Bergjord Boarding

June 2017

By: Luke

This is the story about Sam and I accidently went for a 17 mile hike.

We were camping on the west side of Glacier National Park just north of Apgar in Fish Creek Campgrounds. Our lot was right on Lake Macdonald and a walking path that followed its coast.

I had been looking at the map for a hike for us to go on. One trail started right near our tent and went to the Lake Macdonald Lodge. I came up with the plan to hike the ~5 miles there in the morning and get there to have a lunch, rest, and make our way back.

We were propelled forward with the excitement of striding into nature. Pretty early on my foot slipped and got into a puddle and I really considered calling it quits instead of having a wet foot for the rest of the day. I didn’t want to poop on our parade so I just sucked it up and with that ignored our bad omen.

The trail was not very well kept. We didn’t lose track of where it was leading us, but it was clearly not a frequented trail. That being said, we had a stunning view over the lake almost the entire time.

We started to figure out that we were in trouble when we didn’t run into the Lake Macdonald Lodge. Our halfway resting spot never appeared and we just spent 4 hours walking ourself into nowhere.

We just kept on walking because we saw that this trail eventually turned into a paved road. And on that paved road was a ranger station. We we finally hit pavement there was a family in a truck that drove down to the end of the for no apparent reason. The man driving asked if we had bear mace. We told him no and his response was to say, “Good Luck!” and drive away.

We made it to the ranger station and had to walk around a bit to even find someone. We tracked two rangers down and were mustering up to ask for a lift back to our campsite but park rangers can’t have civilians in their vehicles.

That plan backfired! They did let us fill our water bottles before taking off again. Our only options left were to turn back and hike another 14 miles or hike 3 to the highway and hitch a ride. We were properly freaked out by the man in the truck who left us to be bear food, so the highway it was.

We were properly plodding at this point. We left the challenging terrane behind but we still had miles to cover. We were also feeling anxious about having to somehow get back to our campground.

Our energy tanks were riding on nothing and we still had a mile before the highway. Sam had picked up a stone with a groove in the middle and she had been rubbing that to battle anxiety. And when I needed it the most we were surrounded by butterflies. All of a sudden they were just everywhere. My grandma Pat had passed just a couple of years before and butterflies make me think of her because she had them on her urn. Back then it was rare for me to go a day without thinking of her. She went on walks every single day and wouldn’t have broken a sweat at our little forest trek.

Before we knew it we hit highway and had to face entirely different challenge. Samie put all her energy into remaining standing and I started looking toward the cars passing by. Before I could even stick a thumb out a car pulled over for us. They asked if we needed a ride and we said yes please.

It was an Australian couple named Tim and Sue. They were retired teachers taking a tour of US National Parks. They were really funny and nice. They insisted on taking us all the way to the entrance to our campground. When we were getting out I laid a $20 on their armrest and said that it wasn’t much, but we really appreciate the ride.

Sam and I started our walk from the campground entrance to our tent. Not a long journey but our legs were not up to it and we regretted not letting Tim and Sue drive us further. About halfway to our tent was a bathroom and Sam went in to sit down while I went ahead to get the car to come back and pick her up and drive the rest of the way. After that it was my turn to have a long sit on the toilet for really no other reason than to just sit.

When I got back after my toilet time out Samie had a funny smile on her face. She then told me that Tim and Sue had driven all over the campground looking for us to return the $20 we left for them. Incredible people.

After sitting for a while we drove to Apgar Village to eat at Eddie’s Cafe. We ordered huckleberry lemonades and the fish & chips. Nothing had tasted better than that lemonade at that moment.

By the end of the day we had done an entire loop around Lake Macdonald. We were very lucky more bad things didn’t happen to us. As far as “bad days” go, this is a very mild one.

This story is probably why Sam plans most things now.