Lookout and back

We woke up and had breakfast the next morning (more backpacker's food), and got packed up to head out. Check out time was 10am, plus we wanted to have time to do more hiking. Unfortunately, as we were packing, I discovered that our second can of bear spray was missing! I was distraught, but chagrined, because this time *I* had been the one in possession of the can in question. We searched all over and asked all over and even tried to buy another can from the chalet (they didn't have any in stock), and finally just had to be resigned to making lots and lots of noise on the trail so we could be certain we wouldn't need one! I was thinking for a while that the can had been stolen (and looked suspiciously around at the other guests holding identical cans), but we heard from our Livermore friends later that they had overheard some ladies talking about how the had been so "lucky" as to "find" a can on the ground. It turns out I left it over by the outhouse (probably right when we first arrived--I was a little distracted about my need to get in there, fast!) It probably fell off the belt of my pack.

It was sad that they hadn't seen fit to turn it in to the front desk or anything. Especially considering that we'd found a Nalgene bottle on the trail the day before (a full Nalgene bottle, mind you--so it was heavy), which I schlepped all the way up to the chalet and turned in to the grateful owners who had lost it earlier that day. I guess Karma wasn't working for us just then. Ah, well. We figured maybe they would end up needing the bear spray in a bear encounter, and so we'd effectively saved their lives. What heroes we are!

Anyway, our main task for the day was to hike back down the way we had come. We decided before we went back down, though, that we wanted to go up a bit more first--to the top of the Swiftcurrent Lookout. Another 2,000-ish feet up is a small lookout building where a ranger stays all the time, watching for fires. It was a steep hike up, and pretty darn strenuous! It was also partly snow-covered. But the views were worth it, and it was fun to talk to the ranger about what it's like to live life at the top of the world! (Very hard to sleep in late up there, as you can imagine.) He also pointed out the different glaciers that were visible from there, and we chatted with a young couple who had also made the trek up. The guy was a geology Ph.D. student, and he showed us some cool things about the rocks up there.

It was cold and windy, and it looked like a storm was coming, so we decided we'd better head back down pretty quick. Going down is always the hardest part for me, because my knees start to complain. We did take a shortcut at one point and just slid down the face of the snow rather than doing a whole bunch of switchbacks. I put on my rain pants and just slid down on my derriere. (It turned out to be steeper than it looked--I was going really fast! At one point I started turning unintentionally and Kevin said I was thrashing about like an upturned turtle. But once I righted myself things were okay.) Kevin decided to "ski" down on just his boots. He sort of half ran/half skiied down. I prefer my way, personally.

After that it was just back down the way we came the day before. It did start raining after a little while, but not too hard. We kept putting on our rain gear and taking it off and putting it on...We enjoyed those same glorious views as on the way up. My knees and especially my feet were hurting a lot, though. (Partially blister related and partially toes getting jammed in the front of my boots from going down the whole time). I was very, very happy once we got back to the trail head and I could give them a rest!

We had dinner at the Park Cafe again, which was WAY crowded this time. We had to wait forever, but eventually we got to enjoy some yummy pie (oh, and dinner too). Kevin went into the little shop next door to buy us *another* can of bear spray, since we needed to replace the one we were borrowing from Bad Rock B&B and which was now lost.

Right about this time, Kevin's phone started getting reception again, and he received all these texts and messages from work. Naturally, some disaster that only Kevin could fix had happened while we were hiking in the backcountry. We were supposed to be driving south down to East Glacier Park, but instead, Kevin had to put out the work fire. We went to a few places looking for a decent internet connection for him, but all of them were slower than slow. Finally, we just decided to go back up to see if the Johnsons would let us use their connection even though we were already checked out. Kevin slaved for several hours getting things back on track, or at least out of disaster mode. It was getting late by now, and we still had like an hour and a half of driving ahead of us before we got to the place were I'd made reservations for the next night. So we finally headed off, after I called and asked if they could just leave our key in the door or something (since the front office was going to be closed). Luckily, they did, and we eventually made it. The cabin was really nice and we both loved it, but unfortunately we were so tired that we couldn't really enjoy it but just crashed right into bed.

Actually, that's not quite true. *I* crashed right into bed. Kevin drove around the little town at least an hour trying to find some wifi signal or something he could use to finish working on whatever the problem was. Eventually he gave up and just came back and went to bed. Kevin's work did NOT win any brownie points with me this day!!