The Fourth of July didn’t go exactly as we had planned it to. Jake from Hike 734 ranks the Lincoln Lake trail 87th best in the park and Snyder Ridge 88th, out of 88. Though I disagree with his ranking of Lincoln Lake, which I loved, his ranking of Snyder Ridge should have been lower.

The first mile and a half of Lincoln Lake are a brutal uphill, and I was not happy to find myself going down almost as much elevation as I’d gained to get to the lake itself, but it really is a beautiful place and would be lovely to camp at. Water falls from the afar Ellen Wilson into the lake, which is another gorgeous colour.

Almost back to the road, we took the junction to Snyder Ridge, planning on coming out at Apgar Village. However, the trail is not marked class three for no reason. About ten meters in, my friend and I were already marching through thick grass with barely any trail. We debated continuing and decided to not be sensible. About a mile and a half of bush whacking and following a barely visible path, we lost the trail completely. Instead of turning back, we decided to try and bushwhack our way down to the road, as the trail parallels the road the entire way.

The mile from the trail to Going-to-the-Sun road was not pretty. I stopped counting how many times I’d fallen at 20; losing 2000 feet of elevation is much easier on a trail than off, for some reason. I stepped in a wasp’s nest and lost my morale completely, grumping at my friend every time he mentioned that he thought he could hear cars. I think I was happier to finally see the road then than I had been after getting stuck in Pelican Valley in 2014, and I think that two hour mile was the slowest of my life.

From the road, we hitch hiked over to Apgar Village where we sat bought ice cream and sat next to the lake. Though we had planned on attempting to make it up to Polebridge for Fourth of July fireworks, we instead returned to camp. Despite all, it was a lovely evening with a gorgeous sunset over Apgar and though there weren’t any fireworks, I’m glad we attempted to battle Snyder Ridge.