Ending August in a whirlwind

I had exceptionally clear weather for my Scenic Point hike.  The reds in Rising Wolf Mountain really popped

The unnamed lake west of Looking Glass Highway Pass.

The entrance to Glacier Park from Looking Glass Highway on the Blackfeet Reservation

 Katie was out, off to Sperry Chalet and that left me with a lot of time on my hands in the past week.

I think I used it wisely, walking the River's Edge Trail to Mayhem gulch, hiking Glacier's Scenic Point mountain and hiking a ridge from Looking Glass Pass through the Blackfeet Reservation to an unnamed lake on the side of Spot Mountain, going to Memorial Falls in the Little Belts, visiting Newlan Reservoir, and two Castle Mountains campgrounds, soaking in the Hot Springs in White Sulphur, doing the Mount Ascension loop in Helena, and exploring the Benton Street Pioneer Cemetery there.

I even managed to squeeze in the Shakespeare in the Parks production of "Twelfth Night," in Conrad and "King Lear," in White Sulphur Springs.

Whew!  

Most I had done before.  The Looking Glass lake, and Newlan Reservoir were new to me.

I had skied to just shy of the lake a couple of winters ago.  I had driven past the Newlan turnoff on US89 many, many times in the past 50 years.

I was surprised how big the Newlan Reservoir is given how small the creek is.

It confirmed for me how varied and vast the Little Belt Mountains are.

The Looking Glass lake is accessed via a $10 Blackfeet conservation permit right from the Looking Glass pass.

Immediately off the pass there's a one-track, rutted road heading west.  That's what you want to follow.

The road goes up and down and I skirted large mud puddles that had collected in ruts.  At about a half mile the road breaks out onto a narrow open ridge with amazing views of the Two Medicine valley in the park.

It eventually comes to a barb wire fence line, which is the boundary between the reservation and park.  There's an opening in the fence that allows entrance to the park, where the road becomes a small trail.

I walked to the end of the ridge and below me was the lake at the foot of Spot Mountain.  The trail continues very steeply down to the lake, but I decided of going down, instead examining other routes through the trees to the north to the lake.

I can't imagine many non-tribal folks taking this trail, but I'll return.