Glacier Trip - Part 4a: Guy Trip

Tuesday
We drive the 1 1/2 hours back from the airport for Nicole and to pick up Mike. There is some debate about the choice of location for that night -- but it isn't like the scenery was horrible to view... Mike arrives with no luggage, but it turns out his luggage beat him here... All is well... We are pumped about our next day.

Wednesday
The next morning after the wonderful Glacier breakfast buffet, Tim takes the long and winding road back to the airport (and back) to drop Christie off. Our goal is to get a route with the ranger better than my original plan. With Ryan coming now on Friday, we have broken the trip into two three-day trips.

Around noon, I go wandering over to the Ranger Station (no car) but it is closed. Tim gets back about the same time that I do, so we go back as I thought I saw an official looking vehicle drive up. The truck was driven by what turned out to be a local Ski Legend who works doing trail maintenance in the summer. He takes us down to the closest Ranger Station at Two Medicine.

Having skipped the Two Medicine trip last year, I scheduled us to go to No Name Lake and then on to Upper Two Medicine Lake. None of the hiking was going to be really hard, we were going to cover about 20 miles and only about 800 feet of elevation gain.

I was a little concerned that Tim and Mike did not take the safety video as seriously as I would have liked. This was to be a scary trend that would cause me great stress and agony. You must understand that when you hike in Grizzly country that you have to be very careful. They eat you. I, being ever so slightly risk adverse, make sure that anything with odor is carefully hung 200 yards away from our tents. The next few days would be an exercise in patience -- yes, we must hang the toothpaste -- yes, we that Powerbar wrapper has to be hung. As well, as we were comfortably about to fall asleep in our sleeping bags, I hear Tim from the next tent ask "Does anyone want any of these potato chips?" Mike responds "No, I am too stuffed from this can of Mackerel -- I can't eat it all so I will just leave it out here for later." I sob myself to sleep.

Thursday
The next morning we climb up to the glacier nearby that was too difficult to reach the evening before in our sandals. The glacier is inside a huge bowl of rocks that have been pushed out over time to build a 50-60 ft. wall. Mike and Tim play a game of throwing small boulders back into the bowl, trying to knock over piles of rocks. We decide that the area has now been primarily shaped by the ice age and the Tim/Mike/Matt trip of 2006.

Oh
Fish Count -- 0
Bear Count -- 7
Animals Mike has seen -- a crow, 5 squirrels, and a duck

We pack up and head on down to Upper Two Medicine Lake. It is a short hike today so that there is plenty of time to fish. We hear on the trail that there is a Moose (from Americans, so it didn't count) at the campsite so we hurry on.

The tents were hot last night, so Tim leaves his rainfly off so that it would guarantee some rain. 11 hours and a damp Tim later, the rain stops.

Friday
Earlier, we had run into two guys from Miami that were pretty much newbies when it comes to backpacking. Now I will say that when I started, I read a bunch of books but really did learn a lot from logic and experience. These guys -- not so much. First -- no rain gear. That would get them voted out of the tribe immediately. Second -- all cotton. In my humble opinion, unless it is a flannel sheet -- cotton is the devil. It gets wet and doesn't insulate and won't dry and... sorry I am getting too worked up... ANYWAY, these guys were cold, wet and almost hypothermic. We gently coached them to skip the rest of the trip and get out of the woods. They did.

We hiked out of the woods and Mike jogged to get the car. We drove the 1/2 hour back to East Glacier (with the windows completely rolled down) to go to the perfect combination of a Laundry and Shower store thing. For 1.50/pound they would do our laundry, which we thought was more than worth not having to touch our underwear again. For about $5 or so -- we got 8.5 minutes of hot shower. There were only two showers available, so I lost rock/paper/scissors and got to go third.

I then drive Mike/Tim back 1 1/2 hours to the Many Glacier Lodge and drop them off at the bar. I head the 2 hours back to the airport (grabbing our clean laundry on the way) to pick up Ryan (I was 1 1/2 hours late) and we meet the guys back at the lodge.

Fish Count -- 0
Bear Count -- 11 (Grizzly and Black Bear repeats)