Glacier National Park is easily one of the most beautiful and picturesque places in Montana, let alone all of the United States. It’s filled with incredible mountain peaks, lush vegetation, unique wildlife, and age-old glaciers that are hanging on by the skin of their teeth. This beautiful area is where my brothers and I grew up. It shaped us as kids and contains a lot of our outdoor memories. It’s also going to be the place where we attempt to try something we’ve never done before: a mountain picnic.
A mountain picnic, better defined as a mountain triathlon, is a combination of a bike ride approach, a swim across a mountain lake, and a hike that encompasses summiting a mountain. Once all of these activities have been completed, they must be done in reverse to get back to where the adventure began.
We were a little nervous and excited going into this project. My brothers and I had been training for a couple months before we attempted it, but had no open water swimming experience or had tried to swim in cold water for such a long period of time. We spent most of our training time running and biking, and come to find out later, Travis and Darren wished we would have spent more time hiking.
We spent months planning and prepping for this adventure but even with all of the headway, the hiking portion of this picnic turned out to be longer than we expected. And, to make things more interesting, we also had to share the trail with a gigantic mother grizzly with two cubs who were blocking the trail. All in all it was a day that required a tremendous amount of work but now that we look back on it, we couldn’t be happier to have tried doing an adventure like this. Here’s the full write up of our mountain picnic experience:
The Day Of The Picnic
Our alarms rang out at 2:30 am. The time of the day when most people are leaving the bars and headed home, we were starting our day and heading out on an adventure. We took a little time to go through our backpacks to make sure we weren’t forgetting anything, and then we loaded up the car and drove to Coram.
Coram, MT is where we would start our adventure. We parked our car at Glacier Highline, unloaded our bikes, and turned our headlamps on. We’d be riding our bikes for the next 22 miles trying to stay warm and get our minds prepared for the long (and cold) swim ahead.
At 4:40 am we rolled across the border of Glacier National Park. We still had 15 miles to go before it would be time to swim, but seeing the sign to the park was a good boost of moral. Although dark and hard to see, things were going great. Sprits were high and we were getting excited about trying to swim across the lake.
At 6:30 am the sun was finally starting to reveal itself behind the mountains that were around us. We had just finished the first leg of biking and were walking down to the water to change into our swim gear. It was a brisk and chilly morning to have to strip down and crawl into our suits, but the water was perfectly calm. Seeing how still it was felt inviting and made us want to hurry to get in because we didn’t want the wind to pick up.
By 7:00 am we were swimming. We started and slowly made our way to the other side. We continued to swim in a group for most of it and were thankful that the wetsuits were keeping us isolated from the cold water. Without them it would have been an ice-cold suffer fest.
Travis was the first person to finish the swim followed by me and then Darren. We took a second to regroup, revel in the feat of swimming across Lake McDonald (the largest lake in Glacier National Park), and enjoy a couple snacks. We peeled the wetsuits from bodies and enjoyed some electrolyte mixes from Hammer Nutrition.
By the time we finished changing and eating, it was now 9:00 am and time for us to start the hiking portion of our picnic. The hiking portion is what we all felt most comfortable with and felt like we could really excel at. We had initially planned to climb and summit Mt. Brown, but realized late the night before that the lookout we were planning to go to was not actually at the true summit of the mountain. This meant that we would have to spend our time exploring a new mountain and bush-whacking our way to the top. Instead of doing this, we opted to do Lincoln Peak because it was familiar to all of us and there’s a relatively good trail for most of it. Little did we know, Lincoln Peak would turn out to be far longer than we initially anticipated (4-5 miles more because the signage in the park is incorrect), but we were excited to do it because the view at the top is so incredible.
We all felt incredibly good during the beginning of the hike. The trail is super picturesque and follows a creek for a little while before it crosses then branches off up a ridge. The trail leads to Sperry Chalet and we were able to refill our water bottles there, eat a couple more snacks and electrolyte gels, and watch some baby mountain goats play.
From the Chalet it’s 1 mile to the top of Lincoln Peak. We were incredibly close to the top when we heard some other hikers ahead of us shout out “Bear! Stop! Wait, there’s a big momma grizzly and two baby cubs with her!” We stopped in our tracks and tried to assess the situation. Ahead of us there was one hiking party who was trying to continue up the mountain, and another group on the far side of the bear who was trying to come down. They were trapped and we were all a little stressed trying to figure out what we should do.
At this point we couldn’t yet see the grizzly or her cubs, but we could hear them walking through the forest. The cubs were playing aggressively with one another and biting/crying out for help. This made us a little more concerned about the situation and eager to get out of harms way, so instead of continuing on the hiking trail, we scrambled up some rocks to get a better vantage point. Once we climbed high enough we could see the bears. The momma grizzly was the biggest bear I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I’ve seen a lot of bears in Glacier National Park before, but I’ve never seen one that was quite this big. She towered over the vegetation and was not something you would not want to trifle with.
