Two Medicine 7/28/2016

The view from the edge of the lake at Two Medicine

The day after our visit to Iceberg Lake, we headed down to the southern parcel of Glacier at Two Medicine. Because it is a bit more distant, and not connected to the Going to the Sun road, fewer people typically visit this area. That makes it more attractive as far as we're concerned. The drive out to Two Medicine was, as usual, gorgeous. On the way, we stopped to note that the forest that had burned many years ago was now covered with new growth of trees--nature renewing itself.

New trees growing after fire

The hike we chose at Two Medicine was a short one (4 miles round trip), and the elevation gain was minimal compared to many others in the park, about 650 feet. What we found out was that all the elevation gain was at the last 1/2 mile, making that portion pretty steep. I must say I sweated my way through that last half mile. On the return, dark clouds were gathering, and we could hear rumbling thunder. But we witnessed just a few sprinkles.

We saw a moose off the trail in the water. After our hike, we drove over to the East Glacier hotel,  where the road in to the hotel was covered with gravel, a result of the storm that we had missed. Apparently the downpour there was heavy, and there were large puddles everywhere. On our return to St. Mary, we saw a few piles of accumulated hail along the side of the road. Such is the hit and miss nature of weather in the mountains, I guess.

One thing we have dealt with on this trip that we never had to before is bugs. In Michigan and Minnesota, I managed to pick up at least 15-20 mosquito bites on my legs. Here at Glacier, the hike to Iceberg was plagued by flies and bees. At Two Medicine, I was bitten several times (5-6) right through my compression sleeve (I think those bites might be from deer flies.), and got several more on my legs.  Oddly, Ray has no bites. He's usually the one to get bitten.

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Wheat and canola fields

Yesterday was a travel day--going from St. Mary area of Glacier down to Livingston, where we would stay one night before heading to Colter Bay at Grand Teton National Park.  We took the less traveled route down Route 89 rather than the Interstate, and enjoyed the ride. We traveled through lots of farmland, and loved the visual contrast between the wheat fields (tan colored--amber waves of
grain!) and the canola fields (bright yellow). Our campground is on the Yellowstone River about 50 miles north of Yellowstone National Park. We woke this morning to the bellowing of moose nearby (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--PyKhohVcY).