Highline trial to Granite Park Chalet (07/30)

Another beautiful day.  After all the rain and cold in Canada it is nice to have blue skies and sunshine.
We need to be at the shuttle stop by 8 am.  There is a lot of road construction on the road to Logan Pass Visitor Center so it is easier to take the shuttle than drive.  Once everyone is on board we take off.  There are many stops picking up people or letting them off.  Then the road construction, the first stop delayed us 30 min, the second one wasn't so bad about 10 or 15 min.  They are resurfacing the road and are limited on good weather time to complete it before winter hits.

We finally make Logan Pass where the highline trail starts about 9:15 and get back about 3:30. It is 7.6 miles to the Granite Park Chalet.  The scenery is breath taking.  We walk along a ridge that over looks the Going to the Sun Rd.

 We had an unexpected trail guide along this route.

 He was so cute and just walked in front of us for quiet a ways before he found a spot he felt comfortable moving off the trail to let us by.  This is a small mt goat.  We have seen bigger ones on another trip to Glacier.
What a great trail and beautiful vistas.

Not sure what this is, looks a little
like a cross between a squirrel and
a chipmunk

 There are two snow crossings, after the first we have some switchbacks to the second one. Again the scenery is spectacular.

   
You can see how steep the switchback           became.

We still have about 3 miles to go to the Chalet.  The trail continues along ridges with great views it is mostly flat with some up and one fairly long down hill.  Iwas looking at the down hill and thinking uphill on the way back. Thank goodness we are not coming back the same way.
There are a lot of Marmots in the area.  This one is a gray one, I have never seen a gray one they are usually red or brown.

Isn't he cute!

Finally we can see the Chalet in the distance, about two miles away.  I will be glad when we get there.  We are getting hungry and ready for lunch.

You can actually book a room here if you want to spend the night an explore the area.


Time to head back it is 4 miles down to the shuttle stop.  That is right down, I was worried about how steep it was going to be, but it wasn't to bad mostly gentle slope with a few steep spots,  it is a 2300 elevation loss going down the trail.

Finally the shuttle stop and a little bit of a wait.  They only have small vans on this side as the road is limited to vehicles 21 ft or less.  For a mere $90 you can book a ride on this shuttle.  We opted for the free one.

We are finally back at Logan Pass, bought some souvenirs at the visitor center and now on the bus back to the St Mary's KOA.  What a great day, all in all we did about 11 miles.  I am really tired but happy.                

Tomorrow we will go to Two Medicine to see what is on the Eastern side of the park.