An Adventure with Steve: Backpacking in Glacier Park
Updated: 6 hours ago
I excitedly stepped into the opening of the Ptarmigan Tunnel. On the other end of the tunnel, through some 150 feet of blasted rock, a being was standing in the door holding a trident. I did a double take; it was still there. I stood staring. Was I looking through a rip in spacetime? Was there a mythological tale that had Poseidon driven from the depths of the ocean to the heights of Glacier Park? I stepped away to contemplate the possibilities while waiting for my hiking buddies to arrive. It was August 1984, we were backpacking from Waterton Lakes, Canada to Many Glacier.
There were four of us: Steve, Gary, Peter and me. This was our last day on the trail. It had been an amazing hike. In my opinion, Glacier is the best day hiking park in the country, and it also sports some incredible backpacking. Our trek began with a boat trip down the length of Upper Waterton Lake with stunning views of tall, jagged mountains rising above both shores. We started hiking at Goat Haunt, the US Border Station for backpackers. From there we headed south working our way up Waterton Valley. A short side trail to Kootenai Lakes beckoned after a few miles. There we were treated to a magnificent sight. Bull Moose, three of them with full sets of antlers, dunking their massive heads in the water to rip plants from the bottom. Waterfalls pouring off their antlers when they came up to chew. It was very cool. We ate a snack while taking in the show. Steve was exuberant: “They’re huge! Look at that mouthful!”
An almost endless series of switchbacks took us up to our first night’s camp at Stoney Indian Lake. Gary, Peter and I were Bozemanites who were out in the mountains every chance we got. Steve, my brother-in-law, was a medical resident in Cleveland. The three of us were energetic, Steve was beat.
As soon as camp was assembled and dinner was consumed, we searched out an objective. “Let’s climb to that ridge, get a view of Mount Cleveland.” Gary, Peter and I started out; Steve, we thought, was staying behind. We climbed 600 feet up a scree field to the ridge and got a fantastic view of Upper Waterton Lake, Mount Cleveland and the Stoney Indian Peaks. We had reached the edge of a sheer cliff. Time for fun. We searched out big rocks, dropped them off and counted Mississippis: first impact solid. Explosion! Second impact a sprinkle of rock fragments echoing back up. “Five seconds. That dropped like five thousand feet!” “Oh Gar. No. You’d have to dig a hole in the earth for it to fall that far.” Peter was our resident physicist, he knew of such things as acceleration. Gary and I both nodded, then searched out even bigger rocks, hoping to drop these at least 10,000 feet.
We got back to camp as darkness was descending. Steve was missing! Did he try to follow us? Gary and Peter quickly built a fire to give Steve a target. I hiked away from camp in the direction we had just come down and started screaming STEVE! And listening. He appeared out of the darkness about 15 minutes later. His exhaustion simply could not temper his enthusiasm. He watched us hike away and just had to follow. He quickly lost sight of us and we never saw him. He was whipped, but smiling. All was good.
We started day two with a climb to the top of Stoney Indian Pass, the eponymous peaks stood to the north of the pass. The coolest thing about crossing passes in the backcountry is the new world it opens. The steep north face of Cathedral Peak was ahead to our right. The Bozemanites in the group were hardcore skiers, we regularly dragged our skis up couloirs outside of our little town in late spring. Cathedral was incredibly steep and there were no straight top-to-bottom lines, but it was skiable, at least we could tell ourselves and Steve that. “You can’t miss that turn, nosiree. You fall; you die.” He smiled and nodded; he was a good sport.
Waterfalls plunged off the cliffs above us as we descended. “You see one, and you think, this is the most amazing waterfall I’ve ever seen, but they just keep coming one after the other each even more incredible than the others that are still in view. I’ve never been anywhere this beautiful.” We all were feeling the wonder of this place, but Steve was next level smiles and excitement.
The weather was perfect. We took a break at Atsina Lake, a small tarn high up in the valley. We could see Glenns and Cosley, the two big lakes at the bottom of the valley ahead of us. We’d be camping at Cosley tonight. I’d camped at Cosley once before with my wife Terry and our buddy Ed. That was in 1977. We’d done a different trek through this area. It made me determined to come back.
The only thing not wonderful about the trip, was the same thing that wasn’t wonderful about every backpacking trip: my feet. By the time we finished the descent to Glenns Lake my feet were screaming. I peeled off my boots and socks and soothed my feet in the frigid lake waters for some temporary relief. It was a combination of factors that caused me so much foot pain back then: the boots I wore; the weight I carried.
I tried lots of boots in my early backpacking years: they all hurt. I don’t think boot manufacturers put enough in padding the sole. Boots were sturdy and stiff, comfort it seems was a problem that hadn’t yet been attended to. My feet didn’t stop hurting until I discarded my 1990 vintage Raichle Eigers in 2004; I’d finally had enough after 105 miles of pain in the 100-Mile Wilderness in Maine. The next boots I bought, a pair of medium weight Vasques, were surprisingly comfortable.
The other issue was the weight of our packs. In our 20s, we were plenty strong for carrying 40–50-pound packs. Lightweight gear wasn’t yet a thing, and even if some pieces of lightweight gear did exist, we couldn’t afford them. Our clothes were cotton and wool, our food was fresh, which made for great meals, but added lots of water weight. The process of paring my pack weight was a years long one. In large part I moved east in 1984, so I was no longer out in the mountains enough to justify spending money on new gear. My focus was elsewhere—family and work—for all but maybe a week each summer, so I wasn’t up to speed on new offerings. It wasn’t until 2017, the summer I turned 60, that I finally went all in on lightweight gear, before my backpacking buddy Jeremy and I hiked the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in Washington State. It was the right decision, one that was long overdue.
