” award. I woke up the day of the Baltimore Ravens/ Bengals opening week Monday Night Football game at 50 Mountain campground. Woke up at dawn, hiked 11 miles out to Goat Haunt, took a one hour boat ride, drove an hour and crossed two international borders to see my boys win it in the 4th. Don’t know where that went to in the last couple weeks, but that’s aside from the point. Great day.

I decided to add the 30 named lakes in Waterton National Park in Alberta to the lakes project. We are Waterton/Glacier International Peace Park. Why not include them.

So, I’ll spare you the details but I drove around Waterton National Park and dipped by body in six lakes in about three hours. They were all either right off the road or just a real short hike. One was right below the Prince of Wales Hotel.

Six is six though, huh?

Best story entailed in this day was that I went swimming in a lake with a moose in it. No one else, just me and the moose swimmin’ in Akamina Lake together.

Just for the record they were Crandel, Akamina, Middle Waterton, Lower Waterton, Linnet, and Maskinonge Lakes.

As I was driving around I had to give way to a little family crossing the street. Does that not look like the Abbey Road album cover?

Other than that we have finally lost summer. At best it’s fall. There has been many days that Winter was fighting a pretty good fight. I woke up in St. Mary lake week with 2-3” of snow on my car.

I then drove to Waterton over Chief Mountain customs road in which you have to drive over a pass to get into Canada. There was snow everywhere. I luckily got to follow the plow truck up the U.S. side.

On the Canadian side I just had to down shift and ride it out. Wild morning. Welcome to Canada.

We have had some serious snow fall in the peaks already.

The "International" is the name of the boat that runs between Waterton and Goat Haunt.

It actually celebrated it's 80th year on the lake this summer.

See you next summer International, sleep well.

So, I know that was all crammed into one blog entry, and it should have been about eight of them. I kept procrastinating and now it was either write it out today or risk it being December before I get this up here.

I am headed to Washington State to travel with my buddy Wub (yes that is his given name. He was named after his great, great Aunt from Borneo) and also to see my brothers.

Other than that I’m getting excited about ski season, moving to Missoula and setting up camp there. Enjoy town life for a bit.

I hope everyone’s summer went wonderfully. I feel like I was the most blessed guy on the planet. I kept telling visitors that I felt like I won the lottery.

Currently I am the “Lone Ranger” here in Goat Haunt. Only the second time in the entire summer that there is literally nobody else here. There are not even any campers since the weather has turned and the boat is no longer running.

So in thirty miles to the east, west and south and to the north ten miles, I am the only living soul. That is probably a stretch as I’m sure there is a backpacker somewhere out there. It certainly feels like it though.

I have a bad habit of bringing the bummer at the end. I would like to dedicate this entry to a guy named Mark. I don't know his last name, but he was cool and from Oklahoma. He worked out here for a few summers and we hung out and played some great music. He was a good guitarist, and a great guy. He died about a week ago, driving to work in Oregon. Either he fell asleep or his car gave out or something, but he went off the road and died. This park will miss him and he will miss this park. He attacked it in large bites, which is always admirable.

Now, since I'm sure Mark would prefer us happy...

I bring you a picture of a man hurding cattle with a 4 weeler on the side of the road in Babb, MT. Toto, I'm not in Cincinnati any more...

To Mark from Oklahoma...

and...

To Life

Marc

Sky Lake Bid

2007-08-23T17:38:00.000-07:00

Speaker:
Good Morning everyone,
Can I see a show of hands…Who here has been to the Two Medicine valley of Glacier National Park? It’s in the southeastern corner…Huh…..
Great, that’s actually a good amount of you.

Speaker:
Yes, Maam? You in the back with the blue shirt on…Do you have a question?

Lady:
Dmoiunamdklsdfjlkoiwekdfasdklfj (enter Charlie Browns teacher sound.)

Speaker:
I’m going to repeat your question, I’m not sure everyone understood, uh…..heard it...

She asked: What is the highest mountain in the Two Medicine area? Also, is it true that the highest elevation named lake in the park is in a hanging basin on that mountain?

