(Image by Mary Barthel from Pixabay)
Back in June of 2008 when our son and his girlfriend (now wife) were living in Montana, we flew to Bozeman from New England and landed on a Saturday night. We had reserved an economy car, but only a huge pickup truck was available. They said we could return it with an empty tank since the price of gas was so high or check back to see if we could switch it out.
On a rainy Sunday morning, my son drove us all (including their two dogs) through Paradise Valley to the Chico Hot Springs. The rain stopped and we had a nice soak. (The cliffs looming overhead reminded me of the baths in Banos, Ecuador). We had beers from the poolside bar, and afterward, stopped along the Yellowstone River where the dogs got their swim. We had a late Mexican lunch at Fiesta en Jalisco in Livingston. Back at their Belgrade home, we watched the second game of the NBA playoffs (Celtics-Lakers) and the Celtics won.
Monday was sunny and we all went in our rental truck to the Missouri Headwaters State Park, a short drive west of of Belgrade, for a hike and picnic. The Missouri River is the convergence of three rivers (Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin) and the park is one of the places where Lewis and Clark camped. The dogs found a whole deer leg on the trail!
On Tuesday, rain was predicted for later in the day, so we all went for an early hike. The snowpack was still deep, so we didn’t want to go too high. We went to the ‘M’ trail outside of Bozeman that we had climbed the previous fall but took the quicker ‘more rigorous’ trail. The hillsides were covered in arrowleaf root (a type of sunflower) – beautiful! At the top, we saw storm clouds approaching, and it rained lightly during our descent. Near the bottom, it began to hail! Afterward, my husband went to the airport to see if he could get another car and came back with a minivan (Chevy Uplander) which was smaller than the truck but still pretty big. He helped our son install new gutters and drainpipe on the front of their garage. For dinner, we ordered pizzas and watched the 3rd game of the NBA finals – the Celtics lost but were still ahead 2-1.
On Wednesday, we woke up to snow. A big storm system was predicted for northwestern Montana where we were headed. I felt better when the snow advisory for Missoula was lifted, but they were still predicting 3-5 inches for Butte, the first major town on our route west. Interstate 90 turned out to have light rain most of the way. We only had snow on the road at Homestake Pass (6000+ ft.) just before Butte (the birthplace of Evil Knievel), but we made it through without incident. We passed the town of Deer Lodge where they have a ‘Testicle Festival’ in August and continued to Missoula. The desk clerks at our motel had Massachusetts connections. One knew a family from our hometown of Boxford, and the other was moving to Brookline while her husband attended BU Law School. We had dinner at a restaurant in the Joker’s Wild casino, but we stayed away from the smoke-filled casino.
On Thursday, it was sunny when we left Missoula and headed up Route 93N toward Kalispell. The only snow we saw was on distant mountain peaks as we drove through the Jocko Valley. We stopped at a scenic overlook with a view of the Sunset Crags of the Mission Range. Flathead Lake was a spectacular sight (over 27 miles long and surrounded by mountains), and the area had a lot of cherry orchards. At Polson, the town at the south end of the lake, there was no snow. We stopped at a store that made down products then headed up a hill out of town where sparse snow was on the grass. After the downhill, we followed the western shore of the lake. We stopped at the Chamber of Commerce in Kalispell and found out that the ‘Road to the Sun’ in Glacier National Park was partially open, and Route 2 was clear to the eastern end. Good news. We found a room in Kalispell, left our luggage, and drove over to Big Fork on the lake, a nice community with lots of art galleries, shops, and restaurants. The sidewalks had metal shapes of bear, elk, etc. embedded in cement. We had lunch outdoors on a sunny patio at Wild Mile, a deli that specialized in German food. We walked down to an old bridge that spanned the Swan River (one way and one car at a time), crossed it, and walked down to check out a boat ramp. Back at the hotel, we watched the 4th game of the NBA finals – a nailbiter! The Lakers dominated but the Celtics made a late comeback to win (up 3-1!).
