Montana Day 3 – Hidden Lake Overlook and St. Mary Boat Tour

Today we decided to go on a little bit more of a difficult hike. Edmund had done so well the day before that we thought he could handle a bit of a longer hike. 


Despite Edmund not wanting to fall asleep the night before, he was still up bright and early so we were able to start our hike at 8 am. Do you really want to know what a child that skips one of his naps looks like in the evening? Lack of sleep makes this little boy RIDICULOUSLY CRAZY. Plus, add to the fact that we were all in the same little room means that this little bear did not want to fall asleep. He just couldn’t help himself from looking at mom, who was trying to give him a disapproving glance while secretly videotaping his ridiculousness.

We headed over early to Logan Pass to make a morning hike to the Hidden Lake Overlook. We thought the 6 mile hike to Hidden Lake itself would be a bit too much, so we were happy to get a glimpse of it from the mountainside instead. 


It was cool in the morning and we stopped along the side of the Going-To-the-Sun road to snap some pictures of the beautiful scenery. St. Mary Lake was smooth as glass in the early morning and the air held itself hazy over the lake and surrounding mountains.

wild goose island at st. mary lake

st. mary lake in the morning

Hidden Lake Overlook
Elevation Gain: 550 feet
Elevation Loss: 675 feet
Distance: 3 miles (round trip)

We arrived at Logan Pass around 8:30 and got ready for the hike. We started looking for the trail head and were surprised to find it entirely covered in snow. There was snow everywhere. It was old snow, dense and becoming slushy in the morning sun. We slowly hobbled more than hiked our way up the steep slope of the trail. It was slow going as we tried not to lose our footing on the path. One we got up the initial ascent, the trail emerged and we were greeted by the smell of pine and the sound of trickling water from the surrounding melting snow.

the beginning of the trail

pretty high up and lots of snow

snow and pine trees make it feel like christmas

At the overlook we were greeted by a family of mountain goats that were laying about and getting some breakfast. The view of Hidden Lake from the overlook was beautiful. After the frozen hike, we weren’t surprised to see that most of the lake was covered in ice and snow. We decided it was definitely not worth it to take the steep hike down to the actual lake since there wasn’t much to see. We hung out, enjoying the spectacular views, thinking to ourselves that we did it! We made it up the snowy pass.

mountain goat

view of hidden lake

view of hidden lake

I suppose we should mention that we happened to see parents with small children walking up the trail on our way back, making us realize that perhaps this wasn’t as hard as we thought. We also saw a number of people turning around on the initial ascent because it was too difficult, which made us feel a little better, but it does make me hope that our kids will be as touch as the ones that were able to make it up.

We headed over to the Two Dog Flats to drab some lunch before our 2:00 PM boat tour on St. Mary Lake. They had pretty interesting food. I had a chicken sandwich so that I could feed some to Edmund. Thank goodness for Plum Organics Portable Pouches. I don’t know how else I would have given this kid any fruits or vegetables this past week besides a banana without them. I tried a bit before giving each of them to him since I got a variety of kinds. They tasted pretty good, like a smoothie.

two dog flats for lunch

After lunch, we headed over to the Rising Sun boat dock to wait for the boat tour. There were so many people for the tour that they used both boats. The tour came with an optional hike to Baring Falls and, ironically, St Mary Falls. We opted not to do the hike again to St. Mary Falls.

The boat ride was beautiful and refreshing in the heat of the day since the water on the lake is a frigid 35 deg. We enjoyed the mountain views as we made our way to the southeast side of the lake. We got a close up look of the little Wild Goose Island. We stopped near Sunrift Gorge and headed in for the short hike to Baring Falls.

st. mary boat tour

edmund is happy to be on the cool lake

the view from the boat

the view from the boat

The falls were once again beautiful. We feel like we can’t get enough waterfalls since we don’t tend to have them in the Midwest. This falls was much shorter and less impressive than St. Mary and Virginia Falls, but still big enough that I wouldn’t want to get too close to it since drowning is apparently the number one cause of death in Glacier. I am not sure of the people drown because of the swift currents, waterfalls, or from the fact that the water is freezing cold.

baring falls

eric enjoying the falls

After enjoying the falls for a bit, we headed back to the dock so that we didn’t miss our boat and have to walk back. We were warned that if we weren’t back by 3, that the boat would leave without us since it would assume we wanted to do the St. Mary Fall hike which left from the same place.  The boat headed back to Rising Sun and we enjoyed the breathtaking scenery and turquoise water that is St. Mary Lake.

After getting back to the car, we headed back to the hotel room. Edmund had fallen asleep and we hoped that we would be able to get him out of his car seat and into his pack and play still sleeping. No such luck. He woke up and refused to fall back asleep. We decided that we would go out to dinner instead.

We headed over to the Snowgoose Grill which is in the St. Mary Hotel for dinner. Edmund was exhausted and a bit cranky, so dinner didn’t last long before we headed back to the room and put him down for bed.

Eric and I read our books for a bit before hitting the bed ourselves. We have to get up early to head up to Many Glacier in the morning.
-Eric and Anna