I soon discover that Glacier is a very unique mountain park, with topography that is strikingly different than most other mountain ranges. The textures, shapes, and colors are all unique and very photogenic. The major highway going through the park, known as the Going-to-the-sun highway, is a spectacular drive. Even more spectacular is to hike one of the many trails or climb the many interesting peaks, as we soon found out.
We chose an outing that combined some trail hiking with a climb of a major peak in the park. The peak I chose was Mount Siyeh, one of the higher peaks, and reportedly with a fantastic view on its summit. We would combine the peak with a traverse hike along the nearby Siyeh Pass trail.
A beautiful sunny day allowed us to fully experience the amazing scenery of the park. The Siyeh pass trail was excellent, with good footing and switchbacking in a most pleasant manner up towards Siyeh Pass. Elegantly-shaped peaks were everywhere, along with a few little pocket glaciers nestled at the base some of the bigger ones.
The scramble up Mount Siyeh, a vast, looming bulk of a peak rising up not far from Siyeh Pass, looked quite daunting. This was likely more to do with our face-on approach vantage than anything else. However, that first impression, coupled with the fact that we were taking a bit longer to hike than planned, caused us to scrap our attempt on the peak, and instead we stayed on the official trail and enjoyed as it meandered down the other side of the pass and through field after field of mountain wildflowers.
