We woke up to our alarms at 6am and ate a quick bowl of oatmeal before packing up for the day. On our way out we dropped our packs at our friend’s campsite. Our NYC friends had the best campsite, right on the water, and told us we could leave our stuff there to reserve the spot for when we came back from our day hike. They weren’t awake yet, so we didn’t get to say our goodbyes, but we had a long hike ahead of us so we left.
The hike started off flat, with a ton of very high grasses right on the trail. It also didn’t help that there were a million flies and mosquitos everywhere. As we made our way higher the wind picked up, and therefore the bugs left us alone. We were told the bugs up at Brown Pass campground were absolutely awful, but they were worse for us on the hike up.
When we got to Brown Pass, we skipped the campground and continued onto the pass for the view. It would have been an additional 2 miles to Hole in Wall, but we didn’t really want to make it a 18 miles day, so after a quick snack we headed back down.
The views in this valley are insane! We saw a number of birds and small animals running around the open areas, but no bears or other large animals. We hiked down much faster than expected, but that final mile or so always feels the longest. When we got down we moved our tent and other items to the new campsite and found a really nice note from our friends Nick, Sal, and Cyrus saying that they had a lot of fun hanging out.
Once we moved our stuff we very quickly ate lunch and jumped in the lake. No one else had shown up to the campsite yet so we were wondering if we would have the spot to ourselves. Not too long after we said this, a number of different groups showed up. One couple from California, and a large group of women from NE Arkansas (they raved about Arkansas, which I didn’t know had a big outdoors scene).
We hangout the rest of the day by the water, we built a fire to help get rid of some of the bugs, and chatted with our new neighbors. The group of women and one Navy guy were our favorites, and the women in the California couple, but the guy in the couple was a man-splainer. He thought he knew everything, including that bear canisters can be broken by Grizzly bears…why would bear canisters exist if they only stopped black bears from getting into your stuff? Come on now.
We missed our friends from the night before, but it was still a fun night chatting with the other groups by the fire before heading to bed. Tomorrow we’re having a slow morning before hiking out and finding our Airbnb for the next few days of exploring Glacier National Park.
Spectacular photos!!
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