Mosaic Monday # 71: Spread Your Wings

Last night, we submitted our on-line applications for summer backcountry camping in Glacier National Park (GNP)!  Along with hundreds of other people!  After all, midnight marked the first time this year that you could enter applications.  We won't hear the outcome for weeks, but it has me in a dreamy mood.  Of boots and backpacks.  Lakes and legends.  Flowers and fishing (well, fishing for Man with Hat).  What better time to revisit one of our hikes from 2017?

Wednesday, September 6, 2017 - Pitamakan Pass - 15.4 miles out and back (Entry 21 in Hiking Journal)

We launched this trek from the Two Medicine campground, a car accessible encampment on the east side of GNP and our home for two nights.  By checking in the evening before, it enabled Head Chef to cook up a hearty breakfast, kick-starting the hike in style. 

The first part of the trail was surprising - mostly meadow and open terrain.  Quickly we arrived at a dry creek bed with a sturdy bridge, belying the torrents that rush this way in the spring.  Nearby cottonwoods sported yellow leaves, which occasionally drifted downward in a lazy spiral to crunch beneath our dusty boots.

A gradual incline and a trail that seemed to point due west offered views of Mount Morgan and Red Mountain.  The autumn season displayed its wares in the form of profuse berries, and flowers that had long since dried on the stem.  Red huckleberry foliage contrasted with the juniper and crumbling beargrass.

Biscuitroot - as beautiful now as it was when it first bloomed

We arrived at the fork for Oldman Lake/Pitamakan Pass three hours later, and then began our assault of the Pass.  From the base of the cliff, it is almost impossible to discern the switchbacks that are cleverly woven into the rock face.

The Pass is smack in the middle of this picture.  Can you see any trail?  Nope!

Mount Morgan towers above Oldman Lake

With each turn, Oldman Lake fell further below us, until finally we reached a relatively narrow ledge that ran between Oldman Lake and Pitamakan Lake.









The drop-off to Pitamakan Lake takes your breath - straight down, my friends!  As my father-in-law likes to say - stop and look, or an unexpected tumble will follow!

Given the treacherous nature of this terrain, it is altogether fitting that Pitamakan Pass is eponymous with the female warrior leader of the Blackfeet Nation in the early 1700s.  She had a vision in the area and went on to lead her tribe through many successful raids.  She was the only woman in the tribe to ever lead, or be given a man's name, which translates to Running Eagle.  

Left: Looking north toward Morning Star Lake     Middle: Yep, that's the trail!      Right: McClintock Peak

Note: the more we hike in GNP, the easier it is to "connect the dots".  My post on August 25, 2019 included camping at Atlantic Creek Campground, which we accessed through Triple Divide Pass.  You could also arrive at Atlantic Creek from this direction, if you went 6 miles north, past Pitamakan Lake and Morning Star Lake.  Something about that really tickles me!

Perched on a rocky outcropping with a 360-degree panorama, we dug into our lunch of rice and beans.  We certainly needed that carbo load after 7.7 miles and 1,850 feet of elevation gain. Only the smoke and haze from that summer's forest fires could slightly dampen our mood, affecting as they did the quality of the views and our photos.

Re-tracing our steps along the switchbacks, we felt that familiar quadricep burn as we descended to the fork in the trail that leads to Oldman Lake.  The short side path down to the lake travels through a ghostly forest of dead whitebark pines, the result of white pine blister rust, a fungal disease that was accidentally introduced from Europe around 1900.

As the trail meandered through those pines we spotted fresh bear scat.  One hiker informed us a couple had told him they'd seen a grizzly at the head of the lake the night before.  With heightened awareness, we traipsed to the lake's edge, where Man with Hat promptly set to fishing.  He caught three cutthroat, but I was only able to document one since the others speedily wriggled off the hook.

Don't worry - it was released!

We left the lake behind, and without a bear sighting.  Fine by me.  I was satisfied to be surrounded by prolific yellow butterflies instead - Clouded Sulphur.

In no time we found ourselves back in the meadow, the sun drenching us in sweat, and the dust puffing up from the trail with every step.  The stream flowing perpendicular to the trail proved too much to resist.  Aaahhh.  Weary feet in cool mountain water - only two scoops of mint chocolate chip ice cream on a hot day could be any more refreshing.

With less than a mile to the campground, we squeezed our way through several brushy sections of the trail.  The sun had passed behind Rising Wolf Mountain, and my phone told me it was nearly 6 p.m.  In other words, time for wild critters to reclaim the backcountry.  You can imagine my nerves were jangling like a tambourine when those bushes started making a rustling noise!  Man with Hat stepped between me and the offending bush, and the pumping adrenalin propelled me all the way back to the tent like a rocket!

With deep satisfaction, we sank into our camp chairs and removed our boots and socks.  We recounted the day's events, adult beverages loosening the accumulated trail dust and our tongues.  And we raised a glass to Pitamakan, wishing for a small portion of her prowess and courage.  To Running Eagle!  

"No one can predict to what heights you might soar.  Even you will not know until you spread your wings."  -- Gil Atkinson

Mosaic Monday

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