Montana – Cedars and Falls

After failing in our attempt at hiking a moderate hiking trail I adjusted our itinerary to include only easy hiking trails in the park. This wasn’t difficult because there are several. For this day (Aug 22) I picked a combination hike. The first trail is the Trail of the Cedars- a short loop trail that is either paved or board walked for its entire length. At the halfway point is the trailhead for the Avalanche Lake Trail. The total distance for both trails is about 6 miles.

This day started nicely with banana bread for breakfast and the sighting of 2 small grizzly bears right beside the road on our drive to the trails. The trails are on the West side of the park and we stayed on the East side. So we had to cross over the Continental Divide on the Going to the Sun Road to get there. While the Sun was shining on the East side as soon as we crossed over to the West side it was completely overcast. Once again we had a sunless day for pictures.

Both these trails cut through an old growth rain forest that hasn’t experienced a fire since the 1500’s. Because of this the forest floor was covered with fallen trees to such an extent that without the maintained trail it would be impossible to walk through the forest in many places. It did make for a beautiful place to hike, however.

The first .3 miles of the Avalanche Trail follows a swirling, tumbling very picturesque stream. I took lots of pictures.
Then the trail heads off into the forest with lots of ups and a few downs. This is a very popular trail and we saw many fellow hikers. Some of them were carrying babies and others had toddlers with them. Carrying my backpack was plenty for me, I couldn’t imagine carrying a kid for 6 miles. We didn’t see much in the way of wildlife on the trail—probably too many people.

When we reached the lake it was a majestic sight. The lake is rimmed halfway by a tall mountain with 4 nicely spaced waterfalls tumbling down the full length of the mountain. The lake was mostly calm and reflective. It had a wide shoreline with wooden benches providing a nice relaxing place to sit and enjoy. We had our lunch of PBJ sandwiches and ate our reward of peanut M&Ms for reaching our destination.
The hike back to the car went faster because it had more downs than ups. We reached the car tired but not worn out. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the Park Café again to have linner and razzleberry pie and coffee.

Back at the hotel Penny wanted to rest. Since the Sun was out I wandered around the hotel grounds and the lake taking pictures.