Montana Escapades: Glen Lake

Glen Lake Tour:

Distance: ~6 miles

Vertical: 2,600ft

It isn't often I'm pressed for time when I go out on a tour. This was not the case, and it made the whole tour go w/ a different feel. I'm not sure if I enjoyed this time crunch, but I did enjoy the tour. The lack of time was from a requirement to pick my wife up from the airport. I felt as though she might frown if I didn't show up. In any case, I either grossly overestimated the required time, or I was just speedy.. I'll go with the latter.

This is our ~~dog~~ child, Marshall. Coming up on 6 years young. A Basset Hound by default has short legs, and as you might expect, these are not the same short tools equipped by his K9 cousins that are meant for snow travel. Regardless, I took him out New Year's day for a demo. I was guilt tripped into it since Merete is away, and I have been leaving him behind on the most recent tours.

Marshall and I went up with the intention of poking around the trail-head area for Glen Lake. We were only able to make it in the Escape about 4 switch backs before the trailhead, or 2.5 miles. Luckily, I assume one of those track buggies (not sure what the real name is) had gone on further cutting ~2ft tracks in the road for us to follow.

See what I mean? This thing must have been gnarly... I want one!

Looking south down the Bitterroot valley.

Marshall with his "Paws Booties"

I will say if you have a furbaby and thinking of bringing them, but are afraid of their feet getting cold. Assuming they are more adept at snow travel, Paws Booties are awesome, they are basically a really thick rubber balloon. Marshall hated the thicker booties we got b/c he couldn't properly bend his paws, resulting in some inefficient, but hilarious movements.

Trying to blaze his own trail...

We made it up to the Glen Lake trailhead and I could certainly tell Marshall was beginning to bonk on me. We turned around and in the end, had a fun ~4.5mile little outing together.

Anyways, onto the main event.. the Glen Lake tour on Jan. 4th, 2014

Weather was super windy, and thus quite cold. I didn't shed a layer the entire time... which is rare for me. In fact I covered my face and wore my ski goggles nearly the entire time to shield myself from the near relentless wind.

"Boss Hog" not really 'boss' just a hog...

Can you spot the snow bunny?

Just about the entire way is filled with, what I imagine, are amazing views if the weather cooperates. Most everything is very open, thanks to the burn I s'pose. The area needs another foot or two of the fresh for full-on tree skiing, otherwise slow cautious movement should be rendered out of respect for underlying brush waiting to break/twist ligaments.

Coming over the ridge, working west towards Glen Lake.

The bowl-ish area just below "Upper Glen Lake"? Not sure of the name...

To the right of Glen Lake, is another small lake/pond, we'll call this Upper Glen Lake for now; below that is a very fun looking bowl area going down into the Big Creek area between this point and St. Mary. It looks to be nearly filled in enough if anyone is interested! There is a pretty quick & obvious way out at the bottom as well that doesn't appear to require much bush whacking at all.

First sighting of Glen Lake.

Looking SW at the side of Glen Lake.

Looking NW at the side of Glen Lake.

I've been playing w/ the idea of camping, probably spring time. Glen Lake struck me as a great area to do so. Plenty of area to explore in all directions of the lake. Let me know if you have other spots you know of!

South from Glen Lake.

Tree skiing!

From Glen Lake, I went south and hit up some great, albeit slow, tree skiing. As I said, the area needs another foot or so before one can safely open up the taps. I edged out on a couple of fallen trees/brush on a few turns, and there are plenty of pointy burnt stumps left over from the burn.