Speaker:
Well, you are very correct. The mountain is called Rising Wolf and the highest elevation lake in the park is nestled in a hole on the east side of it…

I know I’ve got a picture around here somewhere of that mountain…Gimme a second… While I look for it, allow me to recount the day my friend Laura and I scrambled up to it…

*(enter dream sequence sounds from movies like Wayne’s World..)

It was a slow start to a hot and sunny day, as the residents of the St. Mary trailer park awoke. There was the normal scramble at the end of the night before attempting to figure out what to do for the next day. Laura and I had the day off and we were staring at the Glacier map that is tacked on the living room wall. This thing is tattoed into our subconscious but it’s still nice to have map. We could, blah, blah..or maybe blah, blah….

As the morning drug on I was enjoying too much coffee and lazy conversation…Laura was being patient, but forced me to decide… we decided that the only day hike left on the east side of the park that ends in a lake and could be started at noon is Sky Lake in Two Med.

Off we go, zooming down the east side border of the park in Laura’s trusty steed TT. As we approach Two Med we peer down into the valley at our day’s project.

The mountain on the far right is Rising Wolf. The red scree slope in the center is directly above Sky Lake in a small hanging valley. During the early season there is a spectacular waterfall that jets right out of the hanging valley and runs a couple thousand feet to the main valley below.

This is a very short yet angular route. I looked at it every day while I worked down here in 2005. From the Two Medicine Ranger Station you can see that you simply walk straight up the side of Rising Wolf for 2500’ to the top of that ridge to the right of the summit. Easy as that…huh?

It can’t be more than a mile but you raise 2500’. From the second you walk off trail and head through the brush you are headed up hill.

We picked our way through the cliffs and loose rock.

If there is a positive, it’s so steep that every time you take a step you are about a foot higher on the mountain than you were before. You gain some serious elevation quick.

Here we are looking back down on Two Medicine developed area. The campground is to the left next to Pray Lake and then the ranger station, picnic area, camp store and boat docks are to the right on Middle Two Medicine Lake.

Nearing the top you can see that this was an amazingly steep incline.

We are happy to gain the top of the ridge.

We could not drop down the other side at this point, so we had to climb around on the top of the ridge to a better spot for decent on the lake.

We got further down the ridge and we found a spot that was “acceptable” to try and climb down.

Laura led the way through the cliffs, this girl is a goat.

She quickly was down bottom waiting for her slow hiking partner.

So, a quick interjection. I lost my sunglasses right before this hike. You don’t go hiking around in the windy/sunny mountains with out sunglasses. Well, what do you do then?
You take sunglasses from anyone that can offer them, and that includes your female friends. That is how this picture came about. Thanks for the glasses Anna.

While we were climbing back up to the ridge top, I snapped a picture of where the waterfall normally comes out of the lake. So, remembering back to the first picture, this just reinforces how much this basin is just perched on the side of a mountain.

From the top of the ridge you can see out into the plains that start rolling east as you get out of the park.

After a good boot picture we started climbing back down. There was a band at Charlie’s which is the best bar on the planet. We got things to do..

So, down, down, down it is…

When we got back down to Laura’s car I ran into one of my mentors. Mr. Pat Hagen who is a naturalist in the Two Medicine Valley and has been since before Rising Wolf dated Sinopah. Sorry, a little Two Med humor.

Pat wrote a book a few years ago called Seasonal Disorder, well worth the read. It’s about the mental and emotional affliction that is seasonal work addiction, but using well more funny words. Check it out on Amazon.com. So, anyway, he read my blog and knows of my deranged lake idea, and he is under the impression that I should take my stories and write a book. He has gotten in my head since then, I have been thinking about it a lot since. Any opinions? I’m open to them..

So, to all of you… I miss you much and wish you well. Summer smells of fall and cooler temperatures. We got our first light dusting of snow in the highest of the peaks the other day. It went virtually unnoticed and burnt off within hours. Go enjoy that summer weather while it’s still there..it’s fleeting in some peoples backyards.

Other than that,
Thanks for taking care of us, Rising Wolf..
You have always been a good mountain to me….

To Life,
Marc

Nahsukin,Gyrfalcon,Redhorn Lake Adventure

2007-08-12T20:57:00.000-07:00

This Blog Entry is Dedicated to "Billy", most know him as Brad. Have a great year back in college. This trek would not have been done without you.

