We took a boat across Swiftcurrent Lake and then Lake Josephine to get to the trailhead.
It was raining pretty hard for that part, though, so I don't have pictures of it. These I got just after the rain had let up.
Beautifully blue (due to glacial rock flour) Lower Grinnell Lake.
A rest stop in the intensely red Grinnell formation.
Our park ranger, guiding us up to Grinnell Glacier. She's a local 3rd grade teacher in Kalispell, MT during the year, and has been a summer ranger at Glacier for nearly 30 years.
Grinnell Lake at bottom, U-shaped Cataract Creek Valley at left. Note hanging valleys.
Grinnell Falls.
This waterfall is right in the middle of the trail. There's no way around it. Most people donned their ponchos from the morning's rain and came through. I ran. It was quite refreshing on the way down, when it was sunny, but not so much after the morning's rain on the way up.
Chris Okubo and Eldar Noe.
Guy McArthur and Matt Golumbek in front of Grinnell Lake.
Side view of Grinnell Falls.
Grinnell Glacier in the background, with crevasses. In front of it is the best lateral moraine I've ever seen. The fact that it's only 50 years old surely helps this!
Lunch stop.
Looking back down the entire valley, with our knowledgable guide in front.
Glacial scrape marks on this rock.
Salamander Glacier in upper left.
Coming over the other side's lateral moraine we come to the glacial melt lake. This was entirely glacier until the glacier melted back to this point and the first open water appeared in 1927.
The glacier used to be about 100 feet thick at this point.
Scrape marks on this glacially smoothed rock.
Incredible stramatolites, thought to derive from ancient algal mats.
The crew, looking at the algal mats.
A small pool perhaps peripherally akin to the one where the stramatolites formed.
That's Grinnell Glacier in the back there. This is where the melt lake empties into Grinnell Creek and down to the waterfall.
When Al Gore hiked up here during his Vice PResidency, his aides whisked him behind this beautiful stramatolitic rock to freshen up before the press saw him all sweaty.
Looking down-valley.
Somehow I didn't get a shot of the boat, but here's the dock.
The consensus from Veronica and Ingrid was that while this water was cold, it wasn't NEARLY as cold as the stuff in the melt pool at the top!
We caught a glimpse of two grizzly bears on the way back across the lake. The bright brown spots are them. They were only about 150 meters from where Alfred McEwen and Nicole Baugh were hiking.