Thankfully, we were out of harms way since we scrambled up the side and the bears continued down the mountain and away from everyone else. We passed the other hikers, talked to them for a bit, then made the final push to the summit. It was now 12:54 pm.
At this point we had been hiking for 4 hours. We were on mile 8 and still had to do it all in reverse. We were tired and hungry, but the worst part was the heat. It was 89°F and being at 7,400+ ft. of elevation only made things harder. We hung around the top to rest and refuel, as well as take a couple pictures while enjoying the view, then we started our decent.
We were cautious in the area where we had seen the bear, but made good time hiking down. It was 4:00 pm when we got back to the trailhead and the lake, and that’s when things started to fall apart and take a turn for the worse. Darren looked like a zombie in the parking lot so we tried to give him water and more electrolytes. He looked physically and emotionally beaten down so we decided to wait around a little bit to see if he would get better.
We gave it some good time before deciding to walk over to the lake to scope it out. What we saw next was one of the most heartbreaking and saddening views ever. Our pristine lake that was once a perfect mirror, was now a giant sea of massive waves and gnarly wind. It was super intimidating to look at and the cross wind made it appear that if you tried to swim across, you’d be blown far off course and would never make it to the other side.
We chatted amongst ourselves and at this point Darren decided that he had had enough. After 12 and a half hours of pushing himself, the heat got the better of him. He didn’t feel like he could safely carry on or swim across the lake, so we gave him more supplies while he waited out our attempt.
Travis and I continued to talk about the odds of swimming across and I knew that I had to give it a try. I had not come this far and gone this many miles to call it quits here. I wanted to give it my hardest effort and see if it was indeed possible. Travis on the other hand, had more reservation. He was worried about the wind and deemed it “impossible to do.” He decided to see how I looked in the water. If it looked like the wind was not as big of a factor as we though he would get in his wetsuits and give it a go as well.
I put my wetsuit on and prepped my dry bag. All of the bystanders on the shore had to think I was a maniac for walking into the water in the first place. I got tossed and turned when I tried to put my booties on but eventually I laid down and started swimming.
The wind and waves were the gnarliest conditions I’ve ever swam in. It reminded me of this time in Hawaii when I got seasick from looking down at manta rays for too long. These thoughts kept racing through my head but I had to kick them out of my mind. I had one mission and one objective: I HAD to make it to the other side. I swam and swam for what seemed like hours. The wind was against me and I continued to get mouthfuls of water. Thankfully, slowly but surely, I could see the other side of the lake getting closer and closer.
Once I finally stepped on the shore I breathed a big sigh of relief. I looked behind me and could not see Travis. I looked harder and still couldn’t find him. When I turned around I looked down the shore and saw him walking towards me. He had, indeed, called it quits and decided not to make the swim. He had regrets but told me good job and gave me some encouragement to continue on (now, looking back, he completely regrets not finishing or giving it a try. He said he wasn’t feeling tired but the emotional ‘scare’ factor of the wind, waves, and water were what was holding him back. Hopefully next time he’ll be able to overcome that).
It was now 6:45 pm and the swim had taken 2 hours. I had 22 miles left to ride my bike and finish this adventure. I switched my bags, packed my kit, and climbed back onto the bike.
At this point my body was feeling pretty tired. Swimming had been a nice little refresher, but I could definitely feel the toll that hiking had done to me. Coming back down to 3,100 ft. from the summit at 7,400 ft. made my knees sore. I continued to pedal on and passed a long line of cars that were trying to leave the park.
Sunset was my favorite aspect of the whole day because it happened right before I got back to the car. I got to watch the sky change from blue, to orange, to pink, to purple, to black. It felt like a great book-end for the day and was a very peaceful way to finish this journey. I rolled back into the parking lot where we started this whole thing. It was 8:27 pm which meant that the whole day’s activities had taken 16.5 hours. I was tired, drained, and ready for food. I loaded my bike, crawled into my car, and drove back home to meet my family for dinner.
Now, looking back on this whole challenge, I’m ridiculously thankful for pushing my body and for trying to finish. Being able to say I’ve done this is a huge accomplishment and it’s also the hardest thing I’ve ever put my body through. I’m not quite sure what it is or how to exactly describe it, but there’s something really incredible about being able to look within yourself, find the strength to do something hard like this, and then actually be able to make your body pull it off. It’s amazing to see what our bodies are capable of and the sky really is the limit in terms of what they’re able to accomplish.
I hope you enjoyed reading about our mountain picnic adventure. Hopefully my brothers and I will be able to try another one next summer!
Thank you to those who supported us:
Friends and Family:
David, Anita, and Ashley Kauffman
Teigen Ahrens
Clients and Companies:
Zone 3
Hammer Nutrition
Olympus Cameras
JayBird
