Up and attem early again this morning. We had some yummy oatmeal and fruit at the lodge this morning, then hit the road back up to Many Glacier to do the Red Rock Lake/Falls and Bullhead Lake hike. Making decent progress on a two lane, winding road is fairly challenging when you get behind trucks that creep and felt like it took forever to finally make it to the trailhead. (It's 12 miles down this two-lane road once you turn off 89 towards the park. Lots of signs saying "Rough Road." Uh huh I think we got that. But dude, really? You can go past 25mph. When you have to go 12 miles and the dude in front of you is only going 25mph, well you do the math. Eventually we did make it to the parking lot.
All packed up we set out around 10:00. Originally, Bob had read this was a 6-mile roundtrip hike. Dude grossly miscalculated (not Bob, the dude Bob got his info from). Turned out to be almost 8 miles roundtrip.
No worries, eh? We just did a 10 miler yesterday. Piece of cake, right? Remember I was already nursing sore everything from yesterday's fun, plus a beautiful blister (guess either my shoes or my socks aren't appropriate and I'm sparing you the visual of a picture of that ... Eeewwww). All in all I wasn't moving even as fast as normal for me, which is slow motion for Daddy Long Legs. Anyway, off we went. The hike wasn't difficult at all. However, shoving these tootsies in hiking boots and putting one foot in front of the other was challenge enough. At some point I was able to mostly ignore the excruciating pain. Hahahaha. Yes I just had some cheese with my whine/wine. Wanna see? Too late, it's gone.
Moving on ... Our first stop was Fisherhead Lake. Hoping to see some king of wildlife, aka a moose, we detoured down this short path. No moose. I shot my pic and we continued on.
Along the way we had some pretty views. (Code for any excuse to stop walking and rest.)
It's not unusual to start conversations with other hikers. The couple we hiked with a lot today is from Florida and boy have they done some hikes! Jeez Loiuse!! I thought we were rocking it until we talked to them. But they gave us some good ideas for our next visit. There will be, of course, more visits to this park. It is incredible. And that's putting it mildly.
Red Rock Lake is beautiful as they all are. It doesn't have the gorgeous turquoise color from the glacier water but still beautiful. Sadly, no moose here either. They frequent this lake so we were really hopeful.
Red Rock Falls were a short 1/4 mile further.
Kind of pitiful for falls, huh? It is what it is. At this point, we could turn back or plow on 2 more miles to Bullhead Lake. What the hell, right? What's another 4 miles in the big picture? I mean, we've come this far so ... Overriding my screaming blisters (yup, acquired another one on this hike) we went for it. Again, we were blessed with more incredible views along the way.
(Note: see that big glacier in the background? That's where Bullhead Lake is. So that's where we're going.)
I had to include this bridge in the photo journaling. LOL. How about that ...
If you're cant read the sign, it says, "Load Limit - One Person at a Time." I actually took a shot of Bob crossing it but he wouldn't let me use it. :(
It seems the last mile of any hike, going or coming back, is the longest. Eventually, we made it.
This is why we hike. As awesome as the views are from the road, you can't see this from a car. Do I bitch? Yes. Am I sore as hell? Yes. Is it worth it? Absofreakinlutely!! On the way back we pulled out our gourmet peanut butter and banana sandwiches for lunch. Sustenance is important dontchaknow. The rain clouds were threatening and they did periodically leak once in a while. But we made it back (in my case limped back) to the car unscathed. (Except for all the muscles having a shouting match trying to get my attention, battling against the voices of my honking blisters. LOL. Yes I am pitiful. Lobbying for sympathy. Is it working? I didn't think so.)
The scenery on the way back to our room was fascinating. A front is moving in bringing rain and cooler temps. It was looking rather dismal on the drive out of the park but the closer we got to the exit, the bluer the sky got. Crazy!!! The route from Many Glacier to East Glacierr Park is 89 to 49 which both run north to south. So we're driving parallel to the edge of the park. The system sat right over Glacier and it looked formidable. To our right the view was heavy downpours and dim visibility. To our left we saw blue sky and white fluffy clouds! I snapped some shots with my phone of the front sitting over the park.
We stopped at the little pit stop and picked up a bottle of w(h)ine to go with our cheese and crackers and came back to the room. After chilling and looking at tripadvisor.com we walked over to Serrano's for dinner. It's a Mexican place that gets really good reviews.
The reviews said to get there early because there would be a waiting line. We couldn't imagine that so took our time. Guess what? There was a 25 minute wait. LOL So we ordered a drink from the bar and went outside to the patio to wait. Of course we talk to other people out there waiting and before long the patio was full. The next thing we know couple is asking if they can sit with us to wait for a table. We hit it off and end up sharing a table for dinner with them. Tim and Nancy are from the San Francisco Bay Area and it was a joy to share a meal with them. There is something liberating about talking to people whom you know you'll never see again. We had a wonderful dinner with great people we were blessed to share an evening with. They told us about a restaurant about 10 miles south of here that's supposed to be awesome. You never know, we may meet again.
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