On Friday, we had some sun as we headed to the West Glacier entrance of Glacier NP. After an orientation at the visitors’ center, we drove eastward on ‘Going to the Sun’ Road along the shore of Lake Macdonald. We were able to go about 16 miles, as far as Avalanche Campground. From there and up and over the summit, the road was still closed to traffic, so we parked and walked. The road followed the Flathead River which was roaring. A ranger told us that if we walked about two miles, we would get a glimpse of the Garden Wall (a high wall of rock and one of the park’s most distinctive features). We walked for about an hour with many stops for photos and got to a place where we saw a large and steep snow-filled bowl coming down from one of the peaks. We might have seen the Garden Wall, but it was hard to be sure because the top was in the clouds and the higher elevations were snow-covered. We didn’t run into any snow at the road level, but crews were working on cutting broken tree limbs. Trucks working with the plows at the higher elevations passed us loaded with dirty snow. On the return walk, we met a man from Switzerland and chatted back to our car. On the return drive, we saw a mule deer and some small birds. We stopped at the Lake Macdonald Lodge and went in to see the great room with its giant timbers, fireplace, and view of the lake. After exiting the West Glacier gate, we headed east on Route 2 which skirts the southern edge of the park. The further east we drove, the sunnier it became, but it was very windy. We stopped at the East Glacier Lodge (near the intersection of Rts. 2 & 49) which has an even larger great room, very impressive. We headed north on Route 49, a spectacular drive with great views into the park of Two Medicine Lake and its backdrop of snow-covered peaks. We continued north on Route 89 past the St. Mary entrance to the park (great view of St. Mary Lake) and entered the park at the Many Glacier gate. The road took us along the shore of Sherburn Lake and past some pastoral areas. We encountered some bighorn sheep along the road. My husband got out to take photos and the sheep seemed docile, but when a ram started walking directly toward him, he got back into the car. His window was open and the ram stuck his head right through it, which was a little freaky, but no harm was done. We drove to Many Glacier Lodge, which had another great room with great lake and mountain views. A film crew was outside and they were lowering a camera on a boom down to the water level. After leaving the park, we drove south on 464 and 89 and had incredible vistas of cattle ranches backed by long snow-covered mountain ranges. We saw lots of free-range cattle and a horse galloping outside the fence next to the road. We arrived in Great Falls at about 7:30 pm, stopped at a motel, and turned on the news. We were sad to learn that Tim Russert (NBC Washington Bureau Chief) had died that day at the age of 58 (heart attack).
On Saturday morning in Great Falls, it was sunny. We drove toward the Missouri River and the city center. We parked and walked down Central Street looking into shop windows and stumbled upon an outdoor market at the Civic Center Park. On the return walk, we stopped in some of the shops then drove to the Charles M. Russell Museum. He was a renowned painter, sculptor, and writer (Native American and cowboy themes). It was an impressive complex with modern galleries, his original log cabin studio, and his home. Afterward, we drove along the river and stopped at an overlook at Black Creek Falls. We headed south on Interstate 15 toward Helena (HEL-ena), Montana’s capital. The road followed the Missouri River through some canyons with nice rock formations, and we saw kayakers, canoers, and inflatable boaters. We parked in the Capital District and checked out the pedestrian mall area then continued on Rt. 15 south to 69 south. We passed lots of ranches and the Boulder Hot Springs resort, which was a grand old Victorian building with spacious grounds. Interstate 90 East took us back to Belgrade. We all sat out on the back deck and had a beer then went inside for dinner. Afterward, we went for a short drive to an access point on the Gallatin River to watch the sunset and take photos (orange over the river and behind us, pink over the Bridger Range).
Sunday was Father’s Day. Our son took us for a super back-roads drive and up through Flathead Pass on the western sunny side of the Bridger range. It was a steep, narrow, rough road washed out in spots, but his Toyota truck took it well. At the top of the pass, he parked, and we walked the ridge with its view of the Crazy Mountains. We drove down the eastern side on a well-maintained gravel road that led to Bridger Canyon and into Bridger Bowl Ski Area. The eastern side still had quite a bit of snow, and we saw a few skiers who had skinned up and skied down. Afterward, our son’s girlfriend prepared a special Father’s Day dinner. We watched the 5th NBA Finals game – Celtics lost to the Lakers (but up 3-2) then sat around the outdoor fire pit for a while.
On Monday morning, my husband and I headed south on Rt. 191 to Yellowstone NP in Wyoming. We entered the west entrance and saw LOTS of bison with their calves up close. At Madison Junction, we turned north and stopped at Norris, where we followed the boardwalks around the geysers and hot springs (including Steamboat, the tallest geyser in the park. From there, we headed east toward Canyon Junction and south to Fishing Bridge. The lodge there is on Yellowstone Lake and we walked through the lodge to a sand beach on the lakeshore with a backdrop of snowy mountain peaks. We then drove north again past Canyon Junction and up through Dunraven Pass, which had spectacular views and some areas with about 2 feet of snow on the roadsides. We stopped to see the falls at Tower Junction, and further on, we saw some bighorn sheep in the distance perched on pinnacles of cliffs that looked like sandstone formations. We headed east toward Mammoth Springs over a high plateau of green sagebrush-dotted grasslands. From there, we headed out through the north entrance at Gardiner, Montana. We followed Rt. 89 north through Paradise Valley where we saw lots of elk ranches and then at Livingston took I90 west to Belgrade where we enjoyed a nice dinner on the deck.
On Tuesday afternoon, we all drove to Virginia City and Nevada City, two ghost towns that have some working establishments like small places to eat and shop. We stopped for dinner at the Oasis in Manhattan on the way back, a small off-the-beaten-path place. Back in Belgrade, we all watched the Celtics TRAMPLE the Lakers to win the NBA championship!!!
On Wednesday morning, we got up at 4 am for a 6 o’clock flight back to New England via Minneapolis and Detroit.