Monday, July 13 - Browning and East Glacier

The rest of the group went to Canada today to hike Alderson – Carthew, but because my renewed passport didn’t arrive in time I couldn’t go. Bill wanted to climb Divide Mountain and there may not be another day to do it, so he stayed here too but the bad weather moved in by 8 a.m. so we certainly couldn’t climb it this morning. That is NOT a place you want to be in inclement weather...Bill knows that from experience after getting caught up there in a lightning storm.

We drove up to Many Glacier instead, to get a campsite for Dave and Carrie , and then we went to Duck Lake Lodge to get our tribal permits just in case we CAN climb Divide later in the week. It is on Blackfeet land, so you need a tribal permit to climb it. Then we drove to Two Medicine for something to do in the lighting and thunder. I drove the Looking Glass Highway for the first time…it’s pretty rough and narrow and there are steep drop-offs and I was doing it the “hard” direction, north to south. But I did it, one thing accomplished today! We stopped at the store in Two Med during a downpour and then went over to the ranger station to see if Sam was working. He wasn’t, but we talked to the ranger on duty for a while. We heard we had just missed a griz above the lake…Bill is bringing me bad luck bear-wise, he apparently repels bears. I haven’t seen one yet! The rain let up so we decided to hike out to Running Eagle Falls to see if it was coming over the top and the bottom, as the ranger was speculating (due to the large amount of rain). It's sometimes called "Trick Falls" because at times it becomes two waterfalls.


Unfortunately, it wasn’t...darn! It’s still pretty though. We listened to Jack Gladstone’s “Blackfeet Legends of GNP” on the way there, including the story about Pitamakin (Running Eagle).

We drove down to East Glacier and I had just announced that I needed to see Stinky when – voila! There he was, laying on the grass next to Brownie’s Deli/Hostel.



Stinky is the unofficial “town dog” of East Glacier – he rules all the other dogs (that all run loose) and is extremely aloof yet for some reason, ever since hearing about him we always have to stop and pet him. One year we were at East Glacier Lodge and Stinky was chasing a border collie around (Stinky is part Akita and something else) and they ran into and out of the hotel lobby repeatedly, and the bellmen couldn’t catch them. The poor other dog was terrified.

I got my picture taken with Stinky so I was happy. We were considering driving up to Marias Pass (on the Continental Divde on Hwy 2, which marks the southern boundary of the park) but as we began to make our way up there we could see a lot more nasty clouds. So, we went with plan “b”, the Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning. I thought the museum would have more focus on Blackfeet culture but it really was all the plains tribes. It is a nice museum, well worth the stop and the $4 fee to get in. We drove the Starr School road back to St. Mary and there were a record number of loose horses running or walking next to the road. We stopped at St. Mary Ridge so Bill could show me what our route WOULD have been had we been able to go up Divide today. Then it was back to the campground for showers and I came up to Jack Gladstone’s cabin to “cabin-sit” for the night – Jack’s having surgery tomorrow. It was my first chance to see the cabin since last summer when we were trying to clear out the rocks from the basement area – it has come a long way! I love the designs that his stonemason cousins came up with and it is much roomier than I was envisioning.

The view, of course, is incredible…looking out over Lower St. Mary Lake towards the mountains. We called the others in Canada and they were going to eat dinner up there so Bill and I went to the Cattle Baron, since he’s never been there. 1 steak and two sets of salads, etc. was the exact, perfect amount of food. I love that place both for the very unique décor and for the excellent food…also since when I’ve been there with kids they’ve been so accommodating and even ordered pizza from another place for the kids! Now I’m back at the cabin listening to the rain. I thought it was done! It is going to be a wet hike up to Shangri-la tomorrow, if we can go…hopefully the weather will cooperate!
© 2009 Tara Morrison