Day 144 – 9/13/13 -14 mi (2636.7)

What an awesome day! After sleeping in, Ninja, Sweetfish and I set out a little after 8am. A few miles in, around the trail junction to St Mary’s lake, we finally saw a bear! This was Ninja’s first bear of the trail, and Sweetfish and my second. The bear, probably a black, was far off and started running away as soon as it noticed us.

The walk along St. Mary’s Lake was beautiful. At the west end of the lake we reached Virginia Falls. Cue the onslaught of day hikers. They smelled wonderful; one couple smelled so overwhelmingly of detergent we were convinced they owned a laundromat. Next we passed St Mary’s Falls. It was clear we needed to jump in, but it was overcast and cool.

At this point we were only 3/4 mile from Going to the Sun Road, which is the main thoroughfare bisecting the park. Having plenty of time to spare, we went out and hitched to the nearest restaurant for lunch. Upon returning to the trail, the sun was out so we returned to St Mary’s Falls. We found LoveNote, Burly, and Papa Smurf there, along with another black bear.

LoveNote and Burly had already jumped in from the cliff about 20′ above the river. I immediately stripped down and walked to the ledge. After several minutes of terrified hesitation, I finally took a sip of the beer I’d brought back for Burly and took the plunge. The water was considerably warmer than the iceberg lake from yesterday, but still far too cold to stay in to swim. Sweetfish and Ninja followed.

We still got to camp early and had a long evening of sitting around the kitchen sharing stories and drinking beer Papa Smurf brought in from his trip to town after the swimming.