Author Archives: Jill and Bud

We are now back west of the continental divide, in northwest Montana along the Clark Fork River in Trout Creek. Lots of green here, lots of tall trees and welcome shade. No TV; Bud is coping.

The river here is beautiful and boating is popular. We are along the Noxon reservoir.

The reservoir is from a hydroelectric dam about 12 miles downstream…

along the Noxon rapids.

We stopped there yesterday as well as at the park in the village of Noxon, which sits at the downstream end of the rapids. You get to the village over this one lane bridge which crosses the Clark Fork from MT 200.

We had driven northwest to Clark Fork, Idaho, where we found a great disc golf course. It was built as a nine hole par three golf course. They added two baskets and one tee pad to every fairway to create an 18 hole disc golf course. It was pretty nice. It was being mowed by a volunteer who stopped to talk to us. He said the original golf course was made in this chunk of woods because the principal of the school wanted something other than the woods where his students would hide out, no doubt during classes. It was all built and maintained by donations and was free. Matey got to be off-leash and he loved it, too.

Today we drove 20 miles in the other direction, back upstream to Thompson Falls. Matey and I took a walk in Thompson Falls State Park.

It was a short trail but very pretty. It went through some big ponderosa pines. Too bad you can’t take an impression of smells, because the sun was shining on the bark of those trees and the whole area smelled like vanilla!

Then we went back to River Bend Golf Course and waited for Bud to finish his nine holes on what is one of the prettiest courses I’ve ever seen. Here he’s putting out on the ninth green.

We took the back road home, Blue Slide Road. (Love that name, wonder how it came to be.) It was a bit narrow and in some places very twisty, but gave us great views of the river.

I’m liking this western side of the Rockies. (By the way, the discolored parts of the water in this photo are where it’s shallow and the bottom shows. The whole river is very clear.)

The second morning we were at Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park we took the short drive to the Missouri Headwaters State Park.

This is where the U.S.Geological Survey has designated the Missouri River begins.

It is at the point where the Madison River and the Jefferson River converge. The park also encompasses the area about a mile downstream where the Gallatin River enters. Lewis and Clark explored this area in 1805. Sacajawea, who was part of the expedition, recognized the place as the homeland of her tribe, the Shoshone. She had not seen it since she was kidnapped by a rival tribe as a young girl.

It was a lovely land, with trails wide enough for Matey to walk without battling the grass. This trail led along the newly formed Missouri.

From a high point you could just see the convergence of the Madison, along the left, with the Jefferson, coming from the right. Jefferson was President when he commissioned Lewis and Clark to explore the Missouri, looking for a water route to the Pacific. Madison was Secretary of State and Gallatin was Secretary of the Treasury, hence the rivers’ names. Some think the Jefferson should really be considered the upper reaches of the Missouri. I wonder if having three supporters of the expedition to honor influenced the decision to name the Jefferson a separate river.

We walked just a little ways east across that high ground and then we were walking the high bank of the Gallatin.

Here I’m standing near the Gallatin looking downstream to where it joins the Missouri.

The signs at the State Park named the Missouri as the longest river in North America. I read that after some of its riverbed was straightened for hydroelectric projects and the like it might be shorter than the Mississippi. There’s no doubt that it’s an important river.

This sign about high water temperatures along the Gallatin, along with the shrinking glaciers at Glacier National Park, make me wonder how long those waters will flow with the abundance needed to support our food source.

We are still along the Missouri here. Last time we visited we drove out to see the “great cascades” that gave Great Falls its name. Unfortunately most of the falls are dammed for hydro power.

After knocking about in the northwest for a while we plan to come back to the Missouri on September 9th and continue our journey downstream. I’ll no doubt post more about the mighty river then.

Since sending Adler home Bud and I spent a night at a KOA campground in Helena, MT, three nights at Montana’s Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park, and are now back at Great Falls RV Park. Each of these places has been very different, and each has had good and bad things.

Besides being close to a good airport, Jim and Mary’s RV Park in Missoula was very well kept and had trees and flowers everywhere. It had full hook-ups (water, sewer and electric) and we had a good cell signal. As a private campground it was more expensive than public campgrounds, but it wasn’t exorbitant. The downsides? The trees blocked our satellite dish and although they did provide cable TV, it only had about three watchable channels. You may scoff at needing TV in a campsite, but remember, this is our home, so going long without TV is annoying at best. And it was on a busy highway isolated from any other streets or trails, so the only option for walking Matey was to circle the campground, over and over.

