The trail starts off through the trees but the views soon open up due to a massive fire that raged through here in 2003. Roundtrip is 7.1 miles and while the Glacier Park website list this trail as strenuous, I would say it’s moderately-hard. I’d save the strenuous classification for all the longer steeper trails in the Park. The stark remains of a forest stretches out over 136,000 acres or 13% of Glacier National Park. The forest is quickly rebuilding itself with many new trees over 5-6 feet tall – another couple hundred years and this hike will be treed in again.
The Indian Paintbrush in the photo above is one of my favorite wildflowers for it’s beautiful intensity. The Indian Paintbrush got it’s name from a Native American legend. It tells a story of a young brave who tried to paint the sunset with his war paints. However, he was disappointed with the results. He asked the Great Spirit for help and was supplied brushes. When he finished his painting, he left the brushes strewn about the field. The brushes sprang into flowers and filled the landscape with the most beautiful color. The views at the top promise many great summits to come this summer. The wildflowers are starting to come out in abundance. This is a good sign that summer temperatures are right around the corner. It’s been and inordinately cold spring here, and I haven’t even dared to plant any flowers at home. Just when you think winter’s over, we wake up to snow again. I love snow, but I can’t wait to get back to regular hiking again. At the end of our hike, we drove just outside Glacier to a taco food truck to get a take out order. Then we took our tacos back to Lake McDonald for dinner down at the beach, followed by jumping in the water which was of course… freezing! And if you’re looking for more lookout hikes, be sure to check out Huckleberry Lookout and Mount Brown Lookout as well as Scalplock Lookout. (Photographs have been updated for this post on June 19, 2017.)
