Wednesday, February 3, 2010, Joyce and I hiked to Stanton Lake, which is located in the Great Bear Wilderness.
The Stanton Lake trail head is located 15 miles east of West Glacier, MT, along Hwy 2 and just east of the Stanton Lake Lodge.
The distance to the foot of Stanton Lake is about 1.2 miles, and to the head of the lake, two miles.
The elevation change is not much at 250 feet. However the elevation gain is all at once near the beginning so this rules out cross country skiing on this trail for the average skier.
Joyce and I hadn't been on this trail before and didn't know what to expect so we brought our skis, snowshoes and hiking boots. The snow had been packed down by foot traffic so snowshoes weren't necessary.Joyce didn't have yak-traks along so she used her snowshoes on the way back down the hill to keep from slipping on the hard packed snow. I brought my snowshoes along but once again never used them.
Joyce mainly carried her snowshoes in her hands but for part of the way she tucked them in her coat.
It was extremely quiet the entire hike. The only sound we heard was several times when we briefly heard birds.
Once at the lake we could see beyond to Great Northern Mountain.
We walked to the far end of Stanton Lake. This is the view back towards Hwy 2 and mountains in Glacier Park.
Just beyond the lake we could see a mountain to the SW with a clear avalanche chute.
After visiting Stanton Lake we checked out the side trail to Grant Ridge. This side trail crossed over a large beaver dam at the foot of the Stanton Lake.
Once across, we followed tracks along the lake shore, and other than a few exploratory checks up in the trees, we never followed the Grant Ridge trail. I had never been on this trail so we decided not to try to find it under the snow.