Good Morning everyone,

That’s right, I’m casting off my nighttime literary window and trying the morning. Hopefully this entry will be fueled by the big mug of coffee that is sitting next to me and the refreshing light that is streaming in my front window.

I have some things going on that start in the late morning, so for right now I would like to tell you a story of what is easily the most elaborate lakebid, and one of the most hectic trips that I have ever taken in all my days of hiking.

Waterton Lake is fed by the Waterton River which flows north into Alberta. It then connects to larger rivers and eventually to the Arctic Ocean. The headwaters of Waterton River is called Nahsukin Lake. It is about 11 miles south of Goat Haunt, but after 7 miles it becomes a valley without a functional trail and clogged with downed trees, alder bushes, and every other random piece of wildly thick vegetation that grows in the Northern Rockies. This lake will be the base camp of what is now called the Nahsukin, Gyrfalcon, Redhorn Adventure.

At this point every year, Glacier National Park becomes very fire prone and quite smoky from fires that pretty much rip holes in the mountainous west. This year is no different. Although there are no fires in Glacier itself, it gets a lot of smoke from fires west and north of it, and that smoke actually makes for amazing sunsets. It’s particulate matter in the sky that makes sun sets vary in color and intensity. Honestly, that is why many cities have great sunsets, odd concept.

The evening we left was no different.

My partner in crime, Brad and I hiked five miles south before sunset.

As we left, the sunset was amazing. The tour boat came in for it’s last run and the lake was washed with a classic wildfire/smoke orange glow.

Mt. Cleveland was glowing with an amazing alpen glow as he headed south to our cabin for the night.

In the morning we waded across the Waterton River and dove off the maintained trail that we will eventually yearn for through the next few days. There once was a trail to Nahsukin Lake……about 50 years ago. Many trees fall, and vegetation fights back to reclaim a lot of trail in 50 years. Luckily, animals still take the path of least resistance and in this case some of that least resistance is the old trail…Let me impress upon you that just because I say the word trail does not mean that it is anything more than a spot between bushes that is slightly more trampled than the rest.

You start looking for trees that have broken branches or an old log that has been torn up by hooves and paws, a slight path through the grass. Nothing obvious, you have to be paying attention.

Often there was absolutely nothing to follow. We just decided that to keep the same direction as the lake, and dive right on in there. Maybe wear sunglasses, to protect from a random branch to the face.

You fall a lot, which Brad did quite often on this trip.

You take a good old spider web to the face more than you can count.

You even eventually, start losing your mind and decide that walking straight up a creek drainage would at least be without thick vegetation.

But, after four miles, you eventually end up at Nahsukin Lake. A wild place where, Brad saw a wolf for a split second, before it dipped back into vegetation.

By the time we got to the lake, it was time to crash. Ate a slight bit and just went to sleep. We had a long day to be ready for, so right now the best thing we could do was just sleep. Morning will come very soon.

Morning on Nahsukin Lake is a place that the local animal population does not expect to see human beings. One or two people a year may force their way up here. Not enough to make animals change their natural routines. We were pumping water from the lake shore in the morning and two Wolverines were running down the shore directly at us. When they saw us they quickly turned 180 degrees and run halfway around the shore line. It was amazing to watch how they effortlessly hopped rock to rock inches above the lake with no thought that they might lose their footing and end up in the drink.

In this picture, Brad is pointing towards the direction they ran. In the background you can see a very thick dark green section of vegetation directly above the lake shore.

The wolverines ran on the rocks, we as human beings can’t cling to those same rocks so we have to thrash through that vegetation. What took them about a minute to get past, took us about an hour of sweaty cussing as we “walked” through the alder thicket. It’s like this stuff is alive, it grabs you and has a thousand squiggly branches that pull you down. We were on a 70 degree angle essentially standing on alder as we swung from branch to branch. When I neared the end, I noticed I had lost one of my prize trekking poles. I looked for 20 minutes, but it was gone, gobbled up by the alder bushes.

Brad had broke one of his on the hike in yesterday, so I figured that this was the oman of the trip and I should just sacrifice it to the lake gods.

So, after the alder, we climbed up the bowl at the end of the lake. It was big rocks and angular streches of slick vegetation, but it was also early in the day and we over came this section in about an hour.

