Iceberg Lake

Thursday, June 30, 2005

We had breakfast in the hotel at 8am, then got our gear ready for the day's hike. We drove the car a short distance down the road to the Iceberg Lake trailhead. The trail had a gentle slope upwards to Iceberg lake, with a distance of 4.7 miles each way. The temperature was perfect, not too hot, not too cold, and it was mostly blue skies, with just a few puffy clouds around. We saw all kinds of wildlife along the way, with lots of small waterfalls coming down the mountain. There were a number of other hikers making the climb, and we saw several of them as we stopped to take pictures. One was a group of three students from the Czech Republic who were there for the summer working at Many Glaciers Lodge.

When we finally made it to the top the scenery was great. The lake sits in a bowl of mountains with glaciers at the edges. Chunks of the glacier break off and float around the lake until they melt. As we arrived there was a (hunky) hiker who was stripping down to a bathing suit and sneakers. He proceeded to jump into the icy lake and swim to the nearest iceberg. He climbed up on top, waited a moment, and then dove back in and swam to shore. Everyone cheered as he quickly dried off and changed into dry clothes. Before heading back down the mountain we stopped for a moment for Chris to take our picture. Rick gave Randy a kiss on the cheek, and then licked his cheek a bit when he realized it was salty. "You should try this!" he joked to Chris. A female hiker had paused to stay out of the picture, stating (somewhat snootily) that she didn't want to "spoil the moment". Hmmmph!

We made our way back down the mountain, enjoying the sights as we went. Fortunately it was mostly downhill, it had been the longest hike that we had ever done! We had been snacking on trail mix all morning, so we decided to hold on a little longer and get lunch in town. We changed at the hotel and started towards Babb. Just outside the hotel grounds we saw a bunch of people watching a grizzly bear down along the river. We made good time to the Two Sister's restaurant (after having to turn back to get Rick's ID; we realized we'd need it to cross the border to Canada later on). We had lunch examining all of the bumper stickers, license plates and signs that adorned the walls of the restaurant.

After lunch Chris drove us North towards Waterton in Canada. At the border they seemed bored, as they made us get out of the car and had a dog sniff all around us and the car. Once they were certain we weren't smuggling anything, they let us in. Waterton is a cute little town right on the lake. We walked around a bit and enjoyed the view of the mountains. Then we drove back to the Prince of Wales hotel where we went into the bar for a drink (Chris had a coffee). Outside we had a wonderful view of the lake, and a fire hydrant painted like Smoky the Bear. One of the many marmots running around clearly thought the bear was a danger, as he was squeaking up a storm, obviously trying to warn the other critters. While we watched, a rain storm moved in from the distance, rained for a few minutes, and then moved on, leaving us with sunshine.

Crossing back into the U.S. we were again harassed; this time it was directed at Rick. They asked him to go inside for a talk, then forgot why they asked him to go inside, and said he should just leave. Our tax dollars at work! (We did see the most absurd sticker there, it read "America, No Terrorism, Zero Tolerance"; Gee, other places are so much more lenient... glad we have a sticker at the border scaring potential terrorists away!) Gack. Back at the hotel we took over a table in the lounge with our laptops and had a snack while looking through pictures from the first two days of the trip.