Penelope woke us up around 7AM, which was perfect, because we had a busy day ahead of us. We wanted to get up early to Logan Pass, one of the most popular spots in the park, to avoid the crowds. We had our first hot breakfast of the trip: instant oatmeal and hot cocoa. Penelope usually eats oatmeal for breakfast, but she was very excited to have the overly sugared "maple brown sugar" instant version. After breakfast, we got in the car and headed up to Logan Pass, about 3000 ft above our campground at Avalanche Creek. The road up to the pass is one of those awesome, scary, cliff-hugging roads. There were length, height, and width restrictions on vehicles, so no big RVs allowed. On the rock side of the road, there wasn't even a shoulder, so if cars were coming the other way, sometimes we were less than a foot from the jagged rocks. I really enjoyed driving on it. The views from the road were great, but we didn't stop because we wanted to get to the pass early and we knew we would be going on this road two more times during our trip.
Once at Logan Pass, we loaded up our backpacks (Katie's with food and water, mine with Penelope and all my camera gear and binoculars). At the visitor center, a ranger was pointing out a cluster of big horn sheep up on the cliff across the pass. It took a long time for us to find the sheep. Even with my big lens they were too far away to get a really good photo, but I took some photos anyway. Then we began our 1.5 mile hike to the Hidden Lake Overlook. Our starting elevation was 6600 ft, and we really felt the effects of the high elevation. I was particularly annoyed that much of the hike consisted of boardwalks, and my hiking poles (unlike Penelope's feet the day before), frequently got stuck in the cracks. It also had huge steps, which were not much fun with 40 pounds of kid and gear on my back. Once we got off the boardwalk part, I was much happier.
Other than the annoying boardwalk, the hike was a lot of fun. The pass sits at the continental divide, and the trail crosses over it several times with some great mountain views. The pass itself is a fairly flat meadow, but it is surrounded by several awesome peaks. We also saw a bunch of small wildlife on the hike, mostly "squeaky squirrels" (they sound like birds) and several marmots, one of which walked along beside us for awhile. At the end of the hike was the Hidden Lake Overlook, which had great mountain views and, as you might expect from the name, a great view of Hidden Lake, which really is hidden among all the mountains. We had lunch up at the overlook, this time fending off squirrels instead of chipmunks, and enjoyed the views and rested. The weather varied between sunny and partly cloudy with a bit of rain, but things changed quickly and the little bit of rain felt good compared to the hot sun. Penelope enjoyed that the sun shade of her backpack also worked as a rain shade and a wind shade, and she stayed nice and comfy the whole hike.
After lunch, we headed back down the trail, and once again Penelope passed out. I once again struggled with the boardwalk, being careful not to fall down the steps with my precious but heavy load. Penelope fell asleep with her head almost completely hanging out of the backpack, which didn't help my back. Katie struggled a bit with the altitude (we topped out at around 7100 ft), and felt a lot better once we got lower down. Back at the Visitor Center, we walked around a bit more until Penelope woke up, then had a snack in the shade. Once again the squirrels found us, and both amused and bothered Penelope. Then we headed back down the curvy road, enjoying the views as the clouds started to roll in.
Once at the campsite, we enjoyed some quiet time. Then, in the afternoon, we drove back toward McDonald Lake for a short hike along McDonald Creek to see a small waterfall. We got a little confused by the trails, and wound up on a trail for horses. As you can imagine, there was a lot of horse poop, and we decided that Penelope's job would be to warn us whenever she saw horse poop so that we wouldn't step in it. Penelope really enjoyed her job, and was pretty disappointed when we turned on to a trail without horse poop. Along the trail, we stopped and went down to the bank of McDonald Creek. The weather was pretty warm, and we found a nice protected spot where we could all wade safely in the creek. Penelope enjoyed throwing rocks in the water, while I took an impromptu sponge bath using my shirt. Penelope was inspired by my cleanliness, and asked for her own pretend bath, using a rock as a pretend sponge. After our cooling off session, we finished our hike, stopping to see the McDonald Falls, which wasn't really that impressive. Along the trail back to our car, Penelope spotted three ducks swimming in the water. It was pretty impressive that she saw them. They were having fun riding the rapids, which was pretty cool to see.
After our hike, we returned to the campsite and got ready to cook dinner. We could tell that a storm was brewing and wanted to get everything going. Penelope heard a few claps of thunder and was scared, so she went into the tent with Katie while I cooked and made sure we were ready for a quick getaway if the rain started coming. By the time dinner was ready, the storm had gotten closer and was a bit louder, although still no rain. Penelope was adamant about not eating outside, so we let her eat in the car on Katie's lap. As Penelope ate, I prepared plates for Katie and me and cleaned up in case the rain came.