Allow me to tell you now, we eventually hike for 14 hours today before we stumble with bleary eyes back to Nahsukin Lake. Big Day Folks…Big Day…

At the top we look down on an amazing view of the entire Waterton River drainage and Nahsukin Lake. The furthest left hand mountain is Mt. Cleveland which is directly above our ranger station.

Our camp was at the far end of this lake towards the mountains.

From here we continue to climb up sloping rock slabs to a lake called Gyrfalcon Lake.

Through this process we are walking literally on the continental divide. There are actually two lakes that are astride the continental divide.

Interesting to look at, they look like two normal lakes. But the left one flows east to the Atlantic Ocean and the one on the right flows west to the Pacific Ocean. This “continental high point” is easy to see normally when it is a jutting mountain, but when it’s a slight hump of dirt and rocks sepertating two lakes it’s much more difficult to visually understand.

Gyrfalcon Lake looks amazing on a map, high in the mountains and surrounded on all sides by glaciers and rock…well above tree line. This is the last little tree I saw, think it has a windy rough winter up here?
Gyrfalcon Lake has been on the agenda for years, to finally arrive was pretty great for me.

In celebration, I went swimming….

Not to linger too long, because we have hardly even begun today’s endeavor. From here we head north along the west side of the continental divide and attempting to decipher which of these two saddles has to be gained and climbed over.

On the way we came across a bunch of small lakes, they were great.

No names though, so along we went.

Through much mapping and debate we eventually pick the higher elevation of the two saddles and climb our way to the top of it.

I’m was so happy that we picked the right one, if not we would have had to down climb the same thing and keep going. From the top, I looked down on one of the most remote lakes in the park.

Redhorn Lake. Although it looks plain enough, the valley that it lies at the head of has never had a trail and is a long, bear infested bushwack…..or you simply climb all the way around Nahsukin mountain and come in from a saddle above it….

That’s obviously what I planned here today..

The wooded ridge behind me is what will eventually be climbed to start making our way back towards Nahsukin Lake. But for now, we have a long slog back down this rocky slope to Redhorn Lake. By this point we were about 10 hours into the day and this was just getting long.

Just from the completely different angle. The major snowy section of mountains that I was looking at that morning in late June was where I was standing right now. Much drier and less terrifying than it would have been then.

At the bottom of the valley I found an interesting thing. A 20 foot tree suspended on top of a 40 foot high rock.

It made me think, boy there must be a lot of snow here in the winter. That tree was placed there in the middle of winter as it slid down a slope in an avalanche and got stuck up there. There was a snow in this spot that was at least 40 feet high. Welcome to the Northern Rockies…Jeez

Then, that’s right, we went swimming…Great lake, loved it and really not too cold at all. Refreshed me for what I had to come.

We climbed directly up a vegetation covered Stairmaster. This was one of the steepest things I had ever walked up, honestly...

From this point we had to continue over this real big, broad ridge to get above Nahsukin Lake. We went though a big avalanche blow down and up and over all kinds of what not to get to the end of this ridge…12 hours in now…

We walked up to the edge in a spot which was in no way where we had planned on coming down….We casually walked up to the edge and expected to see a big slope covered in grasses..rough enough at this point, but instead we popped out right on top of a monster cliff looking down 2000’ at the lake…Ahhhhh..

So, we had to thrash back through the woods to find the slope we had planned on….We eventually found it and side stepped, fell down and cussed our way along for two hours…

Trying to work at a 45 degree angle back towards our camp…I’m sure it was because we were working on hours 13 and 14 of the hike, but this felt like it was by far the worst part. Add on top of that, we were running out of daylight…

Would you believe that we ended up at our tent at about 9:45 PM about 10 minutes before dark settled in….There was no interest in eating food or anything else…We climbed in to our tent and went directly into the most needed sleep of my life…

In the morning we work up, and swam in Nahsukin Lake.

I had to look directly at the alder thicket that held my trekking pole captive. I had no interest in looking for it. I was beaten by the alders and they won the trekking pole battle.

