Trip Report.

My partner and I usually like to plan 2 separate week long trips during the year. These are sometimes combined to make a longer 2-week trip, but those are usually allotted for above and beyond destinations we both agree upon. To keep things fair, we each get to plan what we do during one of the weeks. Garnet’s decision for 2023 was another lookout road trip around Oregon (post). My destination of choice took us a bit farther to break ground in a new state and National Park, or new to me at least. I can’t explain what draws one destination or another to the top of my list, but Montana and Glacier National Park were calling my name this year. We decided to gamble on a late season arrival to help mitigate the crowds. It is arguably our favorite time to travel. But, you always run the risk of early season snow, late season fires, or rain for 9-days straight. It’s always good to have some sort of back up plan incase of said conditions. Once the forecast was in reach, it wasn’t looking promising with rain and snow predicted for higher elevations most of the week. I’m not sure why, but I couldn’t bring myself to move on or even think about a potential plan B. the weather be damned I wanted to go to Montana.

I won’t bore you with the details of our route from Portland to West Glacier, but we were roughly on the road for 11 hours straight Saturday. We made minimal stops with breaks to stretch our legs and refuel the car. Keep in mind you do lose an hour of your day when traveling from Pacific to Mountain time. We left early enough to watch the sunrise from our vehicle and arrive in Glacier NP late afternoon before sunset. Glacier offers many different types of campgrounds to choose from throughout the park depending on where you want to be located and what time of year you are visiting. A few of the campgrounds were already closed for the winter season and a few more would be closing during our stay. I decided on the Apgar Campground given its year round availability and proximity to our intended destinations. I didn’t have to fight for my life on Recreation.gov to get a reservation at the 6-month opening either (something you might have to do during the peak season). I did delay my booking a bit too long though (I got too comfortable) and missed out on having the same camp spot for the entire trip. Luckily, I noticed the dwindling options before it was out of hand and we only had a different camp spot for our first night. There are some things to keep in mind if you decide to visit that might differ from our experiences. For example, the Going-to-the-Sun road was being repaved along Lake McDonald during our visit. This added wait time and a bumpy gravel portion to enter the park. Most of the amenities such as shuttles, lodges, chalets, and higher elevation visitor centers were already closed for the season. The Going-to-the-Sun road closed for the season mid-way through our trip. Access to the Bowman and Kintla areas were closed due to road construction. We were visiting outside the needed day-use vehicle registration period. These were all things we were aware of and prepared for during our stay. It’s just a reminder that I can’t stress enough – it is always important to do your own due diligence before visiting a National Park.

Our first full day in the park, Sunday, was more of what I would like to consider an introductory day. The first hike I had planned was the easiest of our fire lookout hikes and would help set the tone for the rest of the week. It was still located close enough to camp for us to pack up and move spots. And if time allowed, I wanted to stop in at the Apgar visitor center. Getting to the Apgar Lookout trailhead can be a bit confusing since it’s not as well marked as other trailheads. The road is located between the west entrance kiosk and the Apgar visitor center before you turn onto the Going-to-the-Sun road. It’ll be off to your left with a sign for Apgar L.O. if you are just entering the park or off to your right if coming from the campground. Continue straight until the road bends. There will be a gravel road off to the left (this heads towards the Glacier Institute Field Camp) but you will want to stay on the main paved road that continues right. Shortly after bearing right there will be an open gravel area to the left with a skinny one lane gravel road – head for this road. If you continue straight you will enter private property. From this junction, it is roughly 2 miles to the trailhead. There was no signage that I could see to indicate we were on the right road during our visit. The road eventually leads you over an old wooden bridge to cross McDonald Creek. Once across the bridge, we followed the gravel road to where it dead ends. This road can be narrow and a little rough in some sections, but any standard clearance vehicle should be able to make it here with caution.

