Lessons in Zen at Logging Lake
It seems our first night in the Glacier backcountry proved mildly successful. I've emerged from the 10 mile hike with little to no soreness in my recovering knee and Meisha, although sore and tired, made it in and out just fine despite her own recovering hip injury. The next few days will dictate how much more backcountry will be experienced. At this point, Meisha isn't feeling particularly confident about moving to more strenuous trails and multi-day treks. Injuries suck!
Logging Lake was quite gorgeous and we found ourselves relishing in the solitude and beauty by marveling at a bear across the lake, taking in the mountainscape, and having a cold but refreshing swim. We were looking forward to enjoying this solitude our hard work until… a family of 7 including 3 young children and grandma showed up! Thinking we had the place to ourselves, we had taken two of the three available tent sites at camp. Boy were we mistaken and the mother of the family was quick to let us know and she told Jared with a sense of brash entitlement "We have a party of 7 and specifically requested 2 sites, so you'd better figure it out." This suddenly became a lesson in how quickly a scenario can turn your expectations upside-down.
We spent the rest of our time at the campground enduring this entitled family as they took up the entire common cooking area, left gooey marshmallow sticks and smears out overnight (incredibly dangerous practice in bear country), and loudly scolded their children. Simply not the zen experience we were hoping for, but Jared reminded us of a simple phrase that we'd discussed at length the night before: "It just is", meaning this is neither good nor bad, just part of this section of our travel experience. The next morning was better as the family was a bit more cordial and as the three of us suspected, grandma was the cool one, taking time to take with us and get to know us. After snapping a few obligatory family photos by the lake, we happily left camp as early as possible and made a much quicker hike back to our vans at the trailhead.
Today we're taking a rest day at Quartz Creek and gearing up for whatever lies before us. Tomorrow we'll be exploring the "main" part of this enormous National Park by taking the park shuttle up the Going-To-The-Sun Road. We'll likely hop off for a quick day hike or two to help us get a better lay of the land and aide us in our decision of where to spend our time next. I'm really looking forward to seeing this park has to offer. Here's hoping the crowds and tourists don't further challenge our abilities to stay zen-like!
Okay, okay... we had entirely too much fun editing the video from Logging Lake. Trust me, the video is far more epic than the words you've just read. Watch and enjoy!
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