Journal July 7th – Two Tourists from Tulsa
Car campgrounds are usually noisy places – babies crying, kids running around screaming, drunken fireside chats with loud belligerent and boisterous people. They are places to avoid, even when camping with a car. We wanted to get an early start, so this seemed perfect. With quiet hours over at 6am, we figured we would have to be up and going not long after. Not today. The campground was quiet. Dead actually, not a creatured stirred except some robins in the underbrush. We had to wait until the alarms went off.
The trail climbs out of Two Medicine valley to a mountain known as “Scenic Point”, 2,000 feet elevation gain in 3 miles, with stunning views of the divide and nearby glacier-carved peaks unfolding the whole way. On the way up we met two tourists from Tulsa. They drove for two long days to visit Glacier National Park, and choose this particular hike because at the top the views turn east to the plains. They toted a camera/lens tripod of a size that the Carrot envied. At the top they turned the camera towards the hazy plains. The towering peaks and deep valleys on the other three sides seemed of little interest to the Tulsa tourists. It’s a pecularity, which I’ve never understood, that many people travel not to see those things that are new and different, but seek out those things that are familiar or most like “home”, whatever home is for them.
The trail drops off Scenic Point winding across ridges, through a delightfull canyon and across the table land towards the town of East Glacier, where beer and burgers lie. Our pace naturally quickened. The CDT is seldom marked as such, but through the park the trail was easy to follow, from its well worn tread and obvious route. The last two miles coming into town the CDT ran into a maze of horse trails, OHV routes and errant footpaths with no signs, markers or other pointers. Going on the theory that “all roads lead to Rome” (or in this case East Glacier) we tried to walk on the path of least resistance and ended up within just a few feet of the signed trailhead. Tired and thirsty, we found Pizza and Beer.
Approx miles 10.5
