Glacier National Park: Grinnell Glacier Trail
With one job ending in June and the next not starting until September, we spent most of this past summer on the road. It’s now mid-October, and I’m finally getting the chance to seriously sort through the resulting pictures.
Our last big stop of the summer was Glacier National Park in Montana and neighboring Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada. Glacier was one of the few remaining national parks in the west I had yet to visit, so I was excited that we were able to squeeze this trip in. Despite uncharacteristically foul weather for mid-August, a harrowing experience on the park shuttle bus, campgrounds with problem bears (and problem campers), and an unscheduled detour to an auto parts store in Cardston, Alberta, we managed to get in 60+ miles of hiking among some truly first-class scenery. Our most memorable hike was the trek to Grinnell Glacier in the northeast corner of the park. Here are a few photos from that journey:
Sunrise light on Mt. Grinnell, reflected in the tranquil waters of Swiftcurrent Lake, Glacier National Park, Montana.
Hiking through the redbeds of the Grinnell Formation on the way to Grinnell Glacier. The Grinnell Formation, part of the Belt Supergroup, is a ~1.5 billion year old unit of sedimentary rock that preserves ancient ripple marks, mud cracks, rain drop imprints and more in its maroon layers.Â
Panoramic view of Grinnell Glacier (left) and Upper Grinnell Lake. The lake has existed only since the 1930s. In the early 1900s, Grinnell Glacier filled the basin now occupied by the lake, at one point depositing the sediment in the moraine the photographer is standing on. Today, only a small piece of Grinnell Glacier remains. As temperatures have warmed, the glacier has retreated leaving Upper Grinnell Lake in its place. The milky blue-green color of the lake is due to finely powdered rock (“glacial flour”) suspended in the water.
Cliffs of dark gray limestone belonging to the Helena Formation tower above Upper Grinnell Lake. The thin band of darker rock cutting horizontally across the cliffs is an igneous sill, formed when magma intruded along a plane of weakness in the limestone and then solidified. The lighter rock immediately above and below the sill is marble, created when the hot magma “cooked” the limestone into which it had intruded.
A thunderstorm approaches over the Garden Wall on the descent from Grinnell Glacier. This was the final photo I took on the hike. We spent most of the next hour running the several remaining miles back to the trailhead as thunder and flashes of lightning exploded behind us.
A bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) alongside the trail, with Grinnell Glacier in the background.
Zach Schierl Photography 
Beautiful photos!! Great post and information!!
October 19, 2019 at 10:01 am