Window of alternative.A late summer season storm moved by Montana final week, pushing the smoke out, bringing useful rain, and offering best circumstances for our 2-night backpacking journey to Turquoise Lake on September 21-23 (2024). It was my first journey within the Mission Mountains since climbing East and West St. Marys Peaks close to St. Ignatius 5 years in the past.
Early chook.The turn-off to Turquoise Lake is 23 miles north of Seeley Lake. From Freeway 83 it’s an 11-mile drive on tough gravel to the trailhead. The parking zone was full when my buddy Murray and I arrived round midday on Saturday (9/21/24) – principally day-hikers out having fun with the final day of summer season. The hike to our campsite above Turquoise Lake ended up being 6.3 miles with 2,700 toes of elevation acquire on a properly graded path with nice surroundings all the way in which. The hike in took us about 3.5 hours. Upon arrival on the lake we claimed on of the few appropriate tent websites. There have been 4 or 5 teams (2-5 folks/group) of backpackers staying on the lake that night time, so some teams needed to pitch their tents on the rocks. Murray and I have been the one ones who spent Sunday night time on the lake.
Do you imagine in ghoats?The path was nice and Turquoise Lake lived as much as its title, however the spotlight of the journey got here at 1:30 am Sunday morning when our camp was visited by a mama mountain goat and her child. The brilliant moon highlighted their silhouettes, giving them a ghostly look as they stood on the ledge above our tents. Seems they crave the salts in our urine, in order that they have been there to lick up our pee. Appears kinda gross however we certain loved watching them! 4 goats confirmed up at about the identical time the following night time to slurp up their deal with.
Exploration day.Lakes are nice locations for backpack journeys however it appears that evidently no journey is full with out bagging a peak. So, on Sunday Murray and I set off to discover the south facet of the lake with the objective of climbing onto a ridge or mountain that will give us view of the better space. We ended up ascending an un-named peak between the remnants of two glaciers. From there we had a pleasant view of the lake under and McDonald Peak within the distance. Though the hike was solely 5.5 miles spherical journey, it was extremely tough – no path, fixed bush-whacking, scrambling up and down steep slopes all day, rock-hopping, and loads of scree. I’m glad we did it, however I wouldn’t advocate it. If in case you have the necessity to discover, climb so far as you may on the north facet of the lake. Now go benefit from the photograph tour, and make sure to learn the captions!
FYI – I’ve an Instagram account. I’ll attempt to submit one thing fascinating no less than as soon as every week. Test it out: rodbenson406
Beneath: This map marks hikes which have been featured on bigskywalker.com to this point, together with a number of in Glacier Park – Choose full display to broaden, zoom in for extra element, or click on on a marker for a hyperlink to the submit.
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