We were scheduled to hike around Two Medicine Lake in Glacier Park on the east side of the Divide. However Thursday night it rained almost an inch and snowed at elevations above 4500 ft. Friday morning brought partly cloudy skies in my part of the valley and westward. East against the Swan Range and towards Glacier Park the clouds were stacked against the mountains. While the weather forecast called for clearing skies, I doubted we would see any sun if we went east.
Bill wanted to cancel hiking but I convinced him to hike the Lupine Lake trail. This trail was located in the Salish Mountains west of Kalispell. It was mostly sunny in that direction and I felt we had a chance to escape any afternoon rain showers that would occur from the day's evaporation of the moisture on the ground.
Neither of us had ever hiked this trail. This trail was one of the trails mentioned as a candidate for being free of snow when I spoke with the Tally Lake ranger last month.
I picked Bill up in my car and I drove to the trail. There are two ways to get to the trail:- north from Talley Lake and Star Meadows area
- south from Marion, MT.
On the map, Lupine Lake trail is below the circled 5 at the top of the map. Below the circled 5 you see a red 210. that is the trail number. Follow that trail from Lupine Lake down and over to the green road near the lower right tip of the light tan area. That is where I wanted to drive.
Marion, MT is in the lower right corner near the red line that indicates Hwy 2.
Approaching Marion I could see snow near the tops of the mountains. *gulp* Still, I didn't worry much about snow as I felt the Lupine Lake trail lay in a valley and would be snow free. The ranger did tell me this was one of the trails that opened early after snow melt.
Marion is an odd town. I never saw the core town. A quarter mile off hwy 2, and among open space and some homes, was a newer post office building. No other business nearby. Odd. A short drive further and a sign pointed west along a mainly empty road to the public library. And perhaps a school as one building looked like a school. Where is main street and the businesses?
According to my map the paved road ended a little over a mile past Little Bitterroot Lake. The pavement ended at the end of the lake. Okay... A little over a mile we saw a paved road lead east off our road. Hmmm.... the map says we continue relatively north so I did so.
The gravel road was in very good condition with only a couple potholes. Up and around a mountain side I drove. I later learned this was Haskill Pass. A great view of a lake in the large valley below could be seen on the other side of the pass. I later learned this was Dahl Lake and that we were in Pleasant Valley. We saw several large birds - hawks or an eagle I am not sure.
I had estimated that the Lupine trail would start about 8 to 9 miles from where the pavement ended. On the map each square is one mile across. At 9 miles no trail. Hmmm... I kept driving. We came to Lost Trail National Wildlife Refuge.
Wikkepedia: Lost Trail Refuge
Official Lost Trail website
I couldn't find the refuge on my map. Where are we?! I kept driving. After 4 miles we came to the refuge's headquarters. A refuge truck was on the side of the road so I stopped to ask directions.
"Where are we? Where is the Lupine Lake trail?"
The truck's passenger was newer and didn't know where Lupine Lake trail was located. The truck's driver did know, and using my map, showed me where we were and where we wanted to be. We were a long way off. Where we wanted to be was on the north side of a mountain range.
We had to backtrack back over Haskill Pass, back to where I saw the paved road to the east. That was the road we wanted to be on.
Back I drove. *sigh*
At the top of Haskill Pass a scree pile of mostly flat and colored rocks came down from the mountainside to the road carved from the side of the mountain. Both Bill and I like collecting rocks, though his tend to be on the smaller side. I stopped and we both scrambled around gathering rocks. He was looking for some medium size flat rocks. Me? Anything that caught my fancy.
As the car was right there I didn't have to carry the rocks far and therefore wasn't limited too much in size, though I did leave a few interesting larger rocks better carried in a pickup. Bill and I ended filling a third to half of my car trunk with rocks.
We had a hard time quitting. When we did, several times we found more interesting rocks a short drive further.I figured the correct road's pavement would end relatively soon. To our surprise the pavement continued all the way to the trail and beyond. What a pleasant surprise.
The trail head had a large sign marking it and a decent area off the road to park one's vehicle. One other vehicle was already parked there.
Since we left hwy 2 at Marion, and even accounting for my 13 mile wrong turn, we had seen less than 5 vehicles. Not a heavily traveled road.
We walked past the other vehicle looking for the trail head. Where is it?! A couple that looked to be in their late 40s or early 50s came riding up the paved road on horseback and showed us that the trail head was behind my car. Oopps.
The couple were on two horses with the longest legs I have ever seen. Beautiful horses and ones I would want if I had to travel through deep snow drifts.
I learned this couple was from Columbia Falls and had spent the night camping off the road a short distance away. They were out for a day or so of camping and trail riding. They camped out the previous night and, while I had rain in the Valley, they watched large snowflakes fall. To me an ideal camping situation: in the mountain outdoors with decent temperatures and falling snow among the tall pines. All the more reason to cuddle up with one's sweetie to keep warm.
He works as a ski instructor at Big Mountain over the winter. They had come here several years ago after living in New Mexico. Prior to that they were from Texas. I commented that they were a long way from Texas, and it was my understanding that Texans love Texas and prefer to live there. Not them! They couldn't wait to get out of Texas. Both had a slight Texas drawl that was pleasant to hear.
Their horses had small saddlebags; he wore a gun on his hip; and they had a saw they used to cut dead fall that sometimes lay across the trail. This was great as they cleared the trail ahead of us, as on horseback they traveled faster than we did on foot.
This is another reason I like Montana. One meets interesting people with life experiences who have moved here because they want to, not just because of a job. In Minnesota the people I mainly met went to college then got a job at IBM or the Mayo Clinic. Their life experiences consisted of college and work. Their goal was a good paying job. Most of these people had little in the way of interesting life experience.
