Glacier NP - Marion Lake Hike

Up and out by 7 and off to Glacier. We took a brief stop at the Skunk Cabbage Boardwalk. It was an interesting walk. The skunk Caggage are pretty much finished but they are huge in there. Guess the bears really love the flowers in the spring. It’s a big bird study area with lots of warblers flying through. Then on to Glacier. We arrived at the Campground and there were a lot of folks heading out so we found a nice spot and put out the tent to dry—it was sopped from the night before even without rain!

Then to the Visitor’s Center where they graciously let us backup pictures with their electricity while we watched the bear video—taught you more than you ever wanted to know about bear etiquette and how to react when attacked.

Same glacier - different lenses.

We continued down the road east for awhile to see what was there and ran into a wildfire about 10 km down the road. We drove down as far as the Bear Creek turnoff and found that area was closed due to bear activity. So back up to the campground for lunch

and then we headed out off to the Marion Lake hike. It was lush forest along the way but a real killer trail! It was only 2.2 km to the lake so looked easy….wrong! When we finally found the trailhead it started out steep and never ended! When we did the conversion it came up with 1395’ in 1.35 miles.

Tiny dogwood plants.

We finally huffed and puffed our way to the top and it was very pretty!!

We had been told there was a viewpoint just beyond with a stunning view of the whole valley and they were correct!

Worth the extra climb.

We were pooped puppies from that hike!! Got back and had dinner and hit the sack!