There are three main lakes at Two Medicine Lake and their names are Upper Two Medicine Lake, Two Medicine Lake, and Lower Two Medicine Lake. To reach this part of the park, you have to exit Glacier at St Mary's and travel south on route 49 for about 20 miles. It isn't a great distance, but the road is twisty and winding, so it may take longer to drive than you expect. Then you can reenter the park at the Two Medicine entrance.
The first thing we did in the Two Medicine area was take a short hike up to Appistoki Falls. The falls are nice, but not spectacular. They are down in a ravine and rather hard to see.
We wanted to hike out to Upper Two Medicine Lake. We thought it would be nice to ride the boat one way across Two Medicine Lake, and then start from there. But it turns out that if you want only a one way ticket, you have to board the boat at the far end of the lake - in other words, we would have to hike out and ride the boat back.
There are trails that go completely around Two Medicine Lake. At about 10:30 AM, we started out on the North Shore trail. Unfortunately, this was plagued with mosquitos. This was about the only area of the park where the mosquitos bothered us, maybe because it was an overcast day the bugs liked to stay out and feast. The bugs kept us moving at a fast pace, pausing only for photographs. Most of the north shore is below Rising Wolf Mountain.
It's about 3.5 miles along the north shore to Twin Falls. It is called Twin Falls because waters pours down on two sides of a big rock - looking in my pictures, I only have shots of each individual waterfall, I do not have a shot showing boths streams together.
Another mile and half beyond Twin Falls is Upper Two Medicine Lake. Upper Two Medicine Lake is surrounded by 3 mountains: Mount Rockwell, Lone Walker Mountain, and Mount Helen. Again, because of the bugs, we didn't stay too long. We retraced our steps back to the Twin Falls point, and then took the trail down to the boat dock. We got there easily in time for the 1:30 PM boat.
On the boat ride back, the operator told us a few details about the Two Medicine area. The name comes from the fact that the Blackfeet and Blood Indian tribes had agreed to hold joint ceremonies at their medicine lodge. But the Blood Indians were tardy; by the time they showed up, the Blackfeet had already constructed their lodge, so the Blood decided to build a second lodge for themselves. The name for the area used to be Two Medicine Lodge, but it was shortened to Two Medicine.
The bit of information that I remember from the boat operator was the fact that this area had the largest record temperature shift recorded for a 24 hour period. A warm wind, called the Chinook, can blow in through the pass over Upper Two Medicine Lake. One year, the Chinook wind raised the temperature at the lodge to 60 degrees in the dead of winter. But after the wind stopped, the temperature plunged to 40 below zero, a 100 degree temperature swing in 24 hours.
The neatest thing to see in the Two Medicine area is Running Eagle Falls, also known as Trick Falls. The "trick" is that Running Eagle Falls is really two waterfalls. One waterfall results from the flow of water through a hole in the bottom of the river. The rest of the river flows over the lip of a rock cliff like a conventional waterfall. When the water levels are high, the volume of water flowing over the top masks the waterfall behind that is flowing out of the rock cliff. But when we were there the water level was down, so we could see hidden falls from the cliff face. Look at my photos - they are a better explanation than this description.
Click here to see a large panorama photo from the shore of Two Medicine Lake.
Click here to see a large panorama photo from the shore of Upper Two Medicine Lake.
Click on any thumbnail to open photo in new window. My favorite photos have blue frames.
