Camping Along the Lake

My room-mates and I wanted to do a fun little camping trip together, not too far from home... something scenic, but needing limited hiking... The most obvious choice was Long Point, which is on the western side of Lake McDonald. It's a 2 mile hike in from the northern end of the lake, or a 1.5 mile canoe ride across the lake. Me, Caiti and our friend Ellie who works at Many Glacier opted to hike in, and the plan was that Bridget, Heather, Warren, and Bridget's two friends from home would meet us at the campsite via canoe.

So here's the story of the evening trip:

 Here we head out on the trail~ It takes us through a burned forest (burned in 2003 during the Roberts Fire)... A lot of people find burned forests really ugly~ I find them stangely lovely~ The chared trees reaching up like the pillars of an old greek temple, full of the memories of the forest that once was. And the undergrowth: it's so dense and lush and full of vitality.... It's as far from dead as anything could be... and so many flowers!

 Here's our campsite, with tents set up by the lake... You can see the Fireweed, a flower that loves burned sites, in the foreground. Lovely photo courtesy of Caiti!

 And here is the view from our campsite.... only two miles of hiking and you can get a campsite like this! Pretty incredible! But even after two miles, we were getting pretty hungry, and the canoe group was late! So we figured we'd start a fire on our own, and start eating... Except, we I pulled out my lighter, I realized that there was no lighter fluid left!! We tried in vain to start a fire using numerous mehtods, including the one below:

 Needless to say, we were super glad when our friends with the actual camp stoves (and LIGHTERS!) arrived! Here, you can see Ellie is so glad she's shaking their hands!

 Once the fire arrived, we had a stupendous evening! Because Heather and them came in canoes, they didn't have to worry much about weight, and brought all sorts of goodies, like fresh veggies, beans, salsa and chips, etc~ And we had burritos~ And for dessert, AWESOME s'mores!

A swallow flying high~ The epitomy of freedom... This is how I feel about Glacier.