Today we bade farewell to Glacier and began our drive south. Before we left the area, we decided to check out the Two Medicine section of the park. There are a few quick hikes to waterfalls there.

Can you even FIND the falls?

The first hike was to see Appistoki Falls. The .6 mile walk took us through a forest and next to a narrow canyon. We were almost at the falls when Bill spotted a “creature” on the trail. I’m not a fan of running into any living things bigger than a chipmunk on the trail, and immediately thought the worst…BEAR. It wasn’t. Instead it was a mountain sheep with its baby and they clearly wanted to come down the path to where we were. They looked a little panicked and then headed out of our way. Mamma kept looking back to see where we were.

The falls were…not the best. There appeared to be a higher viewpoint ahead, but the rest of the sheep herd was enjoying the view there, so we left. See the photo to the left to see what we saw. If you can’t see anything, don’t worry…neither did we!

We headed to Running Eagle Falls next. The trail was only .3 miles and offered an amazing view of a waterfall that seemed to be pouring out of a giant hole in the rocks. The falls are named after a female Blackfeet Native American chief and warrior. Apparently she had a four-day vision quest (the first female ever to do so) at the falls. When she died during her efforts to steal horses from the Flathead tribe during battle, she was hailed as a hero. She’s buried in a tree nearby.

Look at the beautiful fall colors! We had to cross this river to get to the falls.

I didn’t have a vision quest, but I did enjoy the babbling stream with rainbow-colored stones and the serene atmosphere of the place. We were by ourselves for most of our time there and dodged light raindrops to take our photos. The falls were very unique. I can see how Running Eagle was inspired by the place.

After our walk, we left the park. It started to rain shortly after…a sad farewell. We are in Kalispell for the night. It’s a very cute town. Half looks like the Old West and half is modern with strip malls and chain restaurants. It’s been raining since we got here.

Tomorrow we head to Jackson, Wyoming and then to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Catch you tomorrow!

Can’t get enough of these river stones!