Medicine Grizzly Trail in Glacier National Park Montana

Good morning, it is Monday, July 7th, 2025. We are at the Pittamocan Pass trailhead, which is ironically in the cut bank area of Glacier. So you take the cut bank road into the park on the east side, which is between the Two Medicine entrance and St. Mary. You drive about five miles down the dirt road, you get to this trailhead. You can get over to Two Medicine on the Pittamocan Pass trail. But today we're going to go to Medicine-Grizzly Lake. One of our last hikes we went up above Medicine-Grizzly Lake up to Triple Divide Peak. And we got to see the lake from up top and we thought it looked so nice, we thought we'd try to get to the lake itself, so we're going to stay low and walk up the valley. I think it's going to be about 12.5 to 13 miles and less than 1,000 feet of elevation gain today. But there's supposed to be good sunshine, not a lot of wind on the east side, which is fantastic for Glacier National Park. The Pittamocan Pass trailhead is located at the end of the cut bank road, which is located between St. Mary and Two Medicine areas. Once you arrive at the trailhead, you hike along the north fork of Cut Bank Creek, which is also the Pittamocan Pass trail. You go for about four miles, you take a short section of the Triple Divide Pass trail over to the Medicine-Grizzly trail, which takes you out to Medicine-Grizzly Lake. This hike ended up being about 14 miles out and back. Legend tells of a Blackfeet warrior who was injured while stealing horses from a rival tribe. A grizzly bear found him and nursed him back to health, even carrying him back to his people. In return, the bear requested that the Blackfeet not kill hibernating bears. The lake is located in the area frequented by this legendary Medicine-Grizzly, which is how the lake got its name. So after you go about four miles, you get to a trail junction and the Pittamocan Pass trail continues this way. You can actually get to Pittamocan Pass and over to Two Medicine. Or you can head up this way and you can actually join the Triple Divide Pass trail for a little bit. We're going to grab a little bit of that and then turn off at Medicine-Grizzly Lake, which you can also take this all the way to St. Mary. So we're about 4.6 miles in. Last trail junction for us. We're going to go down here. This is the Medicine-Grizzly trail that goes to the foot of the lake. We might even try to get to the head of the lake. This trail we went up, I don't know, a week or so ago up the Triple Divide Pass, but in another 18 and a half, 19 miles, you can actually get to St. Mary that way. But we're going to head down the Medicine-Grizzly trail up to Medicine-Grizzly Lake. This is Triple Divide Peak right up here. Water flows to the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific from that peak known as the hydrological apex of North America. We are approaching the foot of Medicine-Grizzly Lake, Glacier National Park, Montana. Going to see how far we can get to the head of the lake over by these falls. So far, there seems to be a well-worn path. We get to the head of the lake and it kind of opens up into a nice meadow, several waterfalls. So we made it to the head of Medicine-Grizzly Lake and we're at the base of these waterfalls. It's pretty cool. Finished up our lunch at the head of Medicine-Grizzly Lake. And so what we're going to do now, head back to the foot. And from here, our GPS is about seven miles out to the trailhead. Saying goodbye to Medicine-Grizzly Lake. We're going to head on back to the trailhead. This is Medicine-Grizzly Lake from above when we hiked up to the Triple Divide Pass a little bit earlier in the month. It's gotten kind of warm today. So we're thankful for some forest canopy and a little shade on the way in. On this part of the trail, we call these the healing waters. Because we stop here, there's about two and a half, two miles left. We stop here, we filter some water and we soak our feet. And the water is so cold, you can't leave it in for more than a few seconds. But it feels great on your feet. Well, we just finished hiking up to Medicine-Grizzly Lake and back. The trail says it's about 12 and a half. Ours ended up being more like 14 miles because we didn't just go to the foot of the lake. We also went to the head of the lake, beneath Triple Divide Peak, as well as Medicine-Grizzly Peak. But it's a great trail out of the cut bank area of Glacier National Park, Montana. The trailhead is in sight.