On our way back out, Brad broke his second pole and we broke out in what was the most insane, off our rocker laughter. We had both lost our beans on our trip and we had nothing left but to cackle like crazy men…

We thrashed back through our 4 miles of forest until we finally found our beloved maintained trail. Seven more miles of trail and we arrived back in Goat Haunt…We may have won the war, but we lost many, many battles…

If in your hiking life you ever question what it is that trail crew does for you….Just ask me... Cause if you just jump off of that magical maintained pathway…You will want to buy them dinner by the time you get back on it….At least in the brushy, wild Waterton Valley..

…To the trail magicians of our parks…I raise my glass…PROST!!!

TO LIFE!!!!!!!!!

Marc

Kennedy Lake

2007-07-29T22:09:00.000-07:00

Good evening, all

Yes that’s right, it’s night time again and I’m trying to make sure I get this thing updated. I have actually done much since I wrote last. So, here goes….

Back to the lake bids. My girlfriend and I went on a trek last week. In the Many Glacier valley there is Kennedy Lake. It’s quite remote. It is the head waters of a valley that is really long. Because of that, to head straight up the valley would be a horrible bushwack. So, what you do is climb over Appikuni Mountain…..twice…

It’s not the most difficult mountain in the world to climb, but it’s still 3000 feet of elevation gain to the summit. There is an interesting cliffy section near the beginning.

For the most part though, it’s just a super long slope of scree and small cliffs.

These are the moments that make me ask you this question. Now, this is providing that all random actions and systems of the body are for a reason. What, is the purpose, I ask you? In these moments when your in a zen like cloud, putting one foot in front of the other. A thousand feet of loose scree above you, a thousand below. Why at those exact moments, does the theme to Three’s Company get stuck in your head? Anyone????

Sorry for that tanget…I just always get something odd stuck in my head, but I’m sure I’m not the only one….

Well, we got to the top of a saddle that is right below the actual peak, and there was Kennedy Lake. Big, blue and 1500 feet of scree and small cliffs below us. We dropped in on it which took a while. I love it, plenty of people have seen this lake from surrounding mountain peaks, but virtually nobody ever goes down to it. It’s an amazing lake, so much color. Great spot for a short lunch….. and a dip

Short is the word, because now comes the disheartening part. You can’t homestead there, so it’s time to just climb right back up to the same saddle that you were standing on a couple hours ago.
Beleive it or not, there is a person in the middle of that slope in the picture above...Where in the world is Waldo,huh?

All good though, we decided that we would actually summit the mountain this time. Amazing views from up there.

So, we climbed back down into the same basin that we hiked up to, just luckily from a different side. Those cliffs in front there were the beginning of the climb

All the way down there at the end of the valley is where our car is parked.

I love long days in this park. You tend to get a great sunset as you’re hiking out.

There is nothing like being absolutely physically tired as you go into auto pilot to get back to that car. You know you did a good long hike when you come back out to the same parking lot, that was busy 10 hours earlier…. but now your dusty car is the only thing left in the parking lot. Everyone else is done with their days task and already eating dinner. Makes you proud. Take advantage of those arms and legs while they work well. Put them to a test,huh? It makes you appreciate having a capable body. Get out there and use it while you have it folks.

To Life,

Marc

Booby-Junk Leeches

2007-07-19T22:41:00.000-07:00

So, has anyone ever heard of booby-junk leeches? This is more a goofy entry sentence than legitimate question. Everyone knows that right?

Allow me to expand….

My friends Josh and Laura went a swimmin’ with me the other day. Laura who is daughter of one of my most devout readers Chris Kloeck, by the way. Hi, Chris…Thanks for the 70’s TV show insights…

We went to a far flung reach of the park. In the southeastern corner of the park there is a place called Firebrand Pass. People work here for years before they go there. Not because it’s particularly hard, nor cause it’s not wonderful. I think it just gets overshadowed by some of the other, simply jaw dropping parts of the park. Which ends up making this a very peaceful and more wild portion of the park. Quite nice, really…

So, near Firebrand Pass is Lena lake, and behind it is a saddle. It’s a nice red scree covered saddle between Redcrow Mountain and Bearhead Mountain.

On the other side of that saddle is Jackstraw Lake. And, Jackstraw Lake will be the focus of our adventure today.

