A miserable bushwhack to Highwoods' Arrow Peak; Two Med's Buffalo lakes

From the top of Lava peak looking at the classic ridge walk to Arrow peak

Gordon Whirry in the tangle along the Lava-Arrow ridge

Buffalo Lakes in Badger Two Med with Glacier Park in the background

The Arrow Peak climb to the Highwood Mountains' second tallest peak should be no problem.

It never has been.

But our hike this past week was an exhausting bushwhack because the Forest Service knocked down most of the beetle-killed trees along the Lava-Arrow peaks route, cut up the pieces and scattered them across the old hikers' trace and the entire ridge.  There is no official trail.

That meant we either climbed over the pieces or had to try going around them.

It meant a 1 mph slog where every step could have been a broken ankle or leg.

The hike, which I've done many other times, but not for the past seven years, covers more than 8 miles with a gain of over 3,200 feet.

It begins at the Highwood-Arrow creeks divide north of Geyser to a ridge continuously to the top, the majority of which is in the forest, although any dead trees and shrubs on the open ridges were cut and scattered across the logical route.

The Forest Service said the cuts were made that way to enhance the mountain goat population.

That means the logical route was effectively blocked, unless you are a couple of 75-year-olds who won't take no for an answer.

We saw no goats or goat sign, although I have seen goats on the peak in the past.

We did see plenty, of gorgeous wildflowers, though.

Unfortunately, smoke from the Canadian wildfires obscured our views, blotting out the surrounding northcentral Montana island mountain ranges.

Buffalo Lakes in Two Med

While tourists were piling into the crowded Two Medicine Lake area and East Glacier Park, we simply crossed U.S. 2 and entered the empty Badger Two Medicine area and did a wonderful six mile loop there to Buffalo Lakes.

These are shallow, swampy, but scenic lakes that sit below long ridgelines of shale and grass.

I was the only male hiker in our group of nine, the guest of my wife's hiking group and the Women of Wonder hiking group from Waterton in Alberta.

The past several years this has become an annual hike and offers fabulous Glacier Park scenery to the north and serenity in a sacred Blackfeet landscape.

It is still very green here from all the rain and I marveled at how the ridges extend to the south and the Bob Marshall Wilderness, seemingly forever.  We could feel the presence of the grizzlies who had been aggressively "rototilling" the earth for biscuit root.

We were led by East Glacier local Laurie Lintner, who has lived there most of her life and could explain what we were looking at.

As was the case two days earlier in the Highwoods, the Canadian wildfires obscured our views.