DAY SEVEN.
Since we had to relocate to Two Medicine Campground earlier in the week, today's hike was made ridiculously easy to get to, because we were hiking to Upper Two Medicine Lake! It was strange not driving to a trail for once and just walking from out campsite to the trailhead. We decided to make this day a full Two Medicine day and started with sunrise on Two Medicine Lake. This morning was very windy, making the water choppy and non reflective, but the sky was fairly clear of smoke. As the sun rose behind us, the bright orange light grew on Sinopah Mountain across the lake. The colors grew as the sun rose, showcasing the bright blue open sky and the soft mixture of pink, orange, and yellow behind the mountains.
Of course coffee in a United by Blue mug, because that's how every chilly morning started.
We then packed up our bags and started our hike for the day. It started with the differing reflective view of Pray Lake from our campground. After that we crossed the bridge over the river to the actual trail. This hike was the most different from all that we had done before it on this trip. It started comparatively flat and open so this hike should have been easy, but we had spent every day leading up to this one hiking the harder trails on our list that had more elevation gain. My feet were pretty torn up from all of the hiking we'd been doing, so although this hike should have been easy, it was not. We definitely took our time on this hike and made many stops along the way.
On our way to Upper Two Medicine Lake, we stopped at some waterfalls, and tried to track some moose! This was the last wildlife animal to check off my list. Technically we saw one from the top of the mountain, but I wanted to try and get some better pictures of one. Along the trail we heard moose calls that sounded pretty close by. We came across a group hiking and their leader spent a while calling to the moose and surely enough it was getting closer and responding. But alas, the moose never showed so we continued on the trail. We ran into several people who said, "There's a mom and two baby moose at the waterfall!". We were just there, and no moose! Then more people, saying the saw a bull moose along the trail, up at the lake, another who saw the mother and babies elsewhere. I was determined to track these moose down! We reached Upper Two Medicine Lake to find no moose. We sat on some fallen trees to eat lunch and be on the lookout for moose. Of course, during our stop Danny wanted to jump in the lake. He was still determined to get in as many as he could, but I had swam in all of the lakes on my list so I just took pictures instead of getting wet and cold.
After Danny's swim, still no luck with the moose, so we decided to head back down the trail and see what we could find. On our way back down we met an older couple who had been vacationing in Glacier for years. We ended up talking to them off the trail for almost an hour about their lives and all of the national parks that they've been to. They're both retired so every year they just road trip around to all of their favorite parks. They were sitting and waiting to see the moose, too. We eventually continued on our way on the mountainsides with views of Two Medicine Lake. At one point we came across a semi sketchy bridge over water that clearly stated, "ONE HIKER AT A TIME". I wasn't going to mess with that, so I crossed first leaving Danny behind me. The bridge was much less stable than I expected it to be! I made Danny stop part of the way across so I could snap a picture.
When we got back to our campsite we changed and make another run to the local general store to of course get some more beer. We spent some time at the camp just making food and relaxing in the hammock. Since our feet were struggling on the easy hike this day, we decided to re-evaluate our schedule for the remainder of the week so we could actually do the hikes. We sat in the hammock with a beer in a hand looking over the trail maps that we had trying to devise a new plan. After planning, we made the short walk over to Pray Lake to watch the sunset. We spent the evening exploring the campground, looking at the mountain side across the river for bears, and watching the moon and smoke rise above the mountains as the sun was setting.
