Glacier National Park

Monday, July 9, and Tuesday July 10, 2012 (Days 234,235)

Cooling our jets lakeside

We left Shelby and traveled on highway 2 towards Glacier National Park. It turned out to be a hot, hot day…the high was 95 on our dashboard thermometer. We made one stop in Great Falls, and bought a screen house, because we knew we’d be staying for a while in one spot…and in a national park there are no hookups for air conditioning! We came in from the east, and ended up at Two Medicine campground. Just before we entered the park itself, a coyote ran across the road right in front of us.


A favorite camping meal

It was just too dang hot that afternoon to do much of anything, so we set up camp and crossed the road to the lake and put our chairs at the water’s edge with our feet in the cold water to cool off. Harris made a fabulous supper of steak and fried potatoes. We sat outside in our screen house until the thunderstorm drove us in. At least that cooled the air off! Harris beat Judy at cards..again….so what else is new?



Luckily, just a short storm

Tuesday morning we wanted to get going before the heat got too bad, so after a quick breakfast we rode our bikes down the road to a trailhead and started off on the Aster Park trail. It is a beautiful trail through the woods, and only gets hard the last .7 mile…long switchbacks up and up. Before we got to that point, the trail opened out a bit around some ponds, and we saw a moose wading through one. There was a deer at the edge momentarily, but she took off pretty quickly. The moose just kept wandering through the pond, eating and cooling off for quite a while. We finally left just so we could get back in the shade of the trees.


Bear grass

Our view from Two Medicine campground

Our 2nd camp site

The trail ended at a fantastic overlook, with views of mountains and Two Medicine Lake. We could see the campground at the very end of the lake, and could almost see Howie, but he was hidden in the trees. Because of some spur trails we took, we ended up hiking about 5 miles this morning. Good exercise!


Moose we saw on our hike

Thankfully the bike ride back to camp was mostly downhill. We decided to move Howie to another campsite because then we could use the generator to replenish the battery. We read our books outside in our screen house, rode our bikes around camp some more, talked to other campers, and had a lazy afternoon. The weather continues to be hot and beautiful, although it is a bit, just a bit cooler today!


Judy replenishing her neck cooler

The end of the hike!

Our farewell view as we left in the morning

Total miles driven today=75