They should have called this the "Highlight Trail" because it was the highlight of our visit to the park. This is just a fantastic hike, it was my favorite day of the trip. A lot of the other stuff we saw was terrific scenery, but for some reason I found this hike especially impressive. I know I took too many photos, but I couldn't resist. The Highline Trail is 7 miles one way from Logan Pass to the Chalet. Unlike most of the hikes, which spend a lot of mileage going up or down switchbacks, the Highline Trail is mostly flat, so you cover a lot of territory. Because we travelled such a distance, I have multiple pictures of the same landmark, such as the Haystack Butte - the view keeps changing as we went hiking past it. I have placed the photos mostly in chronological order, so as you click through them, you will see the views in the same sequence that we saw them. The seven mile hike heads north along the side of the Continental Divide, so you get excellent vistas of the much of the western end of Glacier National Park.
It is seven miles to the Chalet, and another four and half miles from the Chalet down to the Loop parking lot. We knew we had a large distance to travel that day, so we got up to the parking lot at Logan Pass early. The trailhead for the Highline Trail starts just across the road from the visitor center parking lot. Unfortunately, the fog was very thick and the air cold as it blew through the pass. Visibility was only a few dozen yards, not ideal conditions for walking a trail to see scenery! So we sat in the car and waited for a while. Clouds would thin - and then return just as thickly. This went on for a while. Eventually, we decided to just get started, because we remembered how the fog had dramatically and suddenly cleared up on the previous day when we hiked to Hidden Lake. You can see in the third picture how thick the clouds were at the start. You can also see in that third picture a garden hose acting as a cable for nervous hikers to hold onto, because the drop off from the trail is several stories straight down - at least, I think it was a sheer drop, we couldn't really see! But the trail is wide enough for horses (originally, horseback trains guided tourists from chalet to chalet across the park), so there isn't any danger of falling.
The fog did soon thin out; it was not too long before we got to see around us. The Highline Trail is great - the first stretch parallels the Going-to-the-Sun highway, you can look down and see the cars slowly climbing up to the pass. The view from the trail is better than the pullouts on the road - you are higher, and there is plenty of room to walk along. We could see down to the Weeping Wall and look across for excellent Bird Woman Falls views.
The first 4 miles of the hike takes you up to the saddle behind Haystack Butte. At first I thought the trail would take us over the Butte (it doesn't look that steep), but instead the trail goes behind it, climbing a "saddle" of earth the separates the Butte from the Continental Divide. There are a couple of switchbacks to ascend to the saddle, but once you get to the top, you can see behind Haystack Butte into the north of Glacier National Park. It is a wonderful view. Most of the hikers stop here for lunch, and most of them then turn around. Just going this far is certainly worth it. But our goal was to go all the way to the Chalet.
Once beyond the saddle, we were treated to more views of the park. At one point, we were able to look all the way to Lake McDonald in the distance, with Apgar peak behind it. The trail is a little bit trickier here, there were some places that no longer look passable by a horse. But it is still mostly flat - the total elevation gain from the trail head all the way to the Granite Park Chalet is only 850 feet. There is a side spur that steeply climbs up the Continental Divide - from the top of that side trail, apparently you can look down at the Grinnell Glacier and into the Many Glacier area. We did not take that side trail, I was thinking that we got such a late start due to the fog that we should just stick to the main trail. Thinking back, I made a mistake. So next time we will definitely take that detour.
The views from the Chalet are marvelous, wonderful, sublime - all the words in the thesaurus. I am pleased with how nice my pictures turned out, but of course it is ten times better to see this stuff in real life. I think I took a few hundred photographs on this hike. Everywhere you look is a memorable view.
It is 4.5 miles down to the loop from the Chalet. Some people climb this path to reach the Chalet, because it is a shorter route than walking from Logan Pass, but there is a lot more elevation gain in this direction. Of course, we were descending, not climbing, so the trail wasn't hard. It did seem long - the trail swings so far to the north that I wondered if we had somehow gone off on the wrong path. Much of this trail is through a burnt forest, the Trapper Fire charred all of this landscape in 2003. All the burnt trees are still standing, but now there is no shade. Of course, this makes it easier to look around, so we had plenty of views of Heaven's Peak on our way down. The undergrowth has returned. I took several photos of wildflowers growing around the dead trees, it seemed to make a nice contrast.
When we finally arrived at the Loop parking lot, it seemed like a major accomplishment. We had just hiked a classic trail. I was quite pleased. We hitchhiked back up to Logan Pass - it seemed to take a while to drive back up there - I guess we had gone a good distance. My last two photos are taken from the pulloff for Oberlin Falls, just before you reach the pass. Now that we had hiked the Highline Trail, it seemed to stand out sharply against the Continental Divide, we could see tiny figures moving high above the Going-to-the-Sun highway. Great fun!
Click here to see a panorama of the view looking north from the back of Haystack Butte. The saddle is about 4 miles one way from the Logan Pass trailhead, so it is 8 miles roundtrip to hike to this view.
This wide photo is looking back at Haystack Butte and Bird Woman Falls, before we reach the Chalet.
This shot is from the Chalet looking south toward Logan Pass.
This shot is from the Chalet looking west at Heaven's Peak.
Click on any thumbnail to open photo in new window. My favorite photos have blue frames.
