Apgar Lookout Trail: Glacier National Park Part III
It’s our last day at Glacier and I still haven’t been hiking. I’m dying a little on the inside but, as evidenced by yesterday’s bike ride, I am just a touch more enthusiastic about earned altitude than my mom. Today, however, she laced up her sneakers and headed out on an 11 mile hike with me to the peak of Mt. Apgar.
Usually if my mom and I hike together I just hike on ahead to the top and meet her wherever she gets to and we hike down from there together but we’re in grizzly country on this trail and have only one can of bear spray between us. “Don’t leave me,” my mom says. “I won’t,” I say. “I promise.”
We meet up with a family from Baltimore on our way to the trail and hike happily together on the two mile walk to the trailhead but when we reach the official start of the trail and start to really gain altitude they pass us by.
Half a mile in from the trailhead my mom stops. “I’m not,” she pants “going to make it,” she says, perfectly mirroring yesterday’s bike ride. This time I’m determined that we will both make it to the top. “Sure you are!” I say. We keep hiking. Half a mile later my mom stops. We’re out of the woods and she’s seen the mountain in all it’s glory for the first time, complete with switchbacks zig zagging up the sides. “Are we going up THAT?” she asks. “I’m not sure,” I say lightly and reasonably truthfully. After all, this is my first time on the trail, too, and that could be a completely different trail. My mom looks at me. “I may be meek but I’m not stupid,” she says. We laugh and hike on.
Truth be told, we didn’t have a ton of hiking options today. The ranger at the information desk told us that this trail, the Apgar Lookout Trail, is pretty much the only trail available to us where we won’t be knee deep in snow drifts for the majority of the hike. “It’s a moderate hike,” she says, to my disappointment and my mom’s terror.
It takes us nearly an hour to go the next half a mile and we’re doing considerably more resting than hiking. After another quarter mile my mom starts asking me vague questions about the trail of tears.
“Um, I don’t know how many Native Americans died Mom…”
I begin to wonder if this hike was such a good idea. I’m not sure my Mom’s done this much cardio activity in the last, oh, let’s say, ever. We turn at another switchback and my mom looks up at the next assent. “Oh, Jessie!” she says and I burst out laughing because she hasn’t sounded that mad at me since I was ten.
“What were you expecting?” I ask, crying with laughter.
“Not this!” she says, also crying with laughter (and goodhearted misery).
We hike on, stopping every twenty feet so for my mom can catch her breath. I don’t begrudge her any of it. Didn’t I do the same thing at North Cascades last week while suffering from heat exhaustion? Granted, my rest to hike ratio still skewed heavily toward hike but that’s only because I’m, to put it mildly, a deeply determined hiker.
“Switchbacks are your friends mom. If not for switchbacks it would be straight up.”
“At least then I could use my hands!” she says. “Crawling doubles your power.”
I’m laughing so hard I can’t breathe. “Go ahead mom. You can crawl as much of this trail as you like! No judgement!”
I let my mom take the lead and set the pace. She gives me a look as she passes me that says she’s regretting her decision to have a second child. Still, it’s a beautiful day and our fellow hikers lend words of encouragement as they pass by us on their way down the mountain. “You’re almost there!” they say. “It’s absolutely worth it!”
We reach the snow packed top of the mountain mid-afternoon and look out over the lakes and valleys and snow capped mountains that encircle them. I think about asking my mom if it was “absolutely worth it” but the question dies on my lips. Her face still says she could have stopped after my brother was born and been perfectly content as a mother.
We eat lunch with a few other hikers, snap some photos, and begin our hike down in the company of a semi-retired park ranger named Dan who is as stoic as his s.o. is chatty. We swap travel adventure stories, offer words of encouragement to those on their way up, and stop to look at an eagle nest with two birds of prey perched at the edge. One of them swoops into the forest while the other mans the homestead. I turn to my mom: “Was it worth it?” I ask. “Yes,” she says smiling.
We stumble back to the trail head seven hours after we set off and continue straight to the lake where we thrust our bare feet into the glacial water. It is f*cking cold but after 11 miles of walking, it feels amazing. We stop to stand on a lone patch of ice for a while on our way back to the car before heading back to town to stumble into the brewery across from our hotel. We order some home brewed Montana beers and large entrees. Ten minutes after our meals arrive we’re on our last bites. I put my fork down slowly and I turn to my mom: “I could kinda go for a second meal,” I say. She nearly chokes on the last bite of her food as she laughs and points to herself. “I was thinking the same thing!” she says. We order another round of food and beer.
The hike is over, we are well fed and hopped up on IPAs, but the sunburn from the four hours of hiking on open trail has just begun to bloom. But only on me. I’d noticed I was feeling sun warmed at the top of Mt. Apgar and put a sweatshirt on for the hike down but the damage had already been done. “Mom,” I say. “We have to go to the grocery store and get cabbage and apple cider vinegar.” “Why cabbage?” she asks, knowing better than to ask ‘why apple cider vinegar’ because I am basically an acv zealot who believes that acv cures all ailes. “Cabbage draws out the heat,” I say. I hand her a piece of cabbage as we head back to the hotel and she puts it on her slightly darkened shoulder. “Oooh! That’s great!” she says. “I know!” I say. This is not my first rodeo. Still, how is it possible that I am *so* red and my mom already looks tan. Are we not both Polish?! I apply cabbage leaves followed by apple cider vinegar compresses and remain MAGICALLY pain free through the night. Cabbage and ACV for the win. Also my mom for the win. Seriously, she is a champ.
