Virginia Falls

Wednesday, June 13, I hiked in Glacier Park with Bill, Joyce, and Sue Ann. We did the Virginia Falls hike we had scheduled for last Friday but canceled due to cloudy, chance of rain, weather. Wouldn't you know it, the first cloudy day since last Friday was Wednesday. In the morning I checked the Glacier Park webcam for the St. Mary valley and it was cloudy on the east side of the Park too.

We went anyway.

Because the hike was on the east side of the Park, and the Going-to-the-Sun road is not open yet (which meant driving the long way around on Hwy 2), we started our drive early. Bill and Joyce picked me up by 8 am, then we got Sue Ann.

8 am. Early. Very early for me. While I went to bed early for me (12:30 am), I had to get up by 6:30 am. 6 hours of sleep. Towards the end of the drive, and when Sue Ann began to run out of things to talk about, I started to catnap. While the scenery along the east side is great, I needed a bit more sleep. Besides I saw this scenery three or so weeks ago when Bill and I hiked to Red Rock Falls.

We arrived at the trail head at 10:38 am. We started our hike from Sun Point. This is a longer route. It was 1.7 miles to the junction of St Mary Falls trail, which has a shorter route that comes directly from the Sun road. The shorter route is .3 mile: far shorter, but also steeper. The longer route goes along St Mary Lake and is gentler in the elevation change. Also one sees great views of the lake from this trail.


Glacier Park also has a web site with a trail map where photos appear when one places their cursor over the location numbers. As I still do not have a camera, you can see a few photos using this web site. Click here.

The longer route also passes by Baring Falls which is quite nice. When my uncle and aunt visited me a few years ago I got them to hike to Baring Falls. Baring Falls is .3 mile from the Sun Road.

The log bridge over the creek below Baring Falls is new. I think the heavy rains of last November may have washed the previous bridge away.

St Mary Falls is also nice. After a short look-see we continued up the trail to Virginia Falls. Virginia Fall is another .6 mile beyond St Mary Falls with a moderate elevation gain. The trail mostly follows the creek up to Virginia Falls with several very nice mini-falls along the way.

The St Mary / Virginia Falls trail had people hiking on it. For a while as we walked I conversed with a family from Wichita Falls, Texas. Husband, wife, two early teenage daughters, and an infant strapped to the front of mom's chest and sleeping peacefully.

Virginia Falls is a very high falls. One can stand near the bottom of the falls, and when I stood on the wet rocks where the creek flows away from the falls, the fall's spray would mist heavily on me. The force of the falling water generated a rush of air that carried the spray out from the falls. This was a cloudy, cool, day so I didn't stand there long.

I found a piece of wood shaped like a duck or seagull lodged in the water against a rock. As I washed the sand off the wood the others started back. I saw them go down the trail without taking the side trail that crossed a bridge of the creek even further down from the falls. I took the side trail to get a view of both the high falls and also a lower falls below it.

I figured the others, having visited these falls before, didn't intend to view the falls from this location. I found out when I later caught up to them, they had missed the side trail. They had intended to go there to eat lunch.

At the junction of the St Mary Falls and St Mary Lake trails, one could also go west to catch the Gunsight Trail which also has a side trail to Florence Falls. That was our goal. However as we started up the trail it began to rain. After we put our coats on Sue Ann and Bill decided it wasn't worth hiking to Florence Falls in the rain. So we turned around and hiked back along the lake.

We met a couple sitting under a rock overhang out of the rain, having their lunch with a view of the lake. A short time later the rain stopped. We should have preserved and hiked to Florence Falls.

At a viewpoint where we could see St Mary Lake and Virginia Falls across the lake we stopped and ate our lunch.

Back at the Sun Point parking lot we walked out to Sun Point itself. High above the lake on a rocky point, it was a beautiful view up and down the lake and towards the Continental Divide mountains. It was very windy here.

All total we hiked 6 miles.

After we left the Park we stopped at the Park Cafe in St Mary for some pie. The cafe was busy but we got a table as soon as they cleared the dishes from a table. Bill, Joyce and I had a slice of pie. I had a cranberry-blueberry piece of pie. Yum. It was juicy and I hated to leave any bit left. I wanted to lick the plate clean, but didn't as I was in a restaurant.

Joyce and I catnapped part of the drive back while Sue Ann chatted and kept Bill company on the drive.

At mile marker 203 on Hwy 2 we stopped to look for the Firebrand Pass trail. This is the trail we plan to hike Friday. I was the person who suggested hiking this trail, but the only description of the trail I have is what I found on the internet. The trail is a few miles east of Marias Pass at the False Summit. The directions say:

The trailhead to Firebrand Pass can be found at mile marker 203 on US Highway 2.
Follow a dirt road over the railroad tracks to a dirt road that is blocked.
Follow this for about 0.5 mile to the old Lubec Ranger Station, burned in 1980. The trail begins here.

There is no road over the railroad tracks. There was a large flat area between the highway and the railroad tracks and a car and pickup were parked there. No road... this can't be the area, can it?

I spotted a small sign in the grass across the railroad tracks. I went over the railroad tracks and found a trail through the grass to an opening in a fence. Inside the fence I found a small metal sign that Glacier Park uses to mark trails and list distances. The sign listed Firebrand Pass as being 7 km away. This was one of the old Park signs where the distances are only in kilometers, and not both kilometers and miles.

Well, this is the trail. The hike looks promising as the terrain is mostly open with the mountains rising as one to the north. Somewhere up there is Firebrand Pass.