Two Medicine & Many Glaciers

There is more than one route into Glacier Park to explore the glaciers, mountains, lakes and waterfalls. One could go into Canada to explore Waterton/Glacier National Peace Park but that's too far to drive in one day. Two others are to see the lodges and lakes of Two Medicine and Many Glaciers. We chose to drive outside the park and south around the tip and then back up to Two Medicine on the east side. It was a pretty drive along the Middle Fork of the Flathead River and the Bear Creek to the Continental Divide on Marias Pass. Two Medicine was named by the Indians when two different tribes had their medicine lodge ceremonies at the same site.

In the early 1900's, the Great Norther Railroad built lodges and chalets throughout the park in an effort to lure people to ride their train on vacation. They built them about a day's horse ride apart so you could travel from one chalet to the next. Three of them are now lodges -- McDonald Lodge on the west side, Two Medicine Lodge and Many Glacier Lodge on the east side. Two smaller chalets high in the mountains were restored in the late 1990's and are used today by overnight hikers.

The area around these lodges have cabins, border on lake shores and offer vacation services like restaurants, game rooms, and tours. The lodges themselves are very rustic with huge log pillars and cross beams. A peek into one room found them to be very, very small! Walk in fireplaces and breezeways are common in all the lodges. A feature worth seeing in Two Medicine was the Running Eagle Falls, sometimes called Trick Falls. It is actually two falls, one on top of the other, but in the dry season, the top fall ends and the lower fall appears to come out of a hole in the wall.

At Many Glaciers, we were supposed to be able to see five of the parks 26 glaciers. But a sad fact is that the warming climate is melting the glaciers so it makes them hard to pick out. These five glaciers and two others can seen from the highway, but the remaining 19 glaciers must be seen by hiking to them. This lodge, too, is located on a lake with the surrounding mountains reflected in its calm, blue waters.

It seemed like it would be a shorter route back to camp if we drove the Going-To-The-Sun highway again. Time wise it was about the same but we put fewer miles on the Jeep. John took me out to dinner and we had a really nice experience at the Belton Chalet restaurant located across the street from the train depot in West Glacier. This chalet & cabins were originally built by the railroad and is on the historic register.