We reached the trailhead around 9:30AM with only three other cars parked in the lot (our car being the fourth). This is definitely one of the less popular trails within the park despite it being closest to the west entrance. I had a bit of anxiety starting this hike since we both had no real experience hiking in grizzly country. We had extensively read up on the recommended Bear Safety tips prior to this trip, but putting them to practice is a different story. The basics are to make noise, travel in groups, don’t run on trails, carry bear spray, be aware of your surroundings, and secure your food/garbage. We had bear spray strapped to the outside of both of our packs. An important step as this does not provide any defense if it’s tucked away within your backpack. But, we found the hardest for us was learning to make noise on the trail. This went against our norm and felt unnatural to call out occasionally. We found clapping our hands or my trekking poles was an easier alternative. I thought about acquiring a bear bell to help with this, but I found that REI does not carry them anymore and it is no longer recommended as an adequate tool for bear safety. I even read somewhere that bears can mistake the jingle as the sound of prey having the opposite effect. These are just words of caution since we saw plenty of unprepared visitors during our stay. I understand that most people have the mentality that this won’t ever happen to them and in most instances that will be true, but it only takes one chance encounter for things to escalate. This applies to most things when recreating outside though. If you are wondering why these precautions are in place then I’d recommend reading the true story of Night of the Grizzlies by Jack Olsen and how the park was managed prior to that.

The trail starts out fairly flat following the old road bed and climbing gradually towards the base of the mountain. The surrounding forest is brushy and dense due to fire damage accumulated from two major fire scars. The first was in 2003 when the Roberts Fire burned through 58,000 acres near Lake McDonald. That year was considered one of the most destructive fire seasons for Glacier, totaling 136,000 acres burned or around 13% of the park. The second was more recently in 2018 when the Howe Ridge Fire burned 14,522 acres through the existing scar. After about a mile you will reach the base of the mountain and start the real climb via three long switch backs to the summit. Make sure to carry enough water since the majority of this hike is exposed. We found it to be overly humid and hot even this late in the season. The next 2.5 miles are spent climbing around 1,700′ of elevation. You will know you are close once the trail flattens out to hike towards the eastern slope of the ridge. Situated just below the fire lookout is a pit toilet and hitching post for horses.

We only passed one trail runner and a group of four heading down while on our way to the summit. We had the lookout to ourselves briefly before another pair and a solo hiker joined us. We decided to eat our lunch just below the catwalk in the shade of the lookout. The views from the fire lookout and base are slowly becoming obstructed by the surrounding trees. We could still see out to a nice view of Lake McDonald and the Apgar village below. I briefly chatted with the other pair of hikers about Washington and our travel time/distance to Glacier as we were getting ready to start our hike down. They had noticed my WSU hat and mentioned they used to live in Seattle (but now resided in Pennsylvania if I remembered correctly). They had flown in and rented a car to get here, but still had a travel day just as long as us. Our consensus was that there is no quick way to get to Glacier NP and wished each other a good remainder of our respective trips. The hike back down was brutally hot and we passed a lot more people than we saw that morning, even a couple on horses. This was still nothing in comparison to the amount of people we would see on other trails in the park. The Strava app tracked our hike at 7.24 miles RT with 1,923′ of elevation gain.

I was happy to see we still had enough time to stop in at the visitor center before heading back to camp. Though I was disappointed to find they had no magnets or other paraphernalia that showcased their many fire lookouts. I still decided to get a magnet with Lake McDonald and we upgraded to a more detailed map of the park. We also decided to talk to the rangers onsite to see if they had any additional insight. Unfortunately the ranger we spoke with did not have the detailed information we were hoping for, but he did his best to answer our obscure questions about the fire lookouts in the park.

History.

The fire lookout and surrounding area are all named after Milo Apgar. He was among one of the first settlers to set up permanent residence along Lake McDonald in the early 1890s. Milo helped develop the area by building homes and cabins for tourists, which is now known as the Apgar Village within the park. Though I highly doubt Apgar was the first, he just happened to be one of the first of the white men. The original lookout structure on Apgar was completed in 1929. Ironically, the structure burned down only 2 weeks later during a forest fire. It was immediately replaced with an exact replica in the spring of 1930 and still stands today. This is a standard national park 2-story cab design that has a 10′ tower and 14’x14′ cab. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is one of nine remaining fire lookouts within Glacier National Park. Although this tower is no longer staffed during the season, it remains as a standing exhibit for visitors to enjoy.