The Helena stop was because I couldn’t get in to the state park until Thursday and I couldn’t add another day to our Missoula stay. I chose a KOA, they are reliably easy, flat sites, so we were able to pull in and with a minimum of adjustment, leave the trailer hooked to the truck. We had TV and cell (so also wifi) and didn’t bother to hook up, although we could. There was a walking trail advertised, but when I asked at the office on check in the young woman said, “No…there’s just the sidewalk across the street or you can walk around the campground.” Her description was accurate. There was just a wide, paved sidewalk that went straight along the side of the highway with no trees or turns or any destination that I could see. Oh well, it was just for a night.

The state park looked promising. For a non-resident it wasn’t cheap, but it was less than the KOA. The sites were large and level and the setting was beautiful. There was a scattering of trees, happily they didn’t interfere with the satellite TV, unhappily, they didn’t shade the trailer.

We’re back in the heat, so Matey and I took morning and evening walks. That was OKAY. But the only hookup here was electricity. We were only staying three nights, added to our night at Helena that made four nights using our tank water and not draining our holding tanks. We made it, just. Worse, there was no cell service at all. I had to go up to the visitor center to make a phone call and internet was not possible. We went into towns both days we were here, so I did my downloads then.

All that would have been fair trade for nice walks, but, this is almost as far as Matey and I made it on our one and only trail walk. You can see the trail is narrow. For Matey it was a tunnel through the grass. And the grass was Hespirostipa comata, needle-and-thread grass.

This is the needle-and-thread; and those things stuck all over Matey, including his face and feet. After several stops to clean them off him he simply refused to go forward. I couldn’t blame him, the promising trails were a bust.

We did get to take the cave tour, which was nice.

But our tour was only one room.

It really couldn’t compete with Kartchner Caverns, Sonora Caverns, Natural Bridge Caverns or Carlsbad Caverns. Perhaps we’re jaded.

It is the first cave we’ve visited on the top of a mountain, and that was interesting.

So now we’re back at a commercial campground in Great Falls, mainly to get Matey a haircut at PetsMart. Since this is a return visit, the young woman at the office helped me reserve a site that has shade and TV. In the city there’s great cell coverage and a so-so section of the river trail for Matey’s walks. We’ll take it.

On Sunday we drove from St. Mary, along the southern border of Glacier National Park and down to Missoula.

We drove down the east shore of Flathead Lake. It’s sloping shore and cherry orchards reminded us of the Finger Lakes region of New York.

We came here to put our grandson, Adler, on a plane home to Hot Springs, Arkansas. He had been with us for 51 days, from the red rock deserts of Utah…

to the conifer woods of Glacier. Our trailer isn’t made for three people. It was tight quarters, Adler had to sleep on the converted dinette and had no space of his own. But he was an uncomplaining traveler and brought a lot of laughter.

As I watched his plane taxi…

and then take off, I just hoped he would have a safe trip (he did) and that he would be willing and able to join our adventure next summer.

There is one road that crosses the whole of Glacier National Park, the Going-to-the-Sun Road. On either end of that road there are visitor centers with large parking lots. In the center, at Logan Pass, there is another visitor center and parking lot. For the rest of its length there are numerous turnouts that can accommodate one to fifteen or so cars and a few small picnic areas. There are thousands of people trying to use these areas. You need a vehicle pass to drive the Going-to-the Sun Road, I couldn’t get one when I made our reservations which is why we took the Sun Tour with the Blackfeet tribe. That is a great introduction to the park.

A ranger told Bud that 900 vehicle passes go online each morning at 8 AM and are gone by 8:05. The next morning I was ready and by about 8:02 I had secured a three day pass, but it started the next day. So that day we went up to Many Glacier Road, which goes in on the northeast side as far as the Many Glacier Hotel. The hotel was built in 1914-1915 by the Great Northern Railway and is a National Historic Landmark.

