Back online: Sluice Boxes, Glacier's Two Med, Holter and River's Edge

Our first Pasque flowers of the season

The hike above Holter Lake with the Sleeping Giant Mountain looking down

Katie and I out on the Two Medicine Lake ice

Plenty of snow at Two Med campground

Down in the Sluice Boxes Park

Camille Consolvo on a Sluice Boxes overlook

 Welcome back!

I've been off-line for several months for personal reasons, but had continued to post trips.  Have a look.

I'm in the full swing of things with trips in the last week that included a hike through the Sluice Boxes State Park tunnel, Two Med Lake in Glacier Park, a Holter Lake loop in the Big Belt Mountains up Juniper Gulch to Log Gulch and back and hikes on north and south shores of the River's Edge Trail.

With the exception of Glacier, which still has plenty of snow, I'm seeing the first spring wildflowers --- the yellow bells (fritilary), Pasque flowers, Douglasia, and buttercups.

And, I've even picked up my first couple of ticks.

The annual spring trek to Glacier Park was a simple hike up the road, which is fully plowed with only a couple patches of snow.  But, the Two Med Lake is still ice-covered and we found it worthwhile to hike through the campground, in spots through narrow tunnels of snow twice our height.  The day was crystal clear, bluebird.  In years past at this time we've been able to ski up and back to the lake, but this year the plows got there first.  It is 5 miles from the gate to the lake one-way.  There encountered only four other parties on this perfect day.

The Sluice Boxes park was quite a contrast to Glacier.  It was clear of snow and we found flowers and easy going through the old train tunnel to the first crossing.  We got an early start, so we missed the crowds in this most accessible wild place.  We covered about 7 miles on this hike.

We often use the Holter Lake Juniper-Log gulch hike as a Spring warmup, and I followed Katie and six of her friends on this 4-mile roundtrip above the lake to the north.  Three of us split from the group and climbed a small high point along the way before rejoining the other hikers.  There were a variety of wildflowers and amazing views of the lake with the Sleeping Giant Mountain looking down on us.  We encountered no other hikers.  I even got home in time to watch the dismal final innings of the Chicago White Sox loss to Detroit in the first game of the Major League Baseball season.

I picked up my second tick of the season on an out and back hike along the River's Edge North Shore Trail between Ryan and Morony dams.  I went out on the high trail and back on the low trail, turning around at the hot spring, covering just over 7 miles.  The yellow-bell flowers were out.  I also did a hike on the South Shore Trail later in the week from Rainbow and through the Chaos Trail and back against a formidable wind.