Glacier--Day 2

20090911—Glacier--Day 2

I woke up to frost on the picnic table and enjoyed coffee watching a beautiful sunrise light up the side of the mountain right across the stream. That firmed up my plans for the hike, so I packed the daypack and took off about 9:00.

The hike was to go around Two Medicine Lake. I started off, going clockwise and took all the “add ons” available: 0.6 miles to Paradise Point, then 1.8 miles to Aster Falls and Aster Park overlook (the later being quite steep). I had part of my lunch there. Then continued, getting pretty tired, with half the hike still to do. About 2:00 I skipped a short add which went down to the lakeshore. Then took another add on to Twin Falls. I still had 4 miles to go after that, and limped into camp about 5:15, after about 12 miles total for the day. My feet hurt—technically it was not that hard a day, but I was not in great shape for it.

I saw lots of chipmunks during the hike, a cow moose grazing in a beaver pool between Paradise Point and Aster Falls, and some fresh Black Bear scat on the trail along with some newly ripped up logs, about two miles before the end of the hike. Throughout the day I had been making a lot of noise, as recommended, to keep from surprising a bear and getting into trouble that way. I think it worked since I did not actually encounter any bears, but this also tends to put off the smaller wildlife and birds. The scenery was grand and the forest smells wonderful.

I had a can of soup for supper, commiserated a bit with the neighbor, looked for but did not spot any bears on the mountain side, and am now heading to bed early at 8:45.