After our hike to Avalanche Lake, we drove back to Apgar Village and had lunch on the shore of Lake McDonald. We bought the National Geographic trail illustrated map, which was a handy reference. We decided to take the hike up to Apgar Lookout next.
This hike takes you up to a fire lookout tower, which apparently is not used any more. At least half of the hike is through a burned out forest - the trees are still standing, but they are blackened and dead. The book says this was due to the 2003 Roberts fire, which consumed 7000 acres in four hours. Because all the branches are gone, hikers are exposed to sunlight. We got pretty warm on the way up. This hike is 5.6 miles round trip, with 1850 feet of elevation gain - so it has a lot of up hill.
At the end of the trail you arrive at the lookout station. This is ideally suited for views into the park to the north and east. Also, you can look south and see West Glacier, the Flathead River and Rte 2. Lots of peaks are visible, and of course you can see the expanse of Lake McDonald. It looks like the fire burned the entire north shore of the lake.
We met a guy at the top with his two sons. He was a veternarian professor working at Purdue. It was their last day in the park. He said the best place they had seen was Cracker Lake, but we didn't have time on this trip to check that site out.
After we hiked back down to the bottom, we took the Going-to-the-Sun Highway over Logan Pass and down to our motel at Rising Sun on the other side. It takes a while to cross the park, and of course, we were stopping to check out some of the views.
I tried some panorama photos from the lookout. Click on the thumbnails below to see the view looking east.
Looking south at town of West Glacier
Click on any thumbnail to open photo in new window
