Glacier spring hiking

As Glacier National Park celebrates its 100th year in 2010, publicity is likely to increase visitation. However, there's always plenty of elbow room in the park during spring, before the high-country trails are free of snow. The lodges, gift shops and even the restrooms with running water were still being opened in the third week of May last year when Rich Landers, The Spokesman-Review’s outdoors writer, ventured out for a few days of hiking and camping. But the scenery and the wildlife were in peak condition.

Section:Gallery

Thu., May 6, 2010

In the golden light of sunrise, aspens stand stark against St. Mary Lake in mid May before the leaves on most trees have had a chance to burst from their buds in Glacier National Park.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
A glacier lily is a brilliant sign of spring among the bleached lodgepole snags still standing as a reminder of past forest fires on Apgar Mountain in Glacier National Park.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
McDonald Lake and the peaks of the Glacier National Park loom in the distance for early-season hikers to enjoy after the three-mile hike into Apgar Mountain lookout.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
Beth Hall and Scott Wolff of Duluth, Minn., didn't let a few mid May snow patches keep them from hiking the shoreline trail along St. Mary Lake to several booming waterfalls in Glacier National Park.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
A golden-mantled ground squirrel greets early season hikers along St. Mary Lake in Glacier National Park.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
Soon after the morning sun warms east-facing slopes, avalanches begin cascading like waterfalls down the steep slopes of cirque basins, booming and echoing, in Glacier National Park.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
Scott Wolf of Duluth, Minn., found virtually no competition for soaking in the sun and scenery on a mid May dayhike along the popular St. Mary Lake shoreline trail in Glacier National Park.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
Elk, still shaggy with their winter coats, can be found in May around the lower snow-free meadows of Glacier National Park, especially early and late in the day.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
Pasqueflowers, also known as prairie crocus, are among the first blooms to sprout from lowland meadows while the peaks of Glacier National Park are still smothered with snow.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
A bighorn ram scopes out some of the first Glacier National Park visitors of the season along his haunt above the brief portion of the Going to the Sun Highway that had been plowed of snow in mid May.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
Green vegetation sprouting on early-spring lowland slopes is a magnet for winter-weary elk in Glacier National Park.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
Snowmelt tumbles down along the trail to Iceberg Lake in Glacier Park's Many Glacier area as day-hikers Beth Hall and Scott Wolff of Duluth, Minn., pack a spotting scope to watch grizzly bears, mountain goats and bighorn sheep on the south-facing slopes.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
The lack of pre-season services can be a good sign for early hikers trying to beat the crowds at Glacier National Park

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review