Woke up early and ready to get out. Drove to a different part of Whitefish using a back road where I saw fields with morning mist on them, and the sunrise from a few different parts of town. Also saw a sign advertising an ax throwing place next door to a cannabis store – is this a good idea??
Today we hiked the Danny On trail in the Flathead National Forest. What a gorgeous hike! Since it was a 4 mile hike with 2000 foot elevation gain we figured it would be pretty exposed, were we wrong! We spent about 3/4 of the time in beautiful forests and the trail was mostly dirt with some rock mixed in. It made for an easier hike up and back, with 2000 feet of elevation gain it is never an easy hike! The views at the summit of Whitefish mountain were stunning and totally worth the hike up. We saw lots of people picking huckleberries just off the trail, most of them had brought Ziploc bags or re-purposed milk containers to store their stash in. We sampled some, they were tart but good. It reminded me of when I was a kid and you would see whole families out picking blackberries from the bushes that lined the roads near our house.
Javi did fantastic, and in fact helped pull me up the last quarter mile of the hike. 😅 We didn’t spend a lot of time at the summit since it was windy and cold, the temperature was 49° when we arrived at 12:30, and we knew rain was on the way in a couple of hours. It was funny seeing all the tourists who had taken the gondola or ski lift up, most were in T-shirts and flip-flops. I dare say the summit store must’ve done a brisk business in sweatshirts and sweatpants. We got sprinkled on a few times on the way down, but the rain didn’t really set in until we were minutes away from the car so we timed it very well!
A quick stop for coffee at Wild Coffee, another very good coffee shop in Whitefish, then it was home for a soak in the jet tub, and time to read and relax. During dinner we chatted with some of the other Lodge guests and got ideas for other excursions around Glacier – there are so many beautiful places to explore here. I think I need another month!