Highline Trail to The Loop

Day two of our van trip to Glacier, The Highline Trail - cue the music "dun, dun, dun...." As someone who had never hiked more than six miles, I couldn't believe we were about to do over 14 miles AT ELEVATION. We're from Florida.... where it's flat.... what were we thinking?! The anticipation and anxiety were so real! We got to the Logan Pass parking lot just after 6am and the lot was full. We parked about a quarter mile past Logan Pass, drank our last sips of coffee and hit the trail.

The views were immediately breathtaking. We walked along a cliff face along the Going to the Sun Road, seeing mountain peaks, lakes, waterfalls, and so much more. We stopped several times along the way to let the super intense hiking crews pass us. I like to take my time and see ALL the beautiful things.

Right before we reached the Granite Park Chalet, we reached an additional/optional trail to the Grinnell Glacier Overlook. This section was SUPER steep... think a 20 incline on the treadmill for a mile. I was stopping almost every few minutes to catch my breath. The wind picked up the closer we got to the top which made me incredibly nervous. It felt like the wind would blow us right off the side of the mountain. Upon getting to the top, Caleb actually almost lost his hat and I almost lost my phone taking this photo:

I wish that I would've had trekking poles for the rest of the way down. This extra section took us a couple of hours because of how slow I had to hike up.

Next up was the Granite Park Chalet where I took a bathroom break and we ate our lunch.

After leaving Granite Park Chalet, we had four miles down hill on "The Loop." At this point in the day, the sun was beating down on us, we ran out of water, and our knees were killing us. We ended up jogging the last couple of miles. Once we made it to The Loop shuttle stop, we waited for the shuttle to take Caleb back to our van, and then for Caleb to come get me. As soon as I saw the van, tears filled my eyes because I was so exhausted and dehydrated. I jumped in the van, chugged two Gatorades, and we were off to our campsite for the night at Many Glacier.