Trip Report: A New Vantage Point in Glacier

BY MARK WETHERINGTON

On paper, our backpacking trip to Glacier National Park looked enjoyable, arguably unambitious. We planned to cover only about 20 miles, all on well-maintained trails, over four days. The reason for this leisurely-bordering-on-lethargic pace? To allow ourselves plenty of time to cruise around in packrafts on the three different lakes we would camp at.

We got lucky and picked up canceled permits just a few weeks prior to our trip for both campsites on one of Glacier’s most popular hikes: the Dawson-Pitamakan Pass Loop. On a whim, we added a detour at the beginning of our trip to hike to Upper Two Medicine Lake for the first night. Even with this addition, our itinerary left plenty of time to experience the grandeur of Glacier’s lakes via packraft. The days were warm, sunny, and the winds were mild by any measurement but seemed almost nonexistent in the context of the infamously windy east side of the Continental Divide, where our trip took place. 

There was something indescribably profound and almost euphoric about experiencing the lakes from their centers, rather than merely from their shores. The perspective from the middle of the lakes left us awestruck at the geology that created the mountains beneath which the lakes were tucked. And the packrafts allowed us to access areas for fishing that would’ve been impossible to reach on foot. We even stumbled across a mountain goat skull on the far shoreline of Oldman Lake that we never would have encountered without having boats to get us there. 

In addition to the novel viewscape the packrafts provided, the act of paddling on the glassy waters was a serene and meditative way to stay active while also unwinding after arriving in camp. While this was our first time bringing packrafts to Glacier’s lakes on a backpacking trip, it definitely won’t be our last!