Day 5 - Cobalt Lake Hike

Day 5 – The morning comes and we are excited to get our first day on the trail in Montana. There are a number of trailheads worth considering at Two Medicine, but we choose a recommended hike from our guidebook to go and see Cobalt Lake. The ranger on duty doesn’t deter us with any bear siting reports in the area, so we saddle up and are on the trail by 8:30 in the morning. (I can promise you that this early morning vitriol slowly lapses backward as the trip continues…)


The hike follows the lake and the one of its connecting streams of the Aster Creek until we jog up a quick spur to see Aster Falls on the way. It is a bouncing, quick moving falls that makes us happy to be in town when everything is melting. Getting back to the trail, we begin to follow up Paradise Creek now that in three miles time leads to Rockwell Falls. I’ll have to get a scan of the picture that the guide book uses to illustrate what to expect from this two-stage fall, but it was not even close to what we experienced. The calm, smattering streams that moved down the rock face in our little book did not even slightly resemble the monster that we came upon. It seemed like every single waterway in the state was late for a date and was busting its hump to get there.

From Rockwell the hike begins its vertical ascent into the canyon and the gentle switchbacks slowly become covered in snow. We encounter one gentleman in an Indiana Jones cap on his way down from an early (early) morning start who tells us to expect more of the white stuff at the top. The remaining few miles is completely covered in slick snow, and it seems that not many folk had been making the trip up to Cobalt of late, as we completely lost the trail of tracks that give you the easiest way up the drainages. Doing my best to make Dylan proud, we steam over multiple sets of hills offering false promises of leading us to our destination, and ensuring ridicule from liz with each passing bush and tree completely walked through on our way.


Eventually we find the most frozen over Cobalt, and enjoy the eerily green hue that the ice pond currently entertains. I grab a few pictures before we realize that there are simply too many flies swarming our faces to bother getting lunch out, and we head back down the hills. We pass a party or two of a handful of folks attempting to follow our byzantine tracks, of which we advise against and point them towards the most forgiving path. Peanut butter bagel lunch is had by the swollen creek bed half way down, and we even find a side path that we did not notice originally for the top of Rockwell falls.


We make it back to the car around 4:30 and celebrate with Gatorade and apple juice at the general store. Dinner back at camp amid the mosquitoes and other hungry flying creatures consists of chicken, peas and rice, and we make the walk back to the general store for some soft serve huckleberry ice cream. Sleep comes easily and we are excited to get up to Many Glacier campground the next day.

Shots from the entire day can be found here - and shots from the entire trip are over here. And if you want to see the larger versions of the pictures, just click the 'all sizes' link above the image.