This is a reanimation of the Vicaribus blog as lived by Miro Kazakoff and Ehren Foss in 2004 and 2005. The photos may be spotty.

Two Medicine

Posted by ehren

I worked on Saturday, putting away around 4 hours of solid effort on SPECTRE, another hour filling out tax forms, preparing to mail back my EZ-Pass, and opening the rest of my mail, and maybe another hour cropping photos and writing Thursday/Friday's entry. Mike found out, far too late, that the handicapped-accessible nature trail he was hoping to gimp through after yesterday's hike was, in fact, two miles away by foot. Montana's a big place.

Around 1:00 in the afternoon I walked over to the ranger's station to reserve another night's camp, opting for the slothful look with my Merril slip-on shoes which are one size too big, without socks. It made for a lacksadaisical shuffle, and also for a new blister on my right foot. While at the ranger station I tried to find a decent mountain for climbing. As I'd expect from a Public-safety-conscious ranger, she tried to direct me towards the decaffeinated areas of the park. The following is slightly embellished, and the names aren't real:

"Lamb Hill is a nice hike..."
"Hm...How about Death Crag?"
"No, too much snow, you'll die. There's a decent loop through Mewling Kitten Meadows in that area, though."
"Nah...what about Abomination Tower by way of Evisceration Valley?"
"Road's not open."
"Hm..."

She did, however, let me peruse the Glacier mountain climbing reference books, which contained clear instructions and useful descriptions of a few peaks near to Going To The Sun Road. In the end the ranger thought Goat Mountain would make for a decent early-season achievement, but I had quietly memorized the route to a sub-peak of Going To The Sun Mountain, which looms over the road two long turns before Logan Pass.

Later in the afternoon Mike left for a boat tour across Lower Two Medicine Lake, and shortly afterward Miro and Annely stumbled back. I had a feeling that with a little prodding they wouldn't be satisfied with just the pass, and would opt for the 17 mile loop. Perhaps Miro has picked up my aversion to backtracking. Despite the impressive distance he stayed on his feet long enough to cook dinner, burrito SURPRISE! We didn't have enough wood left for a proper fire, but saved enough small kindling to have flame for a second (or third?) night of s'mores.

In the morning the troops roused by 10 or so, ate breakfast, and by noon we started driving towards the main eastern Glacier Park area, near St. Mary's. Still thinking MT-49 impassable beyond Two Medicine, we drove back through East Glacier, then on to Browning via US-2 over a 12 mile stretch of rolling grassy hills. The abrupt difference between rocky mountains and Montana ranchland was arresting; On a razor's line all the trees disappeared, the hills flattened, and we could see for miles and miles (if it weren't raining AGAIN). On US-89 towards St. Mary's we passed our 3rd, 4th, and 5th vehicles of the trip (in more than 12,000 miles). Three RVs pulled over to allow car passage, and I had enough momentum to gun it past them before they could get moving again. Driving past the MT-49 outlet, I saw no signs warning off large vehicles. Detour for nothing?

We reserved a campsite, ate lunch, and drove up Going To The Sun Road as far as allowed (10 miles in from St. Mary's to Sun Point). I dropped Miro and Mike off in the Rising Sun area so they could take in another water tour, and Annely and I continued on for hiking. From the parking lot while putting duct-tape on the blister, I could see a menacing knife of rock, easily 1,500 feet high. I thought it was Going To The Sun Mountain until the clouds cleared slightly and I caught view of an even larger and nastier looking peak behind it and much higher.