Adler and I walked into the lobby and were treated to this hiker playing the baby grand piano. It was so typical of the rustic and the grandiose of the National Park Hotels and Lodges.

These places are truly national treasures.

The setting of the hotel, on Swiftcurrent Lake surrounded by the peaks, was equally grand.

As you can see, the parking lots here were also full. In fact, as we left at about noon we saw that people were being turned back at the entrance gate as the area was at capacity.

In the afternoon Bud and I decided to take a hike at the Cut Bank Trailhead, which is accessed by a gravel road that goes in along the North Fork Cut Bank Creek not far south of where we were staying at St. Mary.

It was about an eight mile drive back through a lovely valley with open stock pastures.

When we reached the end, the small parking area was so full, with cars lining the road and parked in every level spot, that not only could we not park, we couldn’t find space to turn around and Bud ended up backing out to the entrance sign, close to a mile!

We then drove further south to the only other entrance on the east side of the park, Two Medicine. Fortunately there was parking available there and Bud and I took a short hike.

We walked out to Paradise Point. Not only was there a beautiful view…

we saw that this place is still wild, despite the crowds.

And we saw this moose!

She wouldn’t pose with her head up, so you can only imagine how thrilling it was.

On our last day at Glacier we drove across the Going-to-the-Sun Road to this lovely trail along Lake McDonald.

These lakes are clear and blue and the setting is always beautiful, no matter which direction you look.

Lake McDonald is famous for its colored pebbles. The beach at the picnic area where we ate lunch had them, though they were not nearly as vibrant as images we had seen online.

Even so, the lake was stunning.

There were two other hikes we had considered taking, but not only were we tired, there was no parking in either of those lots! Glacier National Park is definitely worth seeing, but you better arrive early at any of the most popular spots, and definitely consider taking a tour!

We have been moving steadily north. But we have been staying on the east (dry) side of the Rockies. And of course summer has been settling in, so it has seemed that we could never escape the desert.

Our previous stop was Choteau, Montana. It was a bit more green, and not quite as hot (highs in the 90’s), but still the trees only grew where they were planted and you didn’t want to do much outside in the middle of the day.

Now we are in St. Mary, Montana, on the east side of Glacier National Park, the days are in the low eighties or high seventies and we are surrounded by cottonwoods and conifers.

Yesterday we took a tour with Sun Tours, operated by the Blackfeet Indian tribe. We went from St. Mary Lake…

up and over Logan Pass. Not only did we cross the continental divide, we saw Triple Divide Peak. If you could pour a bucket of water on the very top of that peak some would reach the Pacific Ocean, via the Columbia River, some would flow to the Missouri, the Mississippi and ultimately the Gulf of Mexico, and some would flow to the Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean.

Our group was small, just 10 of us on this small bus.

Our tour took us along the famous Going-to-the-Sun Road, which was dedicated in 1933 after years of planning and construction. This tunnel, on the east side, is 408 feet long. Only small blasts were used in the road construction to avoid damage to the landscape and all the rock from the tunnel had to be hauled out by hand as no trucks could reach the site. The contractor could bore 5’4” of tunnel in twenty four hours.

On the west side of Logan Pass we drove on parts of the road where the roadbed had to be built. Only local materials were used in the masonry supporting the road and in the guardrails, which are either stone or logs. The log sections of the guardrails are taken down each winter and reconstructed once the snow plowing in the spring is done.

The road only opened for its full length last week. The last section to be cleared was the path through the huge drift in the center of this photo. The snow on the road here was forty five feet deep!

Along the way we made several stops to take pictures of this beautiful land. Our guide, a member of the Blackfeet tribe, explained that this land was always part of the homelands of his tribe. The tribe signed a treaty with the U.S. taking this land from their reservation to make the National Park. Part of the persuasion for the treaty came from the starvation winter of 1883-1884 when one fourth of the tribe died. The bison all over the west had been exterminated in a deliberate attempt to control and “civilize” the Indians. In the case of the Blackfeet, adequate provisions were not allocated by Congress. The results were devastating. The official census of the tribe went from 7,500 in 1881 when half their sustenance came from hunting and fishing to 2,000 in 1885, when only 8% of their sustenance came from hunting and fishing. This suited the white ranchers who successfully argued that the size of the reservation should be reduced. Perhaps to protect this most sacred part of their homeland from their greedy neighbors the Blackfeet ceded the land to the U.S. and the park was established in 1910.

