Glacier National Park, Part 2: Two Medicine is Just What the Doctor Ordered

The more I talk to people on their vacations, something becomes very apparent. Everyone is talking about how many days they have left and how they are trying to fit in as much as possible in their remaining days.  Everyone is on a time table.  I know this is the way things work, but then they ask how long we are staying and I don’t really have a definite answer for them because I am not really sure.  Eventually I explain to them that we are out here indefinitely, as long as we like it and as long as we can make things work out financially.  Then they are really interested!

At our jobs everything was focused on deadlines and I guess in everyday life we all have deadlines.  Whether it is determined by upcoming events, weather patterns, business hours, family members, chores that need to be done.  We have decided to try and take a break from deadlines.  We are going to try to have a “no reservation” policy from here on out.  That being said we do have some camping reservations in place already in popular parks in July and October which we will keep.  The reservations just put pressure on us to be somewhere on a certain date, and many times there is a reservation fee which you do not pay if you just show up. This has worked for us here at Two Medicine on the east side of Glacier National Park.  We were able to get a campsite and also a boat/hike tour without reservations even though it says you should make them.  This is working for the time being but it is still early in the season up here and there are two holidays coming up, Canada Day July 1^st and of course the 4^th of July for the Americans.  We hadn’t even considered the July 1^st holiday until some Canadians mentioned it to us.  We are very close to the Canadian border and we are planning on heading to the Great White North very soon.  We are trying to plot a plan so at the very least we have a place to stay during this holiday period and we would like to avoid crowds, but I am not sure that is possible.

We are in a part of the park called Two Medicine. The Blackfeet Indians inhabited this area before the white man came in and took over.  The Blackfeet Indian reservation now borders the east side of the park.  The story of the name “Two Medicine” is from the Blackfeet.  It is something about a Blackfeet tradition of the young men fasting in a medicine lodge for four days.  Two women were sent out to find a place for the medicine lodge and they each came back with a different location on either side of the valley.  Both locations were used so there were “two medicine lodges”, so that is what they called this area.  It has been shortened over the years to “Two Medicine”.

This area is quieter than other locations in the park, there are beautiful views, wildflowers, wildlife, hiking trails, lakes and rivers.  The only drawback is no cell phone or internet service.  I suppose this could be considered a positive for some people, forcing you to unplug from technology, however I cannot help but consider it a negative.  There is service about 5 miles away in East Glacier Park. They do have a lot of bears here, both grizzly and black bears, and the park service recommends carrying bear spray when you are out hiking or biking… lots of talk about bears.  Now I am not only afraid of being attacked by a bear but I am also afraid if I were in a situation where I tried to use bear spray I would injure myself with it and not the bear.  They tell you to make noise when you are on the trail, which I knew, and hike in numbers.   In order to avoid the whole bear spray situation we have gone on ranger led hikes with a group of people.  We also learned about the wildflowers, medicinal plants, birds, animals, a bit of geology (not my favorite) and some stories of the Blackfeet.  The interpretive rangers here are very good at what they do.

Ranger-led group hike

Ranger Kelly

Beargrass – bears don’t eat it, mountain goats do!

We went into a busier part of the park, St Mary which is about an hour from Two Medicine, for a red bus tour up the Going to the Sun Rd.  It was a three hour tour to Logan Pass and back.  We wish we had more time at Logan Pass, we were only allowed 15 minutes!  There is a vehicle length restriction of 21 feet on the Going to the Sun Rd and our van is too long.  There is a free shuttle bus that goes up there but it doesn’t start until July 1^st.  We saw some wildlife on the tour, an elk, a herd of big horn sheep sitting on the snow, and the highlight was a black bear crossing the road!  Finally, I see a bear and in a safe environment as well.

As the holidays approach things start getting a little crazy in our campground.  The campground has a “FULL” sign every night.  People are driving through looking for spots, getting frustrated and desperate.  There are several law enforcement rangers here driving through as well.  There was a bit of excitement at the campsite across the way from us.  As far as we can tell the people were fined for a food storage violation.  The rules state that you can only have food or garbage outside when you are actually there.  When you leave your campsite, food is either in the provided bear locker or in your hard sided vehicle and garbage in the bear proof dumpster.  An interesting tidbit we picked up from a ranger, he said Yellowstone’s bears are now trained to break into minivans because they know there is leftover crumbs and food from kids in there.  He said the bears here have not learned that.  We are apprehensive about heading into Canada during the holiday weekend so we decide to stay in Two Medicine over the holidays and hope that it can’t get too crazy here since the campground is limited to a certain number of sites, but all bets are off for the day-use crowds. Since this campground is first-come first-serve if you already occupy a site you can renew it first thing in the morning and just stay.  I believe the limit is 14 days in the park.

Bears, bears, bears.  Since we are staying longer in Two Medicine we figure we have to bite the bullet and buy some bear spray and carry it with us so we can go off hiking on our own.  The bear spray is $41 and now that we have it we have to worry about where we are storing it and what to do with it when we are done.  Instructions say if the can is empty you can throw it away but if it is partially full you have to take it to some type of recycling place, great.  Also we are not really clear on transporting it over the Canadian border, one thing we read said you cannot, but a ranger here told us it is ok.  Hopefully we can just bring it, because there are even more bears up there!

Tim agreed to attach the bear spray to his belt and we head out on what turned out to be a 10 mile hike to Rockwell Falls and around Two Medicine Lake.  There was one section that was especially scary because there was a sign about a bear frequenting the area and the brush in that area was very tall with a narrow path.   Ranger Pat says he likes to hike in Grizzly country because he has a heightened sense of awareness and is constantly taking in all the beautiful sights and sounds.  When we were hiking, anytime there were no other people on the trail we were just yelling out to the bears.  I guess it worked because we did not see any.

We only found one place in town where we could get showers and do laundry.  Showers were $5 unlimited time and they give you a towel.  There were 6 washers and 7 dryers and a constant stream of people in the laundry area with no room to do anything.  But it is our only choice so we will be going back for a second round before we leave here.  Campground has a free dump station and you can fill your fresh water tank there as well. We went to the town of Browning which is on the Indian Reservation, to get our mail and groceries.  There was an IGA there but not what we are used to for groceries.  No organic food and lots of processed foods but it is our only choice so pesticide laden blueberries and factory bread it is. Since it is on the reservation there were lots of dogs just wandering around off leash.  I have seen this before, dogs wandering in the parking lot of Scottsdale Community College which is on the reservation and most memorably in the town of Supai at the bottom of Havasu Canyon.  Backpacking there with friends years ago there were lots of dogs hanging around the camping area.  They had learned to let the visitors pet them knowing they will get some food scraps.