Glacier

     Day 2 in Glacier National Park began with the sounds of rain on the top of the van. The weather just won't let up on this trip. The only good thing is that with rain comes rainbows and we got one leaving the campground.

Rainbow in St. Mary Campground

     We had more hiking planned for today. We moved south from the main portion of the park to Two Medicine Lake. More road construction gave us a flashback to Cypress Hills in Canada when we got the van stuck. This construction came with complete road removal. The road was down to dirt in the pouring rain. Great. To top it off, we had to wait about 20 minutes for a pilot car to lead us through. The car was going way too slow for my liking. We were rolling into some big climbs in deep mud at a crawl. I just knew we would have some trouble, but the van cruised through it yet again. We made it through and got to see yet another rainbow. It even turned into a double for a few seconds.

Rainbow on Hwy 89 trying to turn into a double

     After the construction ended, we turned our dirty van onto Hwy 49, which turned out to be a super fun road...for me anyway. Shannon could have done without the world rally event that followed. The road is narrow and twists along the side of the foothills. It would have been super fun, but some deep potholes kept me from getting too wild.

     Two Medicine Lake is surrounded by mountains and waterfalls. The plan was to see as many of the falls as possible and explore the lake. We planned to hit a few short hikes and then get on a boat tour of the lake. The tour would end with dropping us off on the other side of the lake, where we would hike six miles back to the parking lot passing multiple waterfalls along the way.

     First hike up was a paved path to Running Eagle Falls. The water goes underground and then emerges as a waterfall. The hike was lame, but the waterfall itself was really cool. Next up was a steep climb up to Appistoki Falls. The hike was short, but tough. The view was not the best. You couldn't really see the front of the falls unless you climbed down into the canyon.

Running Eagle Falls

Appistoki Falls

     The sun had shone for us on those two quick hikes, but now it was clouding up again and the wind was wild. Two Medicine Lake was rough. So rough that they canceled all boat tours for the day. So again, plans had to change. We wanted to do more hiking, especially since it wasn't raining. We quickly pieced together a plan to do an out-and-back to two waterfalls that we would have seen if we had done the boat tour. The trail around the lake was beautiful. Eventually we left the water's edge and moved into the forest. We saw only a handful of people on this hike. The nice weather disappeared just before we reached the first falls, Aster Falls, as more rain began to fall.

Two Medicine Lake

Aster Falls

     The rain quickly became a heavy downpour. Besides being soggy, my feet were sore from all the hiking in my boots which were literally falling apart. I glued the sole in multiple places when we were at Jasper National Park. The repair job was still holding on, but just barely. The soles were so thin that I could feel every rock and root in the trail. We reached a swinging bridge, which I thought would be the end of Shannon's hike. She is not fond of any kind of bridge that moves, but she wanted to see Rockwell Falls. We finally reached the falls and enjoyed the view for a few minutes as the rain continued to pour down on us. It was a long hike back stomping through puddles. My poor boots finally gave in just before we reached the end of the trail. The bottom began to peel off. I literally wore them out on this trip. This hike gave us a total of 9.4 miles of hiking for the day. We did 11.6 miles the day before and a grand total of just over 78 miles on the trip. No wonder my feet hurt and my boots fell apart.

The swinging bridge

She did it!

Rockwell Falls. You can see the upper and lower portions from this angle.

She conquered it on the way back too.

Video: Exploring Glacier National Park

     We had the chance to stay one more night and do some early morning exploring, but we had seen just about everything we could see on the east side of the park. The weather forecast was for more heavy rain and strong winds overnight and into the next morning, so we made the call to head for home a little early. I had a backup plan of stopping in the Black Hills and Badlands on the way home so I was ready for this. We probably would have stayed for the boat ride, but the odds of the weather cooperating enough to be out on that lake were looking low.

     We had no real plan for the rest of Montana. Once you leave the mountains, Montana is pretty flat and open. There's not much to see. We picked up our last groceries for the trip in Great Falls, then continued southeast, reaching Billings after dark. Only one place in town was packed and that was the arena where a big rodeo was going on. We again could not find a place to camp and ended up sleeping at a rest stop. The back of the van is becoming our regular bed at this point.

     The next morning we were up early and moving on I-90 to get on over to South Dakota so we could spend the day playing in the Black Hills. I wanted to do a little mountain biking, see a bit of the Badlands again and visit the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site just outside the park. We drove by the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. We stopped by, but it wasn't open yet. It was quite expensive to get in so we did not wait another hour for it to open.

     More storms formed up at the Wyoming-South Dakota border as we crossed into Wyoming. It was looking like another washout day if we continued to the Black Hills. We made a last-second decision to turn south on I-25 and head for Cheyenne. The weather was looking clear at Curt Gowdy State Park. The detour added only one hour to our drive. That was well worth it to get in some bike time. We got there in the early afternoon and I got in a couple of hours of much needed mountain bike therapy. I was so into the riding I didn't even take a single picture. I just enjoyed the singletrack and sunshine. Shannon enjoyed the rays as well and also fixed us a nice dinner. We even got showers before we left! It was a nice end to the trip. Rather than stay the night and have to depart super early in the morning, we decided to continue on down the road. We drove through the night, reaching St. Louis in the late morning and home in the early afternoon. 

     It rained on us at least 11 of the days we were gone, but we made the most of it. Many things went wrong and forced us to change our plans, but again, we made it work. What a trip! It was my first time going out of the country. I hope I get to go back to Canada soon. There's so much more still to see even in the areas we visited on this trip. And much, much more to ride. We feel like we only got to see half of Waterton Lakes and Glacier so we will definitely be back to see those. I know the trip cleared my mind and had me feeling refreshed and ready to go after some lofty goals for 2020. We hope you enjoyed reading about the trip!