Sperry Chalet

On our last day in Glacier, we drove up to Avalanche again with the plan to hike towards Sperry Chalet and just sort of...see how far we'd get. (Really we were planning to go all the way, but we were employing the same mental tricks that get me through marathons. Suuuure we're only going out to run a mile). 

This was a really ambitious hike--it was just short of 14 miles round trip with 4500 feet of elevation gain. The chalet itself is normally open to hikers for overnight stays, but a wildfire a few years ago had destroyed the dormitory. There's also a restaurant and we were wildly hoping that it would be open for service while knowing that it probably would not be (COVID) but it motivated us to keep our pace up in hopes that if it WERE open we'd arrive before they closed the a la carte lunch service. We spent a not inconsiderable portion of the hike listing everything we'd order in a perfect world where every option was available. 

We parked near the Lake McDonald lodge and headed up the trail. We weren't sure whether we would go to Snyder Lake or to Mt. Brown or to Sperry Chalet when we actually started that morning, so we figured we would hike up until the spur trails started diverging and decide then. As you can see--there was a LOT OF TRAIL on that map! Parking at the extreme left side of the map near the lake. Fun times! 

The trail was well-maintained, but very steep very quickly. 

Lots of beautiful wildflowers along the trail!

It wasn't long before we had some pretty stellar views of Lake McDonald!

We walked for quite awhile through a burned area that had been impacted by the same fire that took out portions of the chalet complex. This area was pretty heavily populated by bears and I'd read about lots of people in the previous week seeing a mother bear and her two cubs on this stretch, so we were very very very loud. We sang Hamilton from start to finish on the way up and all of the Beatles on the way back. 

Marmots!! This guy was not at all shy and we could hear him whistling from far away. 

We had intermittent drizzle most of the hike. I'd read that this one can be miserable in July/August because it's so exposed to the sun, but it was absolutely perfect when we hiked it (very end of June). 

We listened to this waterfall for a mile or so! Just beautiful thunderous roaring. 

Neil carried Matthew for most of the time, but he actually walked quite a bit--maybe 4 miles?

We were all still sooooo itchy from the horrendous mosquito swams in Yellowstone. Poor Nathan had a million bites on his head!

Just incredibly beautiful terrain. We were constantly pointing out things to each other and the conversation about how gorgeous it was never flagged.

As we got closer to the chalet and higher in the mountains, the trail became a glorified tiny waterfall. We were thankful for waterproof shoes!

And resilient legs!

We started catching glimpses of the chalet! 

And spent lots of steps asking "Wow, did you see the color of that rock?!"

Things started leveling out a bit and it opened up into this absolutely gorgeous valley. I cannot describe how breathtakingly beautiful it was. 

And then we crossed the bridge, turned up towards the chalet itself, and the path was buried under both snow and rushing water. It was very exciting! I don't have any good pictures of it because there's no way I could have manuevered taking a picture without falling, but here's the very beginning. About 2/3 of the All Trails comments in the last week had said that they turned around at this spot, but our kids were not about to pass up their chance to see if there was lunch at the chalet! So we trekked on up through what eventually became a legit waterfall over slickrock. 

When we got to the chalet, it was closed (not a super surprise, but still kind of disappointing, but there were bathrooms! We sat on the covered porch by the bathrooms, ate a ridiculous amount of hiking snacky food, and then struck up a conversation with two very nice girls who were up there cooking for the construction crews. I asked if there was any potable water that we could use to refill our pack bladders, and they offered us as much water as we could carry from the pallets that had been airlifted in by helicopters. So we grabbed a couple Costco waterbottles and went on our way back down. 

Sooo beautiful I took about 100 pictures of this stream trying to capture the lighting. 

On our way back down, we sang a LOT. Like so much. I've never made it all the way through the "100 bottles of beer" on the wall song before, but we did. Twice. (We sang it as tea per Matthew's insistence but I think most of us just sang it as pee.)

Such beauty--and I was so thankful for good boots!!

Grateful for these strong little uncomplaining hikers!

And this heroic Matthew-toting man of mine.

As we started to near the bottom it was getting pretty dark and was full twilight by the time we got back to our car (it was also starting to rain pretty heavily). We were all SO tired and sore the last two or so miles and I kept telling the kids that it was the same way you feel at the end of a marathon but you know you just have to keep going because that's the only way out! And then we saw the trailhead signs and I said "Okay, this is the finish chute! GO!" and somehow we broke into a shambling ridiculous stiff run and we sprinted to the car, laughing the whole way. So so so many good memories from that hike.