The Blackfeet retain hunting, grazing, timbering and mining rights to the land, but to all of our benefit choose to keep this place pristine.

We saw the snowfields at Logan pass,

and Adler got to walk on snow again.

We saw big horn sheep, which were too far away to photograph, and these mountain goats, whose image I captured as we drove by slowly.

We saw Jackson Glacier, one of twenty five glaciers remaining of the 150 that were here in 1850. At the present rate of melt, all the glaciers will be gone sometime in the 2030’s, so if you want to see this place, come soon.

Our last stop on the tour was a short hike. Bud is ready with our binoculars and Adler is carrying our new bear spray. We saw no bears, but we hiked back to a point on St. Mary Lake…

where we got some picture postcard views.

A fitting ending to a cool, green day.

We are camped at Great Falls, Montana, for two nights.

Although it’s rather pretty here along the Sun River near its confluence with the Missouri, it seems really big and bustling to us. I realized that the last time we were near a city of any size is when we left Bernalillo, on the northwest side of Albuquerque, on May first.

More typically we have been staying in small towns like our last stop at Reed Point.

Not much happening there…

and it looks like not much has happened for decades.

But that suits us just fine.

Even more striking is the route we’ve taken. Since we started on this life last December we have towed on an interstate highway only six times, usually for an exit or two where the only alternative is either a gravel road or a long detour through mountains. Our total interstate mileage is around 150 miles. We will usually take the back road, like this alternative to I-90. We lost less than 10 minutes on this route and passed about 5 cars. A great trade-off to us.

In 1872, when Yellowstone was made our first National Park, there were other places with scenery as beautiful, and there were certainly other places with abundant wildlife, but there was nowhere else with the numbers of geysers, hot springs and boiling mud pots.

The first place we visited when we came to Yellowstone was Old Faithful. Old Faithful is just one of 500 geysers in the park. It is neither the largest nor the most frequent geyser, but it is the largest regular geyser and has become the symbol of Yellowstone. It erupts every 90 minutes or so and can be predicted within 10 minutes. The National Park Service puts the upcoming predictions online. The morning we drove in there was no posted prediction until we were in the park. When I got phone service back and could access the prediction it was 9:29 AM +/- 10 minutes. Our ETA after a two and a half hour drive was about 9:15. We were right on time and so was Old Faithful. This photo, at the height of the eruption (over 100 feet) was taken at 9:33 AM.

After Old Faithful’s eruption we walked the trail through the upper geyser basin.

There are a number of boiling springs,

small geysers,

and thermal pools along a boardwalk that takes you safely up close.

We took the boardwalk and trail north and passed Giant Geyser, which erupts irregularly to 250 feet and steams and boils constantly. It hasn’t erupted yet in 2022, but was fascinating even in its “cooler” phase.

Our goal on this side trip was Morning Glory Pool, a beautiful hot spring about 20 feet in diameter. Adler captured this picture of the vibrantly beautiful pool.

We returned just in time to see Old Faithful erupt again in the distance.

The next morning we went first to see the Grand Prismatic Spring. The oranges surrounding its deep blue pool are from heat loving bacterial mats. It is the third largest hot spring in the world, at 370 feet in diameter and 160 feet deep.

There are other beautiful pools along side it,

and their discharge flows rather dramatically into the aptly named Firehole River.

From there we drove north to the Artists Paint Pot area, one of my favorite trails.

Not only do you get to look down on the multicolored pools and springs below,

but at the top of the ridge you get to see and hear a boiling mud pool!

Our last visit of the day was the Norris Geyser Basin, the hottest and oldest basin in Yellowstone. There we saw the Steamboat Geyser.

If you can’t read the date, we missed the last major eruption by 19 days.

We did get to hear the roar of the Black Growler Fumarole, a steam vent in the Porcelain Basin and one of the hottest thermal features in the park.

On our last day we visited Mammoth Hot Springs, the largest travertine terrace in the world. Parts are dry and others are still wet and growing, gradually changing this immense feature.

Seen up close the flowing springs are intricately beautiful.

