Sleeping in a cabin in the middle of nowhere is sure quiet. Sometimes too quiet. There were outdoor sensor lights that would periodically be tripped and wake us up. At one point the refrigerator stopped making a noise, and Nicole convinced herself that armed gunmen had cut power to the house and were prepared to storm in and kill us. I’m not sure what their motivations would have been, but when some sun tan lotion clattered to the ground at 3am and woke us both up once again, we felt that the overwhelming silence was a bit deafening. Sometimes the ambient noise of traffic and jets taking off helps calm us at night when we are back in LA, though I doubt such noises will make it into any sort of sleep or meditation app anytime soon. A shame really.
We had a relatively early start. We made a quick stop enroute at an Albertson’s in Kalispell to get some snacks and form some semblance of a breakfast. There weren’t many people shopping at that hour, so we were in and out quickly before continuing toward the park gates. Only about eight miles of plowed and open road exist at this point, with the entire road network of the park not set to be fully open until the end of June. There were no rangers working the park gates, so I paid the entry fee by scanning a QR code and paying with my phone. We drove the entire eight miles of plowed road and parked at the currently closed park lodge.
From there we began our hike, though the first mile and a half of “trail” was actually where the road would have continued if it was plowed. In areas where the trees created lots of shade, there was a lot of ice on the road, which proved somewhat challenging to traverse. While the trails were pretty quiet, the people we did encounter had some kind of crampons to dig into the ice better. Eventually we arrived at an overlook of McDonald Falls.
As we stopped to take a few pictures, a few groups of hikers began to arrive, so we took that as a queue to go elsewhere. We backtracked a little on the icy road and took a spur trail through the woods that would end up looping back to the falls. It was very dense with trees and looked rather lush. It reminded us both a bit of Scotland.
There were more icy patches and some downed trees that we had to overcome, but at least we had our boots. It was very quiet on the trail other than the sound of creaking trees sporadically. However, at two different spots on the trail we both thought we heard a deep snoring sound, which was perhaps some kind of hibernating bear. There were numerous signs about being cautious about bears. This was a bit unsettling, so we walked briskly until arriving at a snow-covered Johns Lake.
We felt safer from bears at this point because we saw two other hikers taking a break. As long as the bears encountered the other hikers first, they would no doubt be too full to bother attacking Bricole, everyone’s favorite celebrity couple.
We eventually had to walk/slide gingerly down an icy ramp to a bridge spanning the McDonald creek. From there we caught views of Sacred Dancing Cascade. We walked down the side of the bridge through the snow to get a vista from downstream of the bridge and the mountain scenery in the distance.
From there we began the long trudge on the ice back to our car. As the sun was now higher, some of the ice had converted a bit to slush and was a bit easier to walk on. We then walked to the back of the lodge to look at McDonald Lake. Contrary to everything we had done thus far, however, the viewpoint was very crowded — perhaps because it required the least amount of effort. In any event, we elected to do an about face back to the car in search of a different viewpoint.
We eventually pulled over about halfway back to the park entrance, but the winds had picked up and so had the waves on the lake, so a nice symmetrical reflection could not be had. We are debating a return tomorrow if the winds are calmer.
We made another stop at Albertson’s to get some food items. It was much more crowded than earlier. And despite the large sign at the entrance requiring masks, the compliance was about 1 in 4 inside the store. Not below the nose, not around the chin, non-existent. I’d never seen anything like it. I was dumbfounded, and frankly quite annoyed. After returning to the cabin for a couple hours to relax, we went back out to pick up our takeout order at a place called Hops. On yelp, it was the #1 rated place in Kalispell. Nicole’s burger contained both a grey hair and a brown hair in addition to her well-done burger being bright red. I too found a small black hair on the side of my aioli spread. While we had a very nice morning, this was not the kind of relaxing evening in Montana that we had hoped for. If that was the #1 rated place, I’d hate to eat at #28. We may just go to a chain fast-food for dinner tomorrow — the health code violations will hopefully be fewer. I really don’t like being negative in these posts, but it also frustrates me when realities aren’t acknowledged. Hopefully tomorrow will be better and will yield greater success with food. The threshold for success was small and it involved a few less hairs and a few more masks. It can be done. Wish us luck.
passports & pepto bismol 