Two Medicine

Friday morning came all too soon, but we had to get up and check out of our lovely little cabin. We had planned to on this amazing, very difficult (about 15 miles and 3000 ft of elevation) hike called the Pit-Dawson loop. (*Sigh*--I still really want to do that hike someday!) But, everything conspired against us. We were tired from our late night and didn't get up early enough to start a long hike like that for starters. We were still pretty worn out from the previous day's hiking also. Also, it was rainy and windy and all-around cold. And, there was the internet problem still--Kevin still had to fix some things for his work. So we definitely had to scrap the Pit-Dawson plans.

The first thing we did that morning was find a little cafe that had internet access. Kevin worked on his laptop while I stared at the mouth-watering pastries. I ended up buying one to eat later. Then, we went across the street and had breakfast at the Whistle Stop. We ordered the asparagus omelet and the huckleberry french toast and each had half of each. YUM!! The french toast was pretty much deep fried. Deep fried huckleberry deliciousness.

Anyways, I digress. After breakfast we checked out the old lodge in East Glacier Village. The lobby is very impressive, supported by 50 or 60 trees (with bark still on) that are 3-4 feet in diameter each. Not much in the way of views, though, unlike some of the other lodges we had seen previously.

Next we headed on out to the Two Medicine section of the park, which is very beautiful and less crowded than some of the other sections (not that any of them were really all that crowded). We took a boat ride around the lake (thank heavens the boat was heated!!) and then walked a very short loop to see the "Trick Falls" (water comes out of two different places, one above and one below).

Then, we tried to decide what to do next. We wanted to do *some* hiking, but nothing humongous like Pit-Dawson. We settled on the Scenic Point trail, which--although steep--is relatively short (6 miles round trip). We figured we could just go part way up if we got too tired.

We were breathing pretty hard as we traversed the endless switchbacks, but the views were nice and the rain let up mostly. We ate lunch part way up. It was fairly windy, until we got to the top. Then it was ridiculously windy. Kevin and I figure it must have been like 50 mph winds, maybe faster. (We judged this by later putting our hands out the window of the car while we drove different speeds and tried to gauge if it felt like it did on top of the mountain.) Many times we just had to stop, bend down, and hold on to our trekking poles for a minute or two until the gusting died down. Perhaps you can get some feel for this by looking my hair trying to fly entirely off my head in the photos.

But, the view from the very top was very worth it.

Coming down wasn't even too bad on my knees. When we got to the car, I pulled out my saved pastry to eat as a reward. Unfortunately, it was pretty stale by this point and not nearly as good as it looked. Sad, isn't it?

The only thing left on our itinerary was to drive back to Columbia Falls, where we would be staying at the Back Rock B&B again for our last night before flying home. At the last minute, I decided we should drive the longer but more scenic route back over the Going To The Sun Road, just because I really wanted to see it again. Luckily, it was Friday, so they weren't closing the road at 9 for construction. (I think we entered about 8pm). It was really foggy up near Logan Pass, but once we past that, the views were incredible with all this mist dancing around in the background. I felt like I was stuck in some fantasy novel or something, with the misty mountains and the mysterious lighting.

There was a ram standing right on the side of the road, posing for pictures. I was soooo glad that we took that route--it was a great way to end our time in Glacier!

The only problem was that we got back late to Columbia Falls and hadn't had dinner yet. We ate at a blah place called the Nite Owl, and made our way back to Bad Rock, where the owner had graciously left the door unlocked for us. We had a very early morning the next day, so we hurried and packed and went to bed to get at least a little sleep!