You brought a turkey?

There’s a place in Glacier National Park called the Granite Park Chalet.  Granite Park is one of two chalets left for hikers in Glacier, the other being the Sperry Chalet.  Several chalets were built in Glacier around 1915 to serve as destinations for tourists arriving by train.  Actually, there is a third chalet still in use, it is serving as the general store at Two Medicine.  The Granite Park Chalet and the Sperry Chalet are both reachable only by trail.  Sperry Chalet is a “full service” chalet which serves gourmet meals in its dining hall, Granite Park Chalet has a kitchen, complete with propane stove and oven, which it allows hikers to use to prepare their own meals.  Most hikers bring in freeze dried food and eat their dinner out of an aluminum pouch.  We’re not most hikers.

The last time we went to Granite Park we planned on hiking in via the Highline Trail and out over Swiftcurrent Pass to Many Glacier.  The Red Eagle forest fire changed our plans, closing Logan’s Pass and the Highline Trail, and forced us to hike in and out over Swiftcurrent.  Previous to leaving Illinois I threw a boneless turkey breast on my smoker, froze it solid, and packed it in ice for the 20 hour roadtrip to Montana.  Wrapped it in aluminum foil and packed that baby in my daypack for the 8 mile hike in to the chalet.

I heated up the smoked turkey in the Granite Park oven, made some Stove Top Stuffing, and prepared the fresh green beans with garlic and hoisin sauce that I dehydrated at home.  When John asked me what we were having for dinner and I told him, his reply was “You brought a turkey?”.  I can only image him envisioning that I had packed in a raw, 15 pound turkey.  It was kind of fun sitting down with a complete turkey dinner while the rest of the hikers were eating freeze dried mac-and-cheese.  We even had plenty left over to feed the chalet staff.

Location: 48.775424024724984, -113.80668640136719