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Cobalt Lake - Two Medicine,
Glacier National Park Day trippers are delightful glimpses at unique places around Western Montana and all over the United States. Jan and her husband Rick are avid travelers who like to explore and take hikes through National Parks, National Monuments, historical sites and other interesting areas. This seems to be our summer for hiking new trails or hiking ones we haven't done in many years. After the Iceberg Lake hike, I leafed through our trail guides looking for something a little off the beaten path, and found the trail to Cobalt Lake in the Two Medicine area of Glacier National Park. What a fabulous hike it turned out to be!
Three Fridays ago, Rick and I left the house early, not only because the hike is 11.4 miles round trip with 1400 feet of elevation gain, but also because of the two-hour drive to Two Medicine. We couldn’t decide whether or not to take the 9 AM boat across Two Medicine Lake. It would save some mileage but would cost $24 for two boat tickets. We decided to postpone the decision until we arrived at the boat dock. As it turned out, we pulled up with five minutes to spare but the boat was already full. Instead of waiting for the next boat an hour-and-a-half later, we decided to hike the whole way; the right decision we later conceded since we wouldn’t have saved that much mileage (2.4 miles total round trip), and most of the climb to Cobalt Lake would still have been ahead of us.
The trail starts out from the Two Medicine lower boat dock and continues along the south shore of Two Medicine Lake, a section we had previously hiked a few years back when we did the Two Medicine Lake loop. This time we didn’t take the spur trail (.2 mile from the start of the trail) that heads off to Paradise Point, offering a panoramic view of the lake and the surrounding peaks, or, a little further on, another spur to Aster Falls. Instead, we continued on the main trail crossing Paradise Creek on a suspension bridge. At 2.3 miles we came to the junction with the Cobalt Lake/Two Medicine Pass trail, turned left there, and continued on to the base of dramatic Rockwell Falls, about 3.5 miles from the start of the trail and a popular turn-around spot for many people who want to take a short hike before their return boat ride.
From this point on the trail starts to climb in a series of relatively gentle switchbacks. Somehow the elevation gain really didn’t matter since we were caught up in the sounds of the rushing cascades we passed and the meadows of fantastic wildflowers. This year beargrass seems abundant throughout the park, but here it was everywhere, along with intensely-colored Indian paintbrush and a multitude of other flowers. We passed only a few other hikers and backpackers along the way. Mostly we had the trail to ourselves. Over the next two plus miles we stopped often, to enjoy the views, take pictures and water breaks, and listen to the water music.
Soon we arrived at 6570-foot Cobalt Lake at the base of Two Medicine Pass. That day the lake was a deep blue-green and there was still snow on the far side of the lake. We were stunned to find that we were the only two people there, sharing the rocks that ring the lake with only a marmot or two. We made our way partway around the lake, scrambling along a somewhat vague path to perch on the rocky slope, eat our lunch, and listen to snow breaking loose and crashing into the lake. Eventually, we moved back near the trail to some level rocks along the shoreline and sat, mesmorized by the quiet and solitude of this special place. Shortly before we were ready to leave a lone backpacker stopped for a little while before heading on toward Two Medicine Pass. As we rolled up our pad and hoisted our packs for the hike back, a group of eight hikers arrived. It was time for us to leave.
It was probably unusual to be alone at Cobalt Lake. Still, Two Medicine is less traveled than other areas of the Park. We couldn’t help but make the comparison between the hundreds of people at Avalanche Lake on any given day in July and the eleven people (counting us) who were at Cobalt Lake that afternoon. Perhaps there were backcountry campers at the Cobalt Lake campgroundbut we didn’t see or hear them. To us for most of our visit there we were alone. It was a magical experience that we won’t soon forget.
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