A return to East Glacier Park, a post Covid report

The Beargrass bloom has begun

Nice snowpack on Rising Wolf Mountain

The various shades of orange Indian Paintbrush

Twin Falls

Some of the trash we found on the trail

Katie at the west end of Two Med Lake

 Against my better judgment I returned to East Glacier Park for an overnight stay at the Mountain Pine Motel for the first time since its owner and good friend Terry Sherburne died of cancer three years ago.

Over the past 40 years the motel has been a go-to for my family as a jumping off point to explore Glacier National Park and enjoy the quirky East Glacier Park environment, with its small non-chain restaurants, bakeries and artsy shops.  We sorely missed this part of the park, which was closed last year by the Blackfeet Reservation Covid shut-down of the east side of Glacier.

I've been hesitant to return because of Covid, but felt it was safe to take the risk with my vaccinations.  Also reports of throngs of people returning to the park, the new reservations requirements on the Going to the Sun Road, and the road construction tie-ups on Highway 2, Many Glacier Road, and the North Fork Road.  Ugh.

The Mountain Pine is being run by Terry's nephew, Ryan, who has done major upgrades and who is very personable and service oriented.  Our stay was very pleasant.  We were touched to hear that on Saturday some of Terry's ashes had been scattered on Scenic Point.  We would have liked to have been present to honor our friend.  Now we know he'll always be there.

Unfortunately, some of the town's restaurants still haven't reopened, so eating out must be built around the Glacier Park Lodge (and its outsized prices), the Whistle Stop, which has reduced hours, Brownie's (bakery), Serranos (new owners) for dinner, and a new restaurant next to Serranos.  The village's mainstay, funky restaurant, the Two Med Grille, has not reopened since being shut down by Covid.  It is sorely missed.

Otherwise, we must have gone to the park on a lucky day.  Despite what we've been hearing about overcrowding, we found the park trails and facilities at Two Medicine not too badly crowded.

We hiked around Two Med Lake and visited Twin and Aster falls (about 10 miles), and encountered far less traffic than we expected.  The lack of foreign visitors is noticeable.  The Lodge employees also said they missed the foreign workers, mainly from Eastern Europe, who gave the Lodge an international feel.

On the down side, we found more trash on the trail than we had ever seen before.  I cut down a large dream catcher and amulet of gold glitters someone had hung on a tree at a creek crossing.  Katie brought out a sack full of trash from the trail and an outhouse near the Pray Lake boat dock.  We delivered this to the ranger at Two Med.

Even more outrageously, near the boat dock at the east end of the lake we bumped into a large family hiking with a friendly and rambunctious black lab dog.  We advised them that the dog was illegal on the trail and to their credit they turned around and headed back to the trailhead.  However, they never did put the dog back on leash even after being told to do so by the employees at the boat concession.  We followed the folks back to their car, which bore Florida license plates.

While the number of foreign visitors had declined there is a definite uptick in the number of visitors from the south, states like South Carolina, Texas and Florida.  The lack of familiarity with trail courtesies and civilities are very evident.

The main takeaways from our Two Med Lake hike were the lovely flowers in bloom, particularly the orange Indian Paintbrush.  The Beargrass has started.  The snow is clear on the Dawson-Pitimakin Loop around Rising Wolf Mountain, my favorite hike in the park.  Our East Glacier friend Laurie Lintner did the 18 mile trek solo on Saturday.  She joined us for supper at the Lodge.

I hope East Glacier returns to some kind of normalcy.

It is our favorite part of the park.