Not sure if I am losing it or not, but I agreed to hike to the Grinnell Glacier today, 12 miles (25,847 steps) round trip with an elevation change of 1600 ft. Since we are in Glacier National Park, we wanted to see up close a glacier.
Here are some views going up.
Then we saw a Big Horn Sheep, he had been munching on some leaves from a bush.
His friend was eating in a different area. They were bigger than I thought, their backs probably my waist high.
Look at that lake’s color. The milky turquoise blue means glacier melt.
The further we went up the trail the harder and harder it got. Here I am recovering…tying to catch my breath and letting my heart rate return to somewhere near normal. The altitude is around 6,000!
Finally after about 3 hours of walking, climbing, we arrive at the view we were waiting for, the Grinnell Glacier. All Bob could say was Oh My, Oh My, Wow!!
These are icebergs floating in the water they have created from melting.
This is looking towards the left from the photo with Bob in it. This is the glacier, or what is left of it.
I took photos of a display showing the changes in the glacier, the first photo was taken in 1938, the next one in 2005. The glacier is melting, and will probably soon be gone.
We enjoyed lunch on a smoothed rock almost at the lake level.
Bob just had to touch an iceberg, this is zoomed as he was down there a ways.
This is what he took, up close of the iceberg.
It is time to head back down that trail, just couldn’t pass up this sight, the sun was just right to bring out the reds. Notice Bob's shirt is partially pulled off his right shoulder, well I was using his shirt to hang onto to help me down over the rock steps in places along the path.
YES, we both were exhausted when we got back, had been hiking for 7 hours 20 minutes, a little over 12 miles, up and down 1600’ of elevation changes. This is the longest hike we have taken since we walked to see the Model T in the Painted Desert at the Petrified Forest in AZ-that was 17 miles, about 1-1/2 years ago.
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