The Glacier Day Between

Before we talk about our epic hike to Sperry Glacier, can we talk about how we fueled it with a quart of huckleberry ice cream topped with fresh huckleberries we picked ourselves? ‘Cuz I really wanna talk about that.

Dustin faces the camera in the center of the frame, sitting at a picnic table. He is drinking from a blue beer can. In front of him is a quart of Mountain Huckleberry ice cream, topped with fresh huckleberries. The background shows tree trucks and a few cars parked along the campground road. — And washed it down with a cold huckleberry beer. We’re not savages.

The morning after our hike to Grinnell Glacier, we’d woken up, eaten our slimy oatmeal, then looked at each other with some confusion.

“What are we gonna do today?” Dustin asked.

“Where are we gonna sleep tonight?” I asked.

This was the gap day between our epic Grinnell Glacier hike and our even-more-epic Sperry Glacier hike. The only thing we really had to do was make our way from the Many Glacier section of the park to the trailhead by Lake McDonald. With the day being sandwiched between epic hikes, we decided that was about all we would do.

The sleeping question was a bit trickier. If we wanted to sleep inside the park, we’d have to try and get lucky at a campground or hope someone had cancelled a hotel reservation.

“Oh, hot diggity!” I said, consulting my phone as we prepared to pull out of the Many Glacier parking lot at 10:30am. “This says Apgar Campground still has openings!” Apgar was on the extreme other side of the park, a 70-mile drive with the entirety of the Going To The Sun Road in between:

Please enjoy 13 seconds on Going To The Sun Road to get a feel for how quickly our drive would not get us across the park. Acrophobes need not apply.

We only had a slim shot to reach Apgar in time to snag one of the open spots, especially since we were getting another late start, but we had snagged our Going To The Sun Road permit, and so we might as well use it as much as possible.

A front-country campsite would cost us $20. The next best option would be a hotel, and whether that was Lake McDonald Lodge or something outside the park in West Glacier, the price tag would be in the dozens-of-times-more-expensive league.

Hilariously, we didn’t take any photos during the day that didn’t involve a record of our meals. We did make one stop along the drive, an attempt to get to the Logan Pass Visitors Center, but huge crowds and poor signage resulted in a 2.7-mile round-trip hike from where we parked the car to the visitors center which, like most visitors centers in 2021, was mostly closed and definitely wasn’t selling any lunch.

“I’m gonna be mad if the guy in line ahead of us gets the last campsite because I thought there might be a hamburger up there,” I muttered as I munched on yet another Peanut Butter Sandwich of Despair instead.

Turns out we need not have worried. For whatever unfathomable reason, there were still plenty of camp sites when we pulled into the Apgar Campground some time after 1pm. Perhaps, since obtaining a walk-in campsite required already having a GTTSR permit, the number of people capable of being both that prepared AND that unprepared was fairly limited.

We parked our tent and went off to Apgar Village to see what there was to see.

A building covered in red board siding fills the frame. It is two stories tall with a peaked roof. An entry door is at center on the lower level, framed by windows fill of neon signs. Above the door across the whole front of the building stretch signs for "ICE", "Camping Supplies", "Kodak FILM", "POP BEER WINE," "GROCERIES Health & Beauty Aids", "MOTOR OIL Auto Stuff" and "Jewelry", and "Huckleberry." — Upon future reflection, we realized this is actually a photo from Park Grocery in St. Mary, which we passed through after leaving Many Glacier, but before getting back onto the Going to the Sun Road. Super cute, and bearing some resemblance to Apgar Village.

We prowled around the gift shops and lunch counters but – finding no surprise stashes of Wilcoxen’s ice cream – we abandoned camp and decided to go out to West Glacier and see if anything was up.

Nothing was up, but we did pick up a consolation quart of ice cream.

(Isn’t a quart of ice cream a little overkill for people who don’t have a functioning freezer? you ask. Sure, but it cost the same that a SCOOP of ice cream would have cost in the general store, and we’re Americans, so throwing out what we can’t eat is basically mandatory.)

(Seriously, though: we don’t want to be wasteful, but some weeks you’ve already hiked 40 miles and you’re about to hike 16 more so you just have to buy yourself a quart of ice cream you won’t be able to finish and do your very best.)

Laura stands in front of a picnic table at center, facing the camera but looking down at the pasta sauce she is pouring into the pot on the camp stove. Sun comes through tree trunks behind her.

Dinner was a camp stove affair that polished off the last of the few groceries we’d been lugging around in our cooler. With garlic involved, it may not have been as low-scent-bear-non-attracting as it could have been, but see above parenthetical about wasting ice cream. We try to be naughty in the most responsible ways possible.

And that brings us back to huckleberry-on-huckleberry ice cream.

Laura sits at a picnic table, smiling at the camera. Her elbows are on the table, one hand holding a spoon full of huckleberry ice cream with one plump, fresh berry sitting on top. The quart of ice cream sits on the table in front of her. In the background, the orange tent sits to the left, framed by evergreen tree trunks. — Was this a good idea? Yes. This was a good idea.

And now, with only a 16 minute drive to our trailhead: time for bed. The hike to Sperry – the longest by distance and the largest change in elevation of the whole trip – could not start at 10am if I wanted to survive the day.

Thither & Yon

(adventures & wanderings)