Pitamaken-Dawson Loop: Or...our new favorite hike of all time!

We have a new winner! This week we tackled a hike that we have been looking at for awhile. It is a long one, and we kept debating whether we wanted to try to get a backcountry permit and take the big packs to stay overnight part of the way in, or just take day packs and make a long day of it. We finally opted to just do it as a day hike. What's wrong with a few more miles, anyways? Glen will always vote for a longer trail if it lightens the pack.

This hike is listed as a "backpackers must-do" hike in our book, and we had heard good things from our Glacier friends. They are all right! The trail is called the Pitamaken-Dawson Loop. It is 17.6 miles.(When we started the hike we thought that it was going to be just over 15, but we missed something when we were reading the description.) It starts at lake level, circles the back side of a mountain, travels past an alpine lake, climbs the side of a mountain, crosses a ridgeline, circles the back of another mountain, more ridge, around a third mountain, and then descends into a valley and back along the lake.

This is a look up at one of the mountains. We will actually be heading behind it later.

Above, is looking down on Oldman Lake where we would have spent the night if we tried to get a backcountry permit. We have climbed up some switchbacks from there to Pitamaken Pass. When we get up there, we not only see this view of where we came from, but we see another valley on the right hand side of us with two lakes. We can also see where we are headed. In that photo, we will be going behind the mountain on the right, across the ridgeline, and behind the mountain on the left around to a valley where we descend.

This is the view from the ridge on Pitamaken Pass of the two lakes on the right side of us as we could also see Oldman Lake on the left of us.

Terry could not resist this "boot shot" from the top of Pitamaken Pass. Needless to say, Glen didn't get anywhere near the edge -- personal growth only goes so far.

After we came over Pitamaken pass we saw a whole herd of bighorns, and climbed up a slope and over a snow field to get behind that mountain you saw earlier on the right side of the photo. This was the view we were treated to on the backside, as another whole valley opened up below us.

This was our lunch spot, and it was so windy we thought we would lose our hats. Hence, hat hair in the photo. Another hiker was so kind as to take this for us as we munched our pepperoni, cheese, Triscuits, and Gatorade. You can see the view behind us, and it was equally as beautiful in front of us.

This photo shows the view in front of us at lunch.

When we finally came around Dawson Pass and could see this view, we could see our ending point...at the far end of that lake. We still had lots of miles to go to make it there, but what a phenomenal hike. We have never had a hike with so much of it above treeline, with so many different viewpoints.

It WAS a LOOONG hike. However, we are glad we did it with light packs. We also know that if we were ever to have anyone ask about overnight stays, that our advice would be to get one or two nights at Oldman Lake. Hike there, drop the gear, take light packs up and over Pitamaken and around to Dawson, then go back to Oldman Lake and out the same way. The Dawson Pass side is steep, you can see all the view from the top, and no way would we do this in reverse order. Pitamaken has nice gradual switchbacks. :-) We didn't really enjoy the part where we came down from Dawson into the lake level. It was a bit hard on the knees!

If you time things correctly, you can cut about 2 miles off this hike by taking the boat across Two Medicine Lake. We didn't time things correctly. They run boats at 3:00 and at 5:00. We reached the boat area about 3:10. So, we opted to walk out rather than wait 2 hours for a boat.

We are slowly reaching the end of our "must do" list here, and that is probably a good thing. Many trails are being closed for bear activity. We wanted to hike to Grinnell Glacier, but doubt we can now. I don't know if you all heard the story of Jack Hanna and the grizzlies that resulted in him spraying a young griz....but it was all the rage here. Jack Hanna Article Jack Hanna actually stayed here at the KOA and he very kindly gave me an autographed copy of one of his books when he heard I was a 4th grade teacher.