This lake is dedicated to Mountain Goats and their wonderful ability to go where no one else goes and leave "a path”….So, about four miles in towards Firebrand pass, we embarked off trail towards Lena lake and the saddle. We had to fight through some thick sub-alpine firs to get there, like normal.

Once at Lena lake though, we found what would prove to be a straight shot mountain goat path up the saddle, and all the way back down to Jackstraw lake.

Ah, you gotta love these mountain goats. I envisioned this to be a well more difficult endeavor.

The views from the saddle were as great as any pass in the park and we had it all to ourselves. The tiny rewards in life, right?

We ended up down at what was a wonderful beach that must be the home of thousands of butterflies. They were all over our packs and hiking poles. Pretty great!!

But in come those dreaded booby-junk leeches!!!!!... My girlfriend would say “dun,dun,dun!!! Like you were listening to a mystery show on the radio in the 50’s and we just learned who the killer was. Very dramatic…

We were swimming in this lake and all was wonderful. Hot days ended in a moment with cold clear water.

Then we noticed one goofy thing about it…As beautiful and blue as it was, there was no outlet, and not much feeding it. So, Jackstraw Lake had already dropped maybe about 15 feet for the season. That may be a major environmental factor that booby-junk leeches thrive on. Their niche, if you will.

I’ll come clean; they were nothing even resembling leeches….Cats outta the bag. But they were tiny little red bugs they were all over the place in the water. They got their menacing name because since they were red it looked like they were filled with blood. And, because Josh found them in his swimming trunks and well “around”…and Laura found them in her sports bra and again, well…”around”…

As for me, no booby junk leeches…It’s because I’m bald like a dolphin and booby-junk leeches don’t attack marine animals. Boy, did I luck out, huh? I’d say…jeez…

So, we rambled on about our dreaded nemesis the booby-junk leeches as we trudged back up hill and over the saddle…Back to our view at the top..

Bound for a wonderful dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant in East Glacier, Serrano’s…All ends well, despite our harrowing encounter…

As for the next day, I met up with another one of my other most avid readers, Dave. He is out here staying for a few weeks with his wife and hiking it up. He is a monster; the guy can hike over mountains in a single bound while filling you with gobs of wisdom and insight. So, I took him up on a very nice hike to one of the only areas in Many Glacier valley that was not closed for Grizzly bears. Poia Lake was our destination.

We stopped by Poia and Swiftcurrent Ridge lakes for a swim and he dropped knowledge about all the righteous things of the world. Great hike Dave. All in all, what a wonderful weekend.

I hope this finds every one well. I’m wishing you all the best and I certainly thank you for your time. I know these stories personally. So this stuff is for all of you. I would love to hear how every one is doing and what you’re all up to.

As for me, about 6’4” 240lbs…
Drum roll!!!!! Anybody? Hello….

Jeez, this is a tough crowd

Night!!!

To life,

Marc

Snow Moon-Lincoln and the 4th....

2007-07-13T22:16:00.000-07:00

Well hello all,

First of all, I would like to thank many of you for you comments and emails. I write this a little bit for my self but without knowing that people are reading it…its kind of tough to put the time in. So, thank you for your support…I feel like I’m running for office..Jeez..

So, back to business. The last week has been…well..HOT actually..Eek!!!

It topped out at 94 the other day…That is just too hot for both mountains and the Canadian Border…I mean really..thats what I ran away from…

Other than that I bagged 4 lakes. To give you some understanding of how long this endeavor is going to take…This is the second 4 lake weekend, since I started…They are just not that easily gained, and especially not now any longer…They are all a labor…

On Tuesday, my girlfriend and I did an off trail route along a crazy cliff edge that wraps around a mountain and eventually pops us out at two lakes. They are called Snow Moon and Falling Leaf lakes. Amazing lakes too.. It’s been a long time coming for these two since it’s only about 1 ½ miles from the parking lot of Many Glacier Hotel, but not one step is on a maintained trail. Although through the years it has been done so many times, that there is a path. That path leads through the forest and pops out into a scree slope or a field of tiny rocks that is called the “Red Scree Strolls” in the climbing guide. We saw a first year baby grizzly bear dropping off the side of the slope. Where was momma? Dunno…We became a lot louder and kind of gave it a little time before we continued. Eventually you find this path and it follows along the top of a cliff that runs all the way around Mt. Allen.

