MWRT part 4: Highline Trail

I got to check a trail off my bucket list! The Highline Trail opened a few weeks before we got to Glacier, and after hearing about it for years we finally did it. Okay, so we only did the first 3-ish miles of it, but it was beautiful. We were eye level with glacier-peaked mountains, cool rocks, and a fearless marmot!

 The trail begins with a cut in the rock, a little like Eagle Creek. There was a steep slope below us, into which was cut Going to the Sun Road. We passed more than one group of hikers clinging to the hose-covered wire anchored into the rock. They nervously stepped along the rocks with their heavy packs, trying to not look at the dizzying valley below.

The trail is the ribbon along the scree slope, the road below. 

After a little while, with the sun peeking around Pollock mountain, we came onto the green hillside, looking across and down the valley at range after range of mountains. The beargrass was blooming, as were many other wildflowers.

 After we turned around and began back towards the trailhead, our travel was arrested by a fearless Hoary Marmot. He had chosen a sunbathing rock a stone's throw from the heavily trafficked trail, and I got the feeling that we morning hikers were disturbing his sunbathing. He waddled down off his rock, showed Marcus his teeth in the middle of the trail, and went down the mountain (perhaps to find a quieter place to sunbathe).

There was a standoff for a moment

One of the coolest parts of the hike was watching the layering of the rock change. All of glacier was once a seabed, and we walked along many different types of rock with striking markings and colour. We had to look it up after we left. Fortunately, the NPS has a great web page on the geological history of the park!

don't look down...

We paused one last time and in the shade and watched cars winding down from the switchback below Logan Pass towards Lake McDonald. That's where we were headed next! If we get the chance in the future, we would hike from Logan Pass to Granite Park Chalet, Switfcurrent Pass, and to the lodge where we had spent the night before. I guess Highline Trail is back on my bucket list after all!