Saturday, June 29, 2024
Cut Bank and Two Medicine Park Entrances
While looking at the park newsletter they hand out at the entrance, I noticed there were two more entrances to the Park on this side that we had not explored. They are south of us and we forgot about them. So today we drove through them, neither of which are very long, several hiking trails but not many roads to drive.
Neither of us slept well last night so we took it easy this morning. About 4 o’clock, we finally left the RV and drove down to Cut Bank Campground and Two Medicine Campground. We skipped Cut Bank and drove back to Two Medicine first. The highway to Two Medicine, Highway 49, was going to be our route tomorrow but having driven it today in the jeep, Joe quickly changed his mind about that. It’s nothing but curves and dips and sharp corners. It’s not for the motorhome -- Joe said we wouldn't have anything left in the cabinets if we took this cut-off, so we will go the longer route through Browning tomorrow. But it took us by Two Medicine Lake, which is very pretty with the mountains as a backdrop. This road reminds me of the Apache Trail back home except this one is paved and has green on each side of it.
Before we got to the turn off for Highway 49 we did see a deer.
We drove 7 miles to the end of the Two Medicine campground. The road through here is very thickly forested and it’s hard to see anything, but a red fox popped out through the trees and ran along the side of the road for a few seconds and we got pictures. It even stopped and scratched. This was a new sighting on this trip. It’s been a long time since we saw a red fox.
We drove back to the general store and walked down to the river's edge. It’s beautiful down here -- people out kayaking. I could’ve actually walked down and stuck my toe in the water here but Joe thought I’d probably fall in and I didn’t want to take my shoes and socks off so I didn’t even try it. I'm afraid those days might be gone forever for me. In the general store, Joe got his Diet Coke so he's good now.
We came out of Two Medicine Park and drove into East Glacier. It was a little bigger town than we expected, even had a golf course and a very pretty lodge. Gas here was $3.65 so we will remember that tomorrow when we head this way. They also had a very colorful tunnel over the railroad.
Just after we left the town and got back into open country one of those "coyote/wolves" crossed the road in front of us, and then we saw a deer off to the left. Maybe that’s what he had been chasing. I think these animals are too robust to be coyotes, but we never really get a good look. This one was running full-blast as he ran in front of us.
As we approached the town of Browning, we saw this big fence. We couldn’t figure out what it was for, but it looked like the railroad track went between it so we just thought maybe it’s to protect the trains from the wind. We certainly know about the wind up here. I googled it and here's what I found.
“These wind breaks were installed to keep the top container on stack trains from blowing off the train. Mostly westbound moves when the containers are empty. Not a snow fence and not an old snow shed."
The change in the terrain is monumental. We go from rolling hills and grasslands to statuesque, snow-covered mountains with just a few miles of brush separating the two.
On our way back to St. Mary we drove back to the Cut Bank campground. This 5-mile road is pretty rough. It’s a gravel road with lots of potholes. We sure wouldn’t want to be bringing a camper back here, but there is a 21 foot limit so no big rigs will be on this road. This gravel road takes us from the grassland prairie through some brush to the mountains of Glacier National Park. 5 miles on this road was plenty far enough.
We saw a critter on the road a little ways ahead. Joe thought it was a moose, but it turned out to be a cow and a calf right on the edge of the road. Several other cows were in the road, especially on our trip out.
We took a short little road down to Cut Bank Creek. Thankfully Joe didn’t feel like he needed to ford this one it since it looked pretty deep, and the other side was a little steep. But it looks like it has been forded, probably by 4-wheelers. Bugs were plentiful down here.
We finally got to the campground at the end of this awful road. Only SUVs, pick-ups and Class B campers and tents were camping here. They were probably 20 sites, most of them occupied. There were a couple open cammpsites. This is a very primitive campground, but to each his own, I guess. And it was a long 5 miles in and now we have to go back out the same way.
And to add insult to injury, there’s a road grader parked back here at the end of this road just before the campground. It must be a retired one because it doesn’t look like it’s been used in a while, and this road could certainly benefit from its use
Joe said he hoped we saw some thing on this road to make it worthwhile but unfortunately the only thing we saw was a prairie dog who hopped up on a rock to say hi to Theo and Prairie Rose. We bounced our way out of there and drove back to the camper. We got in just before eight, worn out from our four hours of driving. Another day in the books.
Tomorrow we leave the east side of Glacier National Park and take up residence on the West side for a week. We will see what that has to offer. Still looking for a moose.
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