I don’t think Steve ever felt his feet on the trip: he was on cloud 9. Pyramid Peak reflected in the waters of Cosley Lake. The view from our camp encompassed the vertical faces of Mount Merrit and Whitecrow Mountain; ice encrusting their peaks provided sharp contrast to the red rocks and the blues and greens that surrounded us.
We stripped down and jumped in the lake. I’m the worst at this. I’m all about staying clean in the mountains, but the water is freezing. I get in as fast as I can, my feet scream in pain, my chest heaves, my breathing becomes erratic; I race out. Steve laughed when he watched me. He’s a boat guy. A few years into the future he’d be racing his sloop in Narraganset Bay. He was comfortable in cold water. He did a few breaststrokes before turning toward shore. If this was a bucking bronc contest, I’d have gotten tossed off on the first buck, while he hung on all 8-seconds.
Cooking areas in the Glacier backcountry are communal. Our dinner that night was baby red potatoes cooked with lots of veggies and smothered in slices of cheese. We were the envy of the camp. “We’ve been eating GORP and this shit for days,” a fellow camper lamented pointing at her bowl of mush. GORP farts hit the low notes; freeze-dried foods of questionable quality filled out a symphony.
The next morning gave Steve a new adventure to crow about. Shortly after breaking camp we had to ford the Belly River below Cosley. He was all smiles. “This is just great. It’s so refreshing!” I was trying to hide my grimaces as I struggled with frozen feet and legs through waist deep water, but the current was mild and we had a wire to hold onto. I swear he danced across the water.
A couple of miles later we hiked down a short side trail to Dawn Mist Falls. I was awed by this sight. Something about side views of powerful waterfalls really catches me. They have a prehistoric feel; it was as though I stepped through time. I looked around, expecting to see a dinosaur.
The foot of Lake Elizabeth was our stop for the night. The head of the lake pointed toward the Ptarmigan Wall, A miles long sheer rock face capped by ragged aretes. We still had plenty of daylight after our meal of fried Genoa salami with melted cheese and fried peppers and onions. Peter insisted on calling the salami Gen-O-a because he learned from his South Dakota upbringing that Italians emphasized the second syllables. In-a my best-a Italiano accent’a I tried a too correct heem. Not sure I got through.
With our remaining daylight we decided to make our way up Natoas Peak on the west side of the lake. We climbed steadily for a few hundred feet until the slope steepened and daylight started to fade. We turned around. Steve had been climbing on all fours while the Bozeman group stayed in bipedal mode. On the way down, I watched Steve and worried that we’d got him in over his head; he was struggling, his footing uncertain, grasping at whatever he could get his hands on. Steve, you okay? He looked over and lit up. “What a place. This is amazing.” I was wrong, okay didn’t begin to describe how Steve was.
A lot of people feel out of sorts in unfamiliar terrain. They aren’t prepared to make the adjustments needed to be open to a new setting. Steve didn’t have this problem. He even got along with us. Six years his junior, still filled with the idealism of students who have seen lots of the outdoors but little of the rest of life. We were at points, jerky, elitist, know-it-alls, but a lot of the time we were just goofing around. He offered occasional challenges, but mostly, I think he figured life would teach us all we didn’t yet know.
The Bozeman group, me included, thought we had figured out life: lots of time outdoors with buddies; keep our focus on things that are real. A regular refrain among us was that you couldn’t possibly explain the beauty of ‘this place’ to people who haven’t been here. Then there was always the thought that the world would be a lot better place if more people could leave who they were behind and do things like this. I still believe that one.
The next morning, we trudged our way up a long steady climb to the Ptarmigan Tunnel. The rock was rotten, but it was a rich red, and the color, not the quality is what mattered to us. I was the first one to reach the entry to this fabled spot. I excitedly looked in to see Poseidon standing on the other side. When the others arrived, I stumbled over my words. “Poseidon, spacetime rip, wormhole! We should go back!” They all looked at me blankly, likely thinking ‘hallucinating, delusional, psychotic.’ They insisted over my objections that we go forward. We looked in the tunnel together. “But he was right there!?!?”
We walked through the tunnel. There it was. The trident! I picked it up. I was vindicated! Well, not exactly. It looks like a trident from a distance, but its fish stabbing tips were sealed with a bar—to starve Poseidon! I was sure of it. Maybe he disappeared into another dimension. Maybe only I could see him; I was the chosen one. I looked around and kept babbling about the possibilities while the group pulled out a cucumber, carrot, some cheese that had seen better days, and our last bag of M&Ms for one last snack before descending to Many Glacier. Other backpackers who came by and saw our smorgasbord were envious. "This is nothing. You should have seen what we've been eating for the past few days." It was worth carrying the extra weight in those days. "Hey, have any of you seen Poseidon?"
When I entered the Ptarmigan Tunnel on September 13, 2026, I had the presence of mind to look for the trident. It was still there hidden behind a door. I am still the chosen one!
Okay, maybe not. I asked some folks eating snacks if one of them would volunteer to stand looking manly while holding the Trident. He’s not Poseidon, but this photo gave me the idea for this story.
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