There may be a trail but aside from it, you’re just a couple thousand feet above Lake Sherburne.

Eventually, it gives way and you drop into a bowl on the side of the mountain and two amazing blue lakes are just sitting there for the swimming. Perfect day for it.

The next day was the 4th of July and it was not a perfect day for anything but laying in water. I decided to surrender the park to the visitors and the heat. A couple dips in the St. Mary river and some fireworks and a grill out…No hiking..

But the next day. Oh, the next day. I decided that if I was serious about the lake idea, then it was time to chomp off a couple of the less enjoyable lakes that no one wants to do with me. So, I dubbed it “crappy lakes that no one wants to do with me” day. Catchy? Huh?

I woke up early and drove the Going to the Sun Road to the west side. The road just opened for the year because of large washouts in November. So, this was my first trip of the year. For those of you who do not know Glacier very well, the west side is lower elevation than the east side. This makes it warmer and covered in much heavier vegetation. This sometimes makes for long approaches to murky, marshy lakes. I ask a lot of my friends, but none of them want to jump in a marsh on a 90 degree day that they had to walk 20 miles round trip to get to. So, I do it my self. All for the love of this goofy project.

So, I digress. I woke up early and got to Johns Lake.

This lake is right off the side of the road, and the marshiest of them all. Marshy enough to have leaches swimming around in it. I DECIDED TO WAIT!!!!!!!!! I figured, I could go against last weeks statement and possibly just do it in the winter and break a hole in the ice. Or, maybe I’ll just get a wet suit or something…But, for a nasty lake that was half a mile from the trail, I figured I could only benefit from waiting.

I then wondered up a steep forested ridge for 2 ½ miles till I got to Fish Lake.

This was not quite as bad as Johns. At least I could not see leaches swimming all over the place. I then did a little plop in-between the lily pads and on to reevaluating my day.

I had the option to hike 2 ½ miles back out and end the day. Or, and there is always an or. I could continue hiking another 17 miles round trip to the king daddy of “nobody wants to do it” land. Lincoln Lake is an 8 mile, one way hike through nondescript forest to a…..well, an alright lake. Its home to the highest waterfall in the park. It’s somewhere up in the teens. 1300’ maybe. Something like that. But it’s still not great even with that characteristic.
So, needless to say I hiked in heinous heat up and down and up and down and though the woods to grandmas house to get to the lake. It, well it kind of rotted. But it’s done. Yeah!!! And it brought me to a grand total of 71 lakes jumped in. That makes me happy.

So, close your eyes and envision your friend Marc. Ok, got it? So it was so hot as I was walking out, that I started dipping a camp towel and my hat in every steam I came to and plopping it on my head and neck. It kept me cooler and protected me from the sun. Compounding on top of that was the onslaught of classic west side mosquitoes. You feel like they are just in a cloud trying to chase you down. Honestly, at this point your closing in on just losing your mind Your only defense is to keep on walking.

So, as quickly as I could put on a mosquito shirt. For those that do not know what this is, it’s a shirt made of tight mesh so they can’t get to you. Well, I start hiking as fast as I can, bombing down hill with a mosquito shirt on, and a wet towel and floppy hat on my head and neck. Trekking poles in hands, just trying to Zen out and get to the blasted road. I pop out into a parking lot with a poor unsuspecting couple standing there. I’m filthy, drenched with water/sweat with this ridiculous get up on. Blathering on about bugs and lakes and what not. I was a sight.

I beleive that someone else had the same opinion of this lake.....

Who says the life of a lake bidder is glamorous. Well, I honestly think no one says that….Actually, what in the world is a lake bidder anyway, most would say….You now know the answer to a very seldom asked question.

I will leave you with that vision. I can do no better. I’m pretty tired and must pack for my days off. I’ll keep you informed of my endeavors this weekend. But you must stop back to see what they are…since, really I have no idea what they will be…Yeah, no plans..

To Life,
Marc

Goat Haunt Lake

2007-06-29T16:46:00.000-07:00

Good evening…how is everyone? I find myself writing these well into the evening. Hope all my word choices are up to par, I’m kind of tired.

