Two Medicine, East Glacier, MT…

I have mentioned before that Glacier National Park is Huge and have also said it is difficult to see much of the park as there is little road access. In order for us to visit the Two Medicine area of Glacier we had to drive a very long loop of nearly 185 miles. Not to be deterred and certainly not to miss any of Glacier we made the trek south of Columbia Falls and took Montana Highway 2 around the southern perimeter of the park.

Once we made it to East Glacier we were now on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and near East Glacier there is a turnout that has some nice informational plaques about some of the history of the area as well as some geologic info about this unique area. From East Glacier we took Looking Glass Road to Two Medicine Road which took us past Lower Two Medicine Lake.

Lower Two Medicine Lake is yet another of the many beautiful Glacier lakes with drop dead gorgeous scenery as its backdrop. Wildflowers were more abundant on the east side of the National Park and as we would find out later so were the bugs… mostly those annoying biting flies. We drove into the entrance of the park and parked at Two Medicine Lake where we took the Upper Two Medicine Lake trail around the lake.

We walked a mile or a bit more and enjoyed the hike but anytime we stopped for a while you would be attacked by biting flies. Not enjoying this aspect of the hike we turned back and didn’t complete the whole loop trail. We decided to check out of the shorter trails on the way out of Two Medicine to see Running Eagle Falls. Only a little over a half mile we figured we could see the falls and not be hassled by the flies too much.

The trail was easy and well maintained and took us to one of the most unique falls we will ever see. Running Eagle Falls has the nickname of  "Trick Falls” since it is actually two separate waterfalls in the same location. There are two falls during the spring and summer runoff season as the lower falls comes out of a sink hole while the upper falls only flows during high water runoff. While we were there both falls were flowing so much it was difficult to discern the lower falls from the upper one until we got closer to them. Super cool waterfall…

Afterward we drove north out of the park on Looking Glass Road which as we drove north we better understood the roads name as the wide open panoramas we were treated too were simply breathtaking… The drive along Looking Glass Road was certainly worth driving despite its being so far away from where we were. We took the road to 89 then north to Saint Marys. In Saint Marys we then drove back across the park on the Going to the Sun road. Since it was getting late we decided to drive this way in the hope of seeing more wildlife. We didn’t see any wildlife but totally enjoyed our slow drive across this most magnificent National park…