Day 5 - Bear Shit Trail

June 23rd

15.2 miles

Red Eagle HD Campground

Waking up this morning was rough. My body was pissed. Around midnight last night two other thru-hikers and their service dogs rolled into camp. I camped with them the previous night at Many Glacier and they must have had a hell of a time coming up and around Piegan Pass as well. When we had breakfast we swapped when each of us got hit with nasty weather and the usual trail talk. They were lucky they were able to use the steps I made on the steep snowy parts on the south side of the pass. 

This morning we strolled on a fantastically wide and touristy trail which followed waterfalls and all those type of nice things to take pictures of near the road. Day hikers were out enjoying the beautiful weather and taking in the sweet views and areas around the St. Mary River which is at the base of the popular St. Mary Lake. And with nice things there always comes the opposite on this trail. The route for the day took us on the ridge of  the south side of the lake for a couple of miles. The trail was complexity overgrown with chest high weeds and sharp stinging plants galore! Ontop of that, this section of trail had the highest density of bear shit that I have seen, ever.  We are talking around 15-20 bear shits per HALF MILE. I eagerly anticipated the possibility of running into a bear walking on this cliff side trail upwind of me so my bear spray would be pretty much useless unless I wanted to make myself peppered before a bear attacked. We didn't see any bears at all but were constantly noisy to lessen the chance of seeing one. 

After walking past 3/4's of St Mary Lake we hooked a right uphill into a burn section in the hot early afternoons sun. I was baking especially after being exposed on snow yesterday on the way up to the pass. While sizzling away in the burn section I remembered that I have a umbrella which I brought just for this EXACT situation. DUH. So I was in the comfort of my shade until we started downhill along a cliff which brought crazy amounts of wind  so the umbrella went away and I fried some more. Between my visor and a bandana I rigged a system to keep the sun off me for a bit before the clouds rolled in. All the while dealing with this we were trudging through intermittent thorns and overgrowth but at least the bear crap had gone away! Around six we arrived at camp on at the head of Red Eagle Lake and got everything done early so we can wake up earlier than usual to have time to go over Triple Divide Pass.