Glacier National Park – Triple Divide Pass

Atlantic Creek Camp to Red Eagle Lake

11 miles

My first solo night in Grizzly Country had been nice and quiet. Surprisingly no bear ripped down my tent… instead of any animals I heard the wind blowing fairly strong through the trees. Thankfully my tent seemed to be in a shaded spot and it barely moved at all.

As I had my shortest day ahead of me by just going over Triple Divide Pass and then downhill to Red Eagle Lake I decided to sleep in. I also had to get used to the fact that my food as well as my bathroom and toilet kit were hanging somewhere else. That’s definitely weird and inconvenient.

After sleeping in until eight and enjoying some morning sun I packed my stuff and made my way over to the food prep area. My foodbag was still hanging, untouched. Yay! I had breakfast without mosquitos and then got ready to go. The trail started climbing right away after the campground and I was in full swing hiking towards Triple Divide Pass.

(Holy crab! As I am writing these lines I am lying in my tent, it’s raining cats and dogs and I just wanted to point out the lightning to Soda – the guy in the tent next to me – when a big thunder swallowed my words. It’s close my friends…)

Back to Triple Divide… the landscape was nice as well as the weather and hiking up the pass I met probably five CDT hikers going south. I chatted with each of them about the hike and the trail conditions. Going up wasn’t too bad. There was no snow apart from one patch I had to cross early. Arriving on top of the pass I bumped into another German. We sat together for a while chatting and having our summit snacks. Then we said goodbye and both proceeded in different directions.

On the other side of the pass was quite a bit of snow (oh god, more thunder!) but it was less steep. I tried to follow the footsteps but realized many times that the sun did a good job with melting those away. Nevertheless I was pretty experienced now with route finding on snow and did a good job.

Further down I had to ford a couple of unbridged streams and got my feet finally all wet. It seems to happen every day! Arriving at the head of Eagle Lake a group of CDTers had already pitched their tents and Hammer had also a campfire going. Of course I dropped my pack to join them for a while. It was a bummer that I had a permit for camping at the foot of the lake – basically on the other side. But anyways, I joined the guys for a while and I thought it was actually a good idea to eat my tuna sandwich far away from where I was about to camp. Talking about Grizzlys…

The campground I am staying at is booked out as well. There’s two more CDTers and some day hikers. We all sat together and hung out food together (it’s a happening to watch people throw the line). I just made it to my tent before the serious rain and thunderstorm started.

But I am wondering how my Ursack is doing up in the air. It’s kind of open at the top and I am afraid that it will be a hanging food swimming pool by tomorrow morning. I’ll see… for now I have to hide from the thunder in my sleeping bag!