With its stunning scenery, abundant wildlife and more than 10,000 hydrothermal features Yellowstone truly is like no place else on earth.

Yellowstone has been protected as a National Park for 150 years. Every effort is made to let the animals be wild, even around the visitors. There are signs everywhere to not approach the animals and to not feed the animals, even the birds and squirrels. The result is that most visitors get to see wild animals on their visit. We did.

Yellowstone is rightfully known for its bison. The only continuously wild herd of bison in the United States lives in Yellowstone. Adler was pretty excited the first afternoon when he took this picture of a big bull resting in a wallow close to the road.

The next morning, on that same stretch of road along the Yellowstone River, we saw whole herds of bison.

Adler got this shot of cows and calves.

I took a photo of this bull who wasn’t the least concerned about the traffic passing.

It was quite evident that Yellowstone’s bisons are not at all afraid of people in vehicles.

The other animals you’re almost sure to see are elk. If you don’t get a shot of one grazing in one of the meadows…

just drive to Mammoth Hot Springs where they feel perfectly at home grazing on the lawns…

or relaxing in the shade of the buildings. Make no mistake, these are wild animals and everyone keeps a respectful distance.

We had Matey with us and he ignored the elk, but was totally enamored with these little guys. I think they were ground squirrels. They lived in holes in the ground but were only half the size of prairie dogs.

Then there are the less seen animals.

Like this bear. Adler got this photo. I thought it was a brown bear but Yellowstone has only black bears and grizzly bears, so this must be a grizzly. It was easy to spot the bear, because people were parked along both sides of the road watching as the bear foraged at the edge of the meadow.

I got this shot of this black bear. Again, traffic was stopped. You can see that iPhones are not the ideal instrument to get these photos.

Adler did a good job capturing this pronghorn antelope; and there wasn’t even any traffic there to alert us to an animal sighting.

You’ll have to take my word for it on our favorite sighting. The small, whitish blob between the two small pines closest to the front is a grey wolf. We spotted him early in the morning as we came to Lake Village.

Other folks who were there at the brink of the upper falls overlook identified this as a yellow bellied marmot. I just liked the way he would pop up and pose for a few seconds, then disappear only to pop up again a couple of feet away.

We were all happy with the numbers and variety of animals we saw.

You might think that since this is our second visit to Yellowstone within a year (we came last August) that this time would be less exciting. Not so; there is so much to see we could visit several more times and still be discovering new things. Plus, seeing it with our grandson, Adler, was a special delight. He loved everything.

This trip we went to see the falls and canyon of the Yellowstone River. Last year, when we got near the area there were so many cars we were discouraged. An advantage of coming in on the east side was getting there early enough to beat the crowds. This is a view of the Upper Falls.

This is called the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and you can see why. This is a view along the path to Artists Point.

Walking out to Artists Point I caught this view of the Lower Falls framed with trees.

From Artists Point itself you get an unobstructed view of the Lower Falls and the canyon below.

We then drove around to see the brink of the Upper Falls from the other side of the canyon. I loved the mist in the morning light. I think all the mist was from the falls, but being Yellowstone there could have been thermal features there, too.

Our final stop in the area was Inspiration Point for a panoramic view of the canyon. There were other overlooks and other trails we could have taken, but we had a full day of touring planned. Next time.

Last August the part of the Grand Loop Road from Canyon to Tower-Roosevelt was closed, so we wanted to drive that this year. The area was very different from the other parts we had visited. This was an Alpine environment. The road went up and over Dunraven Pass, where I took this picture. It’s at 8859 feet above sea level.

We drove up Chittenden Road, a gravel road that takes you up towards Mount Washburn. There Adler was delighted to find snow, so he got to throw a snowball on July 10th.

Looking north from there the wilds of Yellowstone stretch as far as the eye can see.

We then headed west to Mammoth Hot Springs and drove along this section of the highway where the road bed had been carved into the cliff. We missed this last year because we took a side road looking for animals. Always more to see.

As we approached Mammoth Hot Springs from the east we were treated to this stunning view that shows how huge the travertine terraces are. We didn’t see this before, just because we were traveling the other way on the loop! I don’t know if or when we will return to Yellowstone National Park, but if we do I know that we will find new wonders.