The sign at the start of the trail said Lupine Lake was 2.5 miles. That differs from the Tally Lake brochure that said it was 4 miles. One could also continue hiking to Ashley Mountain which was 5 miles away.
Bill and I were very pleasantly surprised to find a great and roaring waterfall in a deep canyon below. The waterfall was on Griffith Creek. And what in the world is such a short deep canyon doing here?
An overlook jutted out over the creek far below and it sloped downward. No way was I getting close to the edge! From one side I could see the falls to the south. To the NE I saw the creek far below. This led to another series of waterfalls that we reached once the trail crossed the creek.
The canyon with the creek and falls was narrow and deep. The slides were vertical solid rock walls. It is amazing the creek cut such a deep area through the rock. Below and at the end of the steepest part of the canyon was a large rock half as tall as the canyon. Growing out of the rock on the side near the top was a pine tree. Out of the boulder! I wish I had a camera.
We hiked down to where the trail crossed the creek. The couple on horseback were having trouble as their horses refused to cross the creek. She rode back up the first switchback then he came up also. I suggested they try again after I crossed the bridge to the other side.
"Perhaps the horses will cross once they see someone on the other side."
That worked. Seeing me on the other side, both horses crossed with no problem.
After crossing the creek the trail mainly climbed. Prior to our crossing the creek the trail was constantly downhill. I am glad it wasn't all downhill as we had to return.
The trail was fantastic. We hiked through pine forests with occasional open areas. We started to see occasional areas of snow off the trail. Then more and more snow until the trail was the only partly snow free. That changed as we then had a thin layer of wet slushy melting snow on our trail.
The pines were draped with melting snow. Beautiful! One did have to be careful when a clump of melting snow fell from a branch. I hadn't worn a hat and once I got hit on the top of my head by a glop of snow that fell. "Who's throwing snowballs?"
The moisture freshened the air and the pine smell was strong. "Cool mountain pine" is not just a slogan to sell air fresheners. I was in heaven. This was my favorite hike so far this year and I didn't want to be anywhere else.
We had seen footprints in the snow off and on, and after hiking a while through the snow, we encountered paw prints. They were large. If they were from a dog we would have seen them earlier when we saw the footprints. Maybe they were wolf tracks! Where is Darrel when you need him? We didn't know, but we decided they were wolf tracks. Later we saw smaller tracks. "Wolf pups", I said.
At the lake we found three women sitting and three dogs frolicking about. Darn.
They weren't wolf tracks after all. The largest dog was a giant poodle. A poodle made those tracks no less!The women looked to be in their 50s. They usually get together to hike once a week and also would hike to Lupine Lake each year. One woman made small pads for them to use to sit on to keep warmer and drier. I offered to join their group so I could get a pad also but they laughed.
The branches were damp and they were unable to start a fire in the rock fire ring others had used for fires. Bill got talkative as he enjoys talking with women. After a while they left to return to their vehicle.
This area was made by Mother Nature for us to enjoy the lake. A large rock that split cleanly into several sections jutted against the lake. We stood on the lake and surveyed the lake and environment. Ashley Mountain rose east / SE of the lake.
Pine trees rose from the lake shore on up the mountain side for most of the lake. Across from us was a similar rocky area where the trees were thinner. Snow lay on the trees. The rock area across the lake, shaded, was snow covered. The lake water was clear. Even under the cloudy skies the lake reflected the various colors of green from the pines and also the white of the rocky area.
Gorgeous! Gorgeous! Gorgeous!
We ate our lunch there.
After lunch I convinced Bill to continue on the trail a bit towards Ashley Mountain. There was too much snow to make it desirable to climb all the way, but I wanted to go a little further.
We saw where the horse prints left the trail. We came near another creek that gurgled as creeks do when they are running full and through the forest. When we left the creek Bill decided to turn back. The snow was getting heavier and we were closed in by the pine trees. He returned to the lake to wait for me. I just had to go a little further.
The snow continued to be a little more and a little more. It was melting and wet and a number of times my snow footprint would stick to the sole of my shoe until falling off in a clump before the next step.
I came upon a small open area on the side of the trail near where it started a bend for a switchback. At the other end of the opening I saw a carved rounded piece of wood sticking in the ground. It looked like a grave marker. I walked over and brushed the snow from its top.
In Loving Memory of
Beloved husband
"Daddy"
Grandpa
Richard V. Bain
Nov 5, 1978
It looked like this could be a grave site. It was unusual that there were no trees here. It was a very beautiful and peaceful spot to be buried. Ideal. This would be a spot I would be happy to be buried. Among the trees deep in the forest in an area that probably would never be developed into houses.
I continued on a bit but the switchback went steadily upward. Time to return to the lake and Bill.
On the way back I saw the couple and their horses. He had tried fishing but had no luck.
During the walk back Bill and I took a short side trail that led to an overlook of a valley and the mountains beyond. The only sign of man was the various sections and heights of trees where they were growing after being clearcut in years past.
I also found an interesting decent sized rock that I decided I must have. So much for getting rock collecting out of my system earlier. I was happy to have both hands free as I needed both to carry the rock the 1.5 miles back to the car. It was certainly easier to carry the rock downhill than the final uphill climb to the car.
When we recrossed the creek I took a few minutes and walked along the creek up to the lower falls. The water color reminded me of northern Minnesota. The color was yellowish from the rock sediment, not clear like the water usually is around this area.
The brochure also mentions that we gained 1100 feet on the trail. That seems a bit high for me. While we did climb I wonder if the elevation change really was 1100 feet. Maybe the up and down did add up to 1100 ft? Maybe my enjoyment of the trail distracted me from the true elevation gain.
My car sure felt weighed down by the rocks when I drove home.
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