It's the middle of June. It's snowing in the middle of June. Any normal person would be upset that their summer vacation was interrupted with snow. I'm not normal. Snow has a way of making things look magical in my eyes. Snow just adds to the surroundings. My favorite hiking weather is in the middle of winter with snow on the ground. I wasn't upset by the snow. I was thrilled.
It was snowing so hard that you could barely see the mountains in the background. I still wished I could have seen the mountains on the Many Glacier side, but I would give up that chance any time for this moment. We wanted to hike to Grinnell Glacier, but it was closed due to snow hazards. So we found on the map Apikuni Falls instead. It was a short hike to these falls, which we weren't sad about because it was so cold that day.
Coming out of the car the wind just hit you so hard. We wore our buff neck gators on as much of our face as possible to keep the cold away. This was the moment I cursed having to wear glasses to see. The snow was coming in side ways sometimes, and would hit my glasses just right. I kept wiping them off, but then gave up.
The more we climbed up the mountain the scenery went from semi green to white. The snow just kept accumulating the higher we went. It was like our own little wonderland. At one point the trees clear out to give us a look of the mountains around us. It was one of the handful of times in my life that I've felt so small. That the scenery in front of me caught my breath. I wanted to stay there forever. We had a waterfall to go look at, however.
We were almost there when we ran into a couple from Ohio. It's crazy when you cross the country just to meet someone from Cleveland. I looked down at her trekking poles, and wonder if we should have brought ours with us from the car. She warned us about the snow that was coming up next. We still weren't prepared even with the warning.
The trees cleared to this opening with mountains all the way around you. The wind was worse up here. There in front of you was the waterfall blowing all over. The snow was coming down harder over here. I didn't care. I was grinning from ear to ear like a kid at the zoo. I was engulfed in this winter wonderland. My partner held my hand to make sure I kept my footing. I was trying to pay attention as the snow was deeper here. It was hard. I was so distracted by the beauty all around me.
I was not able to bring my camera to capture this moment, however, I thankfully own a GoPro. I never post a video with my blog posts, but there was no other way to show the beauty in this moment. This was my favorite hike on the whole trip we took out west. It's amazing that that first hike topped everything right there.
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