Getting Our Green On

A sunset hike to Avalanche Lake, Glacier National Park

It’s green! All of us “grammers” (Instagram) on the hike that day were familiar enough with the Avalanche Lake area to notice how different it was from last summer. Almost no rain all summer long had deprived us from escaping the heat to what was usually a cool, lush, green temperate rainforest hike. However, late in the fall season, the trail to Avalanche Lake was still open and quite the opposite—green was the new brown. Mosses and lichen splattered all over the forest, dangling and dripping from the trees and carpeting the forest floor in phosphorescent-like mounds. When we reached the lake, deep, jewel-like pools reflected the sky in emeralds transitioning to sapphire blues later in the evening.