Joyce and Bill were going to pick me up around noon. I raced home so I would be home when they arrived. The traffic was terrible and I only got home a few minutes before they arrived.
In Columbia Falls we picked up Sue Ann and Arnie.
The Boundary Trail starts at the West Glacier townsite and follows the southern boundary of Glacier Park along the Middle Fork of the Flathead River. The trail is relatively level but does have ups and downs as one cannot always follow the river due to rocks and cliffs. A few times the trail switchbacked up a hill.
The trailhead is at the original park entrance bridge built back in the 1920s. The park had stopped using the bridge before the 1960s, but the 1964 flood washed away the bridge then being used. The original bridge still stood after the flood and was used for two years until the bridge now used for the park entrance was built. The original bridge is now blocked off to vehicles but makes a nice walking bridge.
The river is low but reflects the Fall colors nicely. The Aspen, Birch, Cottonwood, and Tamarack (Western Larch) are all turning yellow and gold. I think this is the best time of year to hike the Boundary Trail.
This time of year is when one realizes the land is not covered completely by evergreen trees. These yellow trees are Tamaracks. The needles turn yellow in the Fall before falling off like leaves for the Winter.
During the hike in I was mainly in the lead. We weren't too long into the hike when I found a canister (and holster) of bear spray laying on the side of the trail. I shook the canister and it appears to have bear spray. My lucky day as I do not own bear spray.
There were numerous piles of bear scat on the trail, with and without berries. I think there was more scat on this trail than on any of our other hikes. We never saw a bear, though I saw a deer, some squirrels, and a partridge, grouse, or ptarmigan (I'm not sure which it was).
During one of our stops at an overlook, Joyce and Sue Ann noticed bubbles in the river on the other side. We thought it was an underground culvert with water from a stream routed under the highway and train tracks. A minute later a scuba diver appeared wearing a full wet suit. We were all so surprised we forgot to ask him why he was diving at that location. Certainly not for fun.
The trail follows the north side of the river. On the other side of the river is the Burlington Northern Sante Fe railroad tracks, and just beyond that is Hwy 2. The train tracks were a pretty consistent level just above the river. The highway was near the train tracks to high above the tracks, depending on the terrain. There were numerous tunnels for the train. On the hike in I only noticed one or two tunnels, but on the hike back I noticed a half dozen or more tunnels.
Quite a number of trains passed by during our hike. The westbound trains were mostly grain cars, and the eastbound trains mainly were flatbed cars that held shipping containers. No cabooses were on the trains, and no box cars. I think with all these shipping containers the box cars will fade away from use as they age and aren't replaced.
The hike was mainly quiet except when the trail was near the same level as the highway when it had plenty of traffic. And the trains were noisy as their wheels made a screeching sound as they rounded around the bends. I thought the sound were the train brakes as the train was coming down off the pass, but Arnie used to work as brakeman and he said it was the wheels on one side as the train went around a bend in the track.
About 5 miles into the hike we crossed a swinging bridge that crossed Lincoln Creek. On the other side of the bridge, up a high bank, was a cabin - closed and locked up.
Photo 1 shows the bridge and the cabin in the background.
Photo 2 is of a small stream. You can barely see the water in the center of the photo.
A nearby sign indicated the distance to Harrison Creek was another 1.9 miles. Bill, Joyce, and Sue Ann did not want to hike the 1.9 miles to the Harrison Creek junction. We had hiked the 5 miles in 2 hrs 15 minutes and it was 3 pm now. Arnie and I considered hiking further with Arnie leaning towards doing so. The others offered to drive and get Arnie and I after they hiked back to the car. Even knowing that we would have to ford the river to get from the trail to Hwy 2 didn't immediately dissuade Arnie. I said I would go whichever way Arnie decided.
In the end we decided to hike back with the group as we didn't have footwear for fording the river, and we can ford and hike to Harrison Lake next week. The others joked that I could carry Arnie on my back across the river. You can see who the group favors.
That settled, we got some logs to use as chairs and positioned them on the top of the high bank overlooking Lincoln Creek and the swinging bridge. We ate our lunch here.
The hike back seemed much longer than the hike in. The others joked that was because I had found a big rock to carry. Maybe that was the reason.
Still I don't remember going around so many bends in the river during our hike in.The two photos are of the same rock taken minutes apart. It appears the background brings out different colors in the rock.
Joyce said it took us exactly 2 hours to hike back out. I guess the distance wasn't longer.
After returning to Joyce's car, we decided to drive up Highway 2 to search for the access where we can ford the river to the Harrison Lake Trail if we hike it next week. We found a side road off the highway and drove down to the railroad tracks. Standing on the tracks or the river bank below we could not see any trail on the other side of the river. We hiked up and down the train tracks searching but found nothing.
Sue Ann claimed to have hiked to Harrison Lake in the past but her memory of where to ford the river were hazy to useless. Her main remembrance of the river ford was how miserable it was and she focused on that.
We gave up and drove further east in search of another side road to the Harrison Lake Trail access, or more likely the side road to where we could ford the river to access the trail to Loneman Mountain. We also want to hike up that mountain. Arnie had hiked up it over 25 years ago, and it is supposed to be a nice hike with 360 degree views, but we weren't sure which mountain was Loneman. We had a general idea but with an elevation of 7181 ft I expected plenty of snow on its top. The likely candidate didn't have much snow on top.
We found a couple of side roads but they led into private residences. One place - with plenty of "no trespassing" signs plastered about after we crossed the railroad tracks - was a nice looking place with a number of cute and tidy buildings and a nice lawn. Seeing no one outside to ask about the river fords, we left - not that we were eager to get out of the car after seeing all those "no trespassing" signs.
Later, after driving a ways to a dead end on a road paralleling the railroad tracks (it was a railroad maintenance road), we called it quits. We will have to consult our maps and guidebooks for more specific directions rather than relying on hazy memories.
We never got back to Columbia Falls until 7:10 pm. Later than we expected. But it was a good hike and a good day.
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