Glacier National Park, Continental Divide

Marching out of East Glacier Village, I began my journey through Glacier National Park. The park is huge, covering over a million acres and is named for the 26 glaciers found nestled in its peaks. I was in one of our world’s great wilderness areas, a hotspot of biodiversity and natural beauty that was inscribed into UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1995.

I made my way to the pretty cool geographical feature of the Triple Divide Pass. This area goes one further than the Continental Divide; it’s a great valley where the rivers flow into three (three!) different river systems, one side goes to the Pacific, one side goes to the Atlantic, and another goes to Hudson Bay, it’s a triple continental divide. 

After Triple Divide Pass, I endured a gruelling ascent, climbing 2,380 ft (725 m) over 7.2 mi (11.5 km) through high alpine peaks. At these elevations, whitebark pines dominate. This is a really strange plant, looking like a cross between a Christmas tree and a bonsai. It can survive in much higher altitudes than other pines, and often signals the approaching treeline on CDT mountain hikes. Perched on one of the pines, I saw a little Clark’s nutcracker, a small songbird with a black and grey pelt and a long, thin beak. These birds rely on the pines for food, and when caching their seeds, they help spread the pine forests, allowing them to reproduce over vast tracts of land. The birds live lives strongly entwined with the pines, and scientists have noticed that in years when the pines produce few cones, the birds stop breeding. Unfortunately, the whitebark pines are seriously threatened now due to invasive beetle species, tree diseases and more frequent wildfires caused by climate change. It is very likely that as whitebark pine numbers decrease, so will the Clark’s nutcracker population. The case of the nutcracker and the pine is a reminder that all of our natural world is interconnected, and that changes in one element will have consequences for the rest.

I hiked higher and higher until I reached Pitamakan Pass. This was incredibly scenic, the high mountain passes allowed views over the vast U-shaped valleys, the pointed, snow-capped peaks and the deep lakes, and every turn in the road revealed another stunning scene. 

As I came down from the heights of Dawson Pass, I reached Morning Star Lake. This pine-fringed, waterfall-laden lake is famous for its ice cave. Deep in this cave, brave explorers can find a strange wonderland of tiny glaciers clinging to the walls of the tunnels. I wandered through this cold, dark, strange place, admiring the shapes of the ice blocks, enjoying the cold air, and noticing the damp cave smell. Eventually, we came back up to the surface, and I felt a sense of relief as I climbed back through the cave mouth and the sky opened up above me.