Just as I was finishing up getting our cookware into the car, the wind picked up and a light rain started to fall. Penelope was done, so we put her in the back seat and gave her the iPad to keep her entertained. I gave Katie her plate to eat in the car, and started to eat myself, but remembered that we had left some stuff outside the tent. As the rain started to come down harder, I scrambled to seal up the tent and bring in our shoes, then returned to the car and ate my dinner. It was just in time, because pretty soon after that it got really windy and hail started falling, a bit bigger than pea sized. Penelope was fine with her iPad, while Katie and I enjoyed our dinner and watched the crazy storm as our windows fogged up. The hail passed quickly and was replaced with rain, which was heavy at first then became light but steady. Our dinner done, Penelope announced that she really had to pee! I grabbed a towel from the trunk (our rain gear was not easily accessible) and dashed to her door. I covered her with the towel, picked her up, and ran with her to the bathroom, while she kept her hands firmly clasped over her ears. She did her business, I covered her up again with the towel, she covered her ears, and we ran back. She enjoyed the thrill of running through the rain in a towel.
While sitting in the car, we kept seeing other cars going the wrong way down the one way camp road, so we thought maybe some debris was blocking the road. We stayed in the car until the rain mostly stopped, then got out to look around. I noticed some small tree branches down, so it was clear the wind had done some damage. Then I looked behind us, and thought, "Huh, that's weird. Didn't there used to be a tent in that site? Now there is just a fallen tree!" I went over to investigate, and found the people in the site next to the one with the fallen tree. They said they had seen the tent (unoccupied) blow away onto their site, and had gone out to secure it next to their tent. Then, the tree fell, right where the tent used to be sitting. If the tent hadn't blown away, it probably would have been crushed by the falling tree's branches. After hearing that story, and being really glad we rode out the storm in the safety of our car, we started to walk along the campground road to see why all these cars were going the wrong way. Well, what did we find? A huge "granddaddy" tree, about 4 feet in diameter at the base of the trunk, had fallen straight across the road. The top of it had come down right between a truck and it's camper trailer, damaging both slightly. The trunk fell across the driveway of a campsite, missing the car and tent at that site. Luckily, and amazingly, no one was hurt.
When we arrived, a member of the chainsaw crew and a ranger had already arrived and were beginning to clear the tree. Penelope was really interested and excited to see the process, and we watched as the branches were removed. Soon another group of park maintenance workers arrived with a second chainsaw, and they got to work cutting up the trunk and rolling the pieces out of the road. They had to leave the part of the tree that hit the trailer so that it could be documented for insurance purposes first. It was a pretty amazing sight, and after it was cleared, everyone started talking. The tree came down in the harsh winds that arrived right before the hail started. It turned out that the truck and trailer were both occupied, with the husband in the truck, his wife in the trailer and a tree between them. They were celebrating their wedding anniversary. Another couple were also split by the tree, with the woman at the campsite and her husband getting water about 15 feet from where the trunk of the tree fell. The guy staying at the campsite right next to the base of the tree actually had to run away from it to avoid being hit by the tree. All in all, it was an amazing event that could have been much worse. According to the park ranger, this storm was way worse than normal for the park, and trees were reported down all over the park, stretching their work crews pretty thin.
After that excitement, we walked back to our campsite. Penelope was very into this whole tree falling down and getting cut up thing, and wanted to go investigate the one that fell next to our site. As we were looking at it, the chainsaw crew came over to cut it up, and Penelope insisted on watching. Once they were done, Penelope asked to watch another one, and was disappointed to learn that there were no more downed trees in the campground. It was actually really interesting timing, because the day before, on our hike, we had been discussing why trees fall down, and how they can come down in rainstorms. Well, Penelope was really excited to see a rainstorm actually bring down a tree, and for the rest of the trip, we continued to discuss fallen trees. Penelope would often point to a tree and say something along the lines of "a rainstorm made that tree fall, but I don't know which rainstorm did it. It was awhile ago." We also had many discussions of forest fires, but luckily, no first hand experience of that.
By the end of the evening, Penelope was very wound up, and we pretty much gave up on trying to put her to bed. We waited until she was super sleepy, which was much later than we usually would have kept her up, then put her to sleep. During this time, I tried to start another fire with the rest of our wood, but the air was so humid from the storm that it refused to do anything more than smolder. No smores for us that night. I eventually gave up so that we could save the wood for the next night. Katie and I continued to discuss the storm and the trees. It was a bit scary to realize that while our car would have protected us from the small tree that fell, it would have been no match for the big one that came down. But, in the end, no one was hurt, and it was cool to see how interested Penelope was in the whole thing, and how she made connections between what she saw there and what she saw in the forest when we hiked.
Our neighbors whose tent was almost hit by a tree returned in a tow truck. Turns out their car had also broken down. Seems like they had a pretty rough day, although they seemed to be in good spirits. Following the storm, a thick fog had rolled in, and visibility was minimal. In the light of our headlamps, we could actually see big particles of fog. With no fire, we decided to head to bed. It had been a very exciting day.