In the last week, I finally swam in a new lake. Goat Haunt Lake was #67 swam in out of 131 named lakes. It hangs out on the other side of Goat Haunt Ridge which makes up much of the eastern landscape of Goat Haunt.

saddle

There is a trail that heads about 800’ in a mile straight up the side of the ridge to an overlook and a wood bench. The trail ends there and to get to this lake my friend and I had to hike off trail about another 1200’ further up the ridge. From there we side stepped along the ridge to a big red saddle that is visible from the head of the lake.

We figured that we could be visible through the scope that hangs out at viewing platform as long as we had something bright on our packs. So, we tied bright orange bandanas to our packs so my girlfriend/coworker could watch us climb the ridge. I’m sure that was pretty interesting to watch us plod along a few thousand feet above the lake level. Even with the scope we were just tiny orange specks.

Once we gained the saddle we had to drop about 800’ down the other side to get to the lake. I’ve certainly been through well worse bushwhacks, but the other side of the ridge was entirely forested, so it was straight through trees and brush for the entire way.

It’s funny, being in situations that most “normal” people would view as completely unacceptable…in a strange way I derive some twisted pleasure from it. No one is forcing us to do this; it’s completely voluntary to thrash through alder bushes well taller than me. It just seems like a very logical thing to do, all in the name of jumping into a 38 degree lake, then turn right back around and do it all backwards. Some were born to build bridges, others to be kings….I suppose I was sent to spend pleasant days off work becoming entirely more tired and beat up than I was when I got off work. All in the name of a refreshing dip. And like every other endeavor in life, you tend to find your own like minded weirdo’s. Luckily this place is jam packed with them, so I’m seldom at a loss for goofy people who will assist me in my lake tasks.

The lake was quite pleasant for early season. Things are starting to thaw out pretty good around here, so more of the off trail ideas are becoming possible. I draw the line at having to break ice on a lake to jump in. So, until now most of this has been impossible.

We climbed back through the tree covered ridge to the saddle. I snapped a few photos of the view directly back down at Waterton Lake 2000’ below. It’s so great to get such a wild view of how small the apartments, docks and ranger station are.

They are but specks amongst the behemoths of the northern portion of the park. It was great to see the tour boat in the lake. Its multi leveled and holds a hundred people or so and it was tiny compared to its surroundings.

Boat on right side of lake about half way down.

We followed our path back down the ridge and to home. A great start to the lake bid season. I’m happy to have gotten one under my belt.

So, needless to say…everything is great on my side of things. I hope you are all well, finding your overlooks to be amazing in themselves. Get out there and search them out. Maybe wake up for a good sunrise. No matter where you’re at, it’s more amazing at 4:30am. Some of the most colorful sunsets I’ve ever seen have been in my hometown of Cincinnati and it’s below 1000’ elevation. So, I’ll wrap this up. Maybe go get some sleep. I wish you well. Till next I write, please email me or leave a comment. I would love to hear from you all.

To Life

Marc

P.S. My friend Cara's 30th birthday was the other day. So, since I was not there to wish her well, I will do so via blog. She is actually the one that taught me how to do any of this and what the word blog was in the first place. So, Happy Birthday Cara. Welcome to the rest of your life. Enjoy a picture of Kootenai Peak in where else but Glacier National Park. I hope you have a wonderful day.

My new blog

2006-12-20T19:26:00.000-08:00

My friend Cara just taught me about about blogging. So since I'm just beginning I can only imagine that this will be a slow process to get going. If your interested, stick with me and give me some incentive.

I tend to have a random story at the end of the day. I'll see how many I can get down on paper for you. It's winter so things are a bit slow, summer will pick up with entries of adventure. I'm what has been dubbed a lake bidder. I am endeavoring to jump in all the named lakes in Glacier National Park, Montana. This will obviously be more entertaining than my standard day to day in the winter. But, alas this is a long time from now and we have many months in between then and now so..."great chili sign in the sky" willing we'll get through this together.

One thing that you will also notice sooner or later is my ineptitude when it comes to spelling..I think I've got this one in the bag but sooner or later it's going to fall to pieces...my tech savoy friend Cara just informed me that there is spell check so I'll be fine...

Hope you all had a good day and I'll talk with you soon,

Marc