Dear Friends and Family,

So my next day at Glacier, I spent once again at Many Glacier. The area is just so spectacular, it’s worth visiting time and time again.

Haze included.

As the name suggests, Many Glacier is full to bursting with icy glaciers and frigid lakes, including today’s destination: Iceberg Lake.

There isn’t too much to say about this hike that was different from yesterday; the trail was trying and spectacularly beautiful, all at once. However, this go around I got up early enough to take my sweet time and hike at a leisurely pace all the way up.

What a sweet and sublime joy it is to be able to mosey, to stop and stoop and sniff at flowers at your own pace (and I stopped for just about every one). But eventually my eyes rose again and the flowers and the trail had finally lead me to my destination:

Do you see it? That tiny corner of blue?

Here she comes

Theeeere she is! Iceberg Lake. She lives up to her name:

Icebergs dot and scatter Iceberg Lake all over, as remnants from last winter. Apparently this was a relatively warm year for this side of Glacier, as the lake is often still frozen only until the end of June. But this year we got lucky and had icebergs as our swimming companions.

–Record Scratch–

Wait, swimming companions?

That’s right! As a God-fearing Michigander, I am bound by law and custom to jump in any and all lakes I see, and I fulfil my destiny regardless of the water temperature.

… which, today, was 34 degrees F. I know this for a fact since the University of Montana survey team was on Grinnel Lake the day before, and told me that was what they had measured that lake at, and that higher lakes like Iceberg would probably be colder.

Now, the fifteen cents and a nail and a shell of a great great great grandfather snail that I paid for this WordPress website doesn’t afford me the memory or the bandwidth to host video. BUT it does enable me to upload the stills from the video, and I will inevitably show you, dear reader, the real one in person. But until then, let these viewmaster stills suffice 🙂

Charging in, undaunted, with a friend I made at the hostel (his girlfriend was, smartly, staying on shore and taking the video).

My friend hesitated but nothing can stop meeeeeee!!!!

It’s not a real plunge unless you get your hair wet! All of it!

VICTORYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!

At this moment, I am saying to the camera in the sincerest way possible: “that is the only lake I’ve been in colder than Lake Superior.”

And it was, genuinely, the only lake I have ever entered colder than Lake Superior. Any much colder and there won’t be a lake to jump into: the lake would still be frozen! If anyone knows of a 32.5 F lake I can jump into, let me know, as I would eventually like to break this record 😁.

What a hoot. My friend and I got dried off and eventually made our way back down the trail. The climb back down was uneventful, except for running into a group of hikers all stopped together on the trail, at which events you know it’s about to get very eventful.

My camera couldn’t get a good photo at our safe viewing distance, but this is what we all stopped for:

Way, way down the hill, in the upper center third of the photo (I know that makes no sense when you read it, but you really can’t see it anyways) was a grizzly bear! It was one of a pair living in the area, one of which is tagged, which is why a ranger had known where it was and could stop hikers on the trail.

What a sight! If I am the boy in the Iceberg, then this bear was surely my Appa.

God, why did the Lord give bears such adorable ears while simultaneously making them into unstoppable killing machines?

Put more simply: if bear not friend, why soft and round?

These questions, and more, answered in the next post from Glacier 🙂

Stay well everyone,

Evan 💙