Highline Trail is one of the most amazing trail within Glacier National Park. It was simply beautiful. The trail goes from Logan Pass to "The Loop" and is 11.5 miles long. People usually hike from Logan Pass to "The Loop", then take the shuttle bus back. Since now the shuttle bus requires reservation, most people just go half way to Haystack Butte and turn back.
We started the hike around 7:30AM after visiting Hidden Lake. The trail starts off across the road from Logan Pass Visitor Center. When we started the trail, we noticed the the trail was essentially going around the cliff side of the mountain. The first half mile of the trail take people right by the cliff with vertical drop on 1 side and cliff on the other. The trail was about 2 feet wide. It might sound scary, but the trail was actually wider than we initially thought. There were also cables along the trail that people can hold onto.
The trail continued down the mountain side and we could see the highway road just below us. It was quite cool to hike along side the mountain and also see the mountain peaks surrounding us. The trail was essentially going down hill for the first 2 miles and so it was quite easy. Initially we were concerned about bears, but then we were thinking that bears would not come all the way to the cliff side.
After about 3 miles, we were right below Haystack Butte. We had a quick break here before we started climbing up to Haystack Butte. It was uphill heading to Haystack Butte, but it was not difficult. When we got to Haystack Butte, it was simply beautiful. There were several large granite rocks around the area sitting on the green grassy land. We were also at the highest point of Highline Trail and we could see everything beneath us.
We then went further down the trail and then we suddenly saw animal poop on the ground. We had a look at it and noticed that it had berries in it. We were worried that it could be bear poops and it was still quite fresh. Then we had a look at the trail ahead and saw the it was all down hill from here and we did not want to hike all the way back up. Thus we decided to turn back and headed back to trail head.
Overall, we enjoyed the hike. If the weather was not smoggy, it would have been even better. Nevertheless, the smoggy weather did not stop us enjoying the scenery.
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