The Granite Park Chalet; the gem of this trip. I got reservations here totally by chance. A month before the trip I discovered that Granite Park Chalet existed; although they were booked, I threw out a reservation request for fun and it turned out they had availability. I moved our itinerary back by a day so we could stay here since it seemed like a very unique experience.

There are two paths to get there, a steeper shorter path from the loop and the extremely popular Highline Trail that leaves from Logan’s Path. Having just hiked 6.5 miles out of a valley, we were not looking forward to doing any more major elevation changes, so we opted for the mostly flat Highline Trail. It was a great choice to have made, the views were breathtaking…

…and we saw some animals on the way. One mountain goat literally followed us on the trail for 20 min. It was a little scary. There were at least 3 times where we had to stop our hike waiting for big horn sheep to get off the trail.

After a 7.6 mile hike, we arrived at the chateau – before dark this time even!

We were just in time for coffee time which was free hot water drinks and the staff would tell the guests about the history of the chalet and the surrounding area. It was quite informative and the staff was extremely friendly.

Staying at the Granite Park Chalet was a great way to end our backpacking adventures in Montana. I only wish we could’ve stayed at the chalet longer; there are a lot of hikes that originate from there that would’ve been nice to go on. There’s always next year!

The stars! Everyone started going to bed around 9:30 PM (10 PM is quiet hours), and it was already pretty dark by then. But the sky filled with stars. We met a lady originally from Florida that we had a nice conversation with while I was doing some astrophotography. Adam, her, and I saw numerous shooting stars while talking. It was such a great experience. I thought the flattop stars were amazing, but Granite Park Chalet came out in force. I didn’t sleep until 1 AM taking pictures. It was truly a remarkable night. I want to go back in the near future, with more friends.

Our time backpacking was exhausting, but we had some unique experiences and got to see some amazing sights. Definitely an all-encompassing experience that is hard to describe in words and pictures.

-Evilmanta