A summer-ending backpack into Glacier's Belly and Red Gap country

Gordon and Dan enjoy the views above Elizabeth Lake with Mount Merritt's Old Sun Glacier in view

The Eliabeth Lake Nymphs/Sirens lead Gordon and Dan in a yoga session

Gordon photographs Dawn Mist Falls on the South Fork of the Belly River

Dan crosses South Fork Belly on suspension bridge

The Belly River Ranger Station

Nataos Peak shines in the alpenglow above our Glenn Lake camp

A cold morning crossing of the Belly River with new snow on Mount Cleveland in background

The huckleberries in full color were too tasty to pass up on way to Red Gap Pass

A spectacular falls on Kennedy Creek below our Poia Lake camp

Brothers Tom and Dan at trip's end on Lake Sherburne

I haven't posted for a while, but it doesn't mean I haven't been active.
There have been several trips this September into the Little Belts, Highwoods, the Continental Divide Trail, Glacier and Waterton parks since my last post.  But I've written so much about all of these hikes in the past and nothing made any one of them stand out (although they were all worthwhile), so I didn't post.
What is worth writing about is the 5-day-50 miles plus backpack trip into Glacier National Park with my brother, Dan, from Indianapolis (formerly Chicago) and Gordon Whirry.
We had been excited about planning this trip because we finally got a permit for the Hi-Line Traverse, coveted backpack beginning and ending at Many Glacier that starts at the Ptarmigan Wall, with nights at Elizabeth Lake, Glenn Lake in the Belly, Stoney Indian Lake, Fifty Mountain and Granite Park before exiting through Swiftcurrent Pass and ending back at Many.
Dan had been applying for this trip for more than 10 years and badly wanted to do it.
Just prior to our trip, however, Granite campground was closed because a grizzly destroyed an outhouse.  Then the next possible go-to for the route was made unavailable when Flattop campground and access points between Logan Pass and Avalanche Lake were closed.  Another possible route ---- up from Waterton was also unavailable because Goat Haunt has been closed all summer and the boat won't drop off visitor from Canada.
Oh, well.
So, we put together an alternate trip that had us start at Many, go through Ptarmigan, camp at Elizabeth the first night, with two nights at Glenn Lake foot and a final night at Poia Lake after a 16 mile behemoth trek climbing 3,000 feet through Red Gap Pass.
We decided to chance that even though the forecast had high percentages for rain throughout the trip.
Lucky for us, the weather was sunny and clear for the first two days, although the wind howled all night on days two and three, and there was rain on days three and four and it was darn wet on day five.
We took a side trip on day 2, going several miles out of our way, to visit the Belly River Ranger Station and learn about the history of the area's first colorful ranger, Joe Cosley, who was notorious as a poacher, scofflaw and womanizer.  The female names of the lakes in the Belly country are no accident, they are Cosley's girlfriends, Elizabeth, Helen, Sue, Margaret, Janet, Frances to whom he had promised a diamond ring that he never produced, but had buried under an aspen tree bearing his carved name.  There were many of these trees, including a section of one preserved in the ranger station.  The cabin he built there more than 100 years ago is still in use at the ranger station as a storage shed. Cosley could never make the transition from a national forest ranger, who was allowed to trap and hunt in what became Glacier Park in 1910.  The creation of the park outlawed such practices, but he continued to trap and hunt anyway, until he was arrested and driven out as ranger.
This was my fourth time in the Belly country where the Belly River flows through a bottom dominated by some of the highest peaks in the park, including two of the 10,000-footers,  Mounts Merritt and Cleveland.
The last time I had been through Red Gap Pass was 35 years ago with my late friend Wayne Franks, when we did a route that went from Many Glacier through the Pass, with a stop at Elizabeth Head and back through the Ptarmigan Tunnel, climbing Mount Seward along the way.  However, I had made two previous traverses to the Pass from the Ptarmigan Tunnel, including one with J. Gordon Edwards, the legendary Glacier climbing pioneer and author of the "Climber's Guide to Glacier Park."
Ironically, as I had just explained the traverse to Dan and Gordon and as we approached Poia Lake on day 4, a group of Canadian women passed us on a day hike who had just done the pass and were on their way back to Many on what must have been a 20-mile day!  They also climbed Seward.
Our final night was a cold and rainy one, which made packing up a moist mess.  Poia was our least favorite camp site because it was tucked so far back in the trees without good views of the colorful lake.
We took the quickest way out, a 4.1 miles trek using the exceptionally steep Sherburne Cutoff Trail to the Many Glacier gate where our car was parked. 
We were charmed by the many young people we met along the trail and in campgrounds, especially two women we tagged as the "Elizabeth Lake Nymphs/Sirens," ---- "Bevvie the Free and Jill the Pill", who clicked their heels and led us in yoga stretching exercises on day 2.  We immediately missed these free spirits when they departed camp.
The alpine-glow sunrises and sunsets, the fantastic huckleberries and the climb to Red Gap, as well as the company of my two companions, were the highlights of this memorable trip.