Koonetai Lake Hike / Waterton Lakes Canada

This hike began with a boat shuttle on Waterton Lake in the Canada half of Glacier Park. It felt like passing through fjords on the way to the end. It was a long lake and took us about 50 minutes to get to our trailhead.

The mountains seemed to go on and on.

We passed little huts along the way.

Finally we arrived at the ranger station after crossing back over to the US. We had to bring our passports if we wanted to hike. There were rangers there that took info from us. It was called Goat Haunt. Most people on the boat just went for the boat ride and didn't hike. They leave you and come back in 3 or 5 hours.

We began our hike in the real backcountry. There was no one here and we were on our own. We were armed with bug spray but no Bear spray. So we made lots of noise along the way.

We were heading for Koonetai Lakes

There were several bridges to cross.

We made it to Koonetai Lake. These are the peaks belonging to what's known as Porcupine Ridge, and at the very end of this huge ridge rests the Citadel Peaks. We were hoping to see some Moose. Instead we saw a lone Loon swimming in the lake. The ranger we talked to on the way back said they usually saw two. This meant the Mother was probably on the nest.

Heading back.... We were making good time and could slow down a bit. We ran into a few other people from our boat hiking but were slower. The bugs were insane here so we kept moving. I even put on my head net it was so loud. Doug had 20 mosquitos on his back while he was hiking.

This shows you how overgrown the area was. We were hiking up to our waist. Some of the plants were as tall as Doug called Grays Lovage. It looks like Queen anne lace flower.

We waited only 15 minutes or so for our return shuttle.  It was getting cloudy by then.  Total hike was 5.5 miles. We enjoyed the cruise back to Canada.