Monday, July 27
Yellowstone to the Beartooths

  

More rain last night and again early this morning and temperature dropped as we headed back to I-90.  Montana is Big Sky country and this morning it is Big Cloud country.

We stopped in the town of Bozeman at a restaurant called Main Street Overeasy, recommended by Trip Advisor.  Very basic place with good food.  Blueberry pancakes, eggs, bison sausage, etc.  There was a photography store right across the street called F11, where Beth found a remote trigger to replace the one left at home.  This will help with star pictures if/when we have a clear night again.

We dropped down to the north entrance of Yellowstone, through beautiful valley and pastureland cut through by the Yellowstone River.

There was a bit of a line to enter Yellowstone, but  at least we could watch several groups of pronghorns while we waited! 

We turned east, planning to go through Lamar Valley and find a campsite.  Many fishermen along the way, and huge herds of Buffalo – easily more than 100 animals.  We stopped to watch these pronghorn testing their horns...

 When we finally arrived at two prospective campgrounds, around 1:00, all the campsites were filled.  So we continued on out the northeast entrance and onto the Beartooth Highway. Yellowstone in July isn't recommended if you don't care for crowds!

 Found a nice National Forest campsite just after Cooke City, Colter Campground.  No tents allowed here, only hard sided campers because it is grizzly territory. 

Greg built a fire but the weather didn’t cooperate, raining on and off.  We enjoyed watching several deer from our site, including this one that had two fawns with her. 

39 degrees by 8 PM – gonna be a chilly night!

SW Montana, July 25-26 2015

Saturday, July 25 and Sunday July 26

Southwest Montana

46 degrees at 7:00 this morning and patchy blue sky.  We decide to get off the highway and take a back road to another old mining ghost town called Garnet, in the Garnet Range of mountains.

What a back road!  The first little bit has piles of rock on both sides and we learn this is the debris left from dredge mining for gold.

Between 1939 and 1942 there were  nearly 14,000 ounces of gold removed from this area.  The dredge would eat up large chunks of the mountain and could dig 43’ beneath the creek bed!

The road twists and turns, sometimes a single lane, sometimes a bit more. Fortunately we only pass one vehicle early on.  There is still mining going on and we pass several quarry-like diggings – not sure what they are mining now.

Finally reach parking for the town of Garnet which is a short walk away. 

Garnet’s heyday was 1895- 1905 and it was noted as a more family-friendly town, with a school, candy shop, doctor’s office  in addition to the rowdy saloon, livery stable, hotels and barber shops,  surveyor’s office, etc.  It dropped from over 1,000 residents to less than 150 in that time and became a ghost town by 1920.

Teresa and two other friendly workers at the small visitor’s center chatted for a while and made some recommendations of things to do in Missoula.

We walked the Sierra Mine Trail which went by assorted mine pits, shafts and equipment, then took an alternative road out of the mountains to Route 200 toward Missoula.

We planned to see a famous carousel there and eat pizza at a spot Teresa recommended.  It looked like a very nice college (University of Montana)town, but there was a Celtic Festival going on and we could not find a parking spot!  So crowded that after searching for a while, Greg opted to “get out of town.”  We settled for a quick lunch at 5 Guys on the edge of town, gassed up and moved on.

Heading north to Flathead Lake, a beautiful huge lake with lots of development and recreation areas.  In the small town of Ravalli, we saw several signs for cherries so had to stop and buy a few – yum! 

Turns out the cherry festival was last week and cherries are BIG here.  More on that later….

We decided to re-visit the National Bison Range, which we had discovered on our Alaska trip.  Since we hadn’t stopped in Missoula, we arrived at the hottest part of the day (mid 80’s) so most of the animals were chillin’.  There were a few more down near the river.  We did see a herd of bighorn sheep having a picnic at the base of one mountain.

Lots of antelope (Pronghorn), bison and deer.  Every now and then you could see a cloud of dust where a bison was taking a dust bath.

We headed back east, through the Flathead Indian Reservation which looked much like the rest of Montana, with pastures, cattle, irrigation and hay - and lots of naked sheep.  Reminded us of an old John Wayne movie about the battle between cattle ranchers and sheep ranchers in Montana…

Decided to stop at the town of Polson and do laundry and some chores.  Bonus, the Wash’n’Go also offered showers and free wi-fi.  After chores we stopped at Betty’s Diner for some ice cream for dinner.  We both tried the huckleberry and vanilla – this is supposedly 2 scoops! 

Tasty!

We stopped this night at Walmart, along with 8 other rv’ers.  This Walmart had wonderful wi-fi in the parking lot (we found this in Canada too) so we were able to blog and catch up on emails etc. 

Sunday, July 26, 2015

Flathead Lake and south in Montana.

Stopped for coffee at McD’s this morning, 59 degrees and cloudy.  We went north toward Big Fork on the east side of Flathead Lake.  Many cherry orchards and road-side stands.  Had to stop for this shot of two deer we saw sneaking into an orchard.

Finley Point State Park looked interesting as it is on a bit of a peninsula into the lake.

Their camping sites were numbered parking lot spaces and all were filled!  Nice view of the lake with a small marina.

Heading down 83S through beautiful mountain and valley scenery.  At one point we decided to explore a “National Forest Access” road but had to turn around – verrryy carefully  -after a mile or so of wretched road.

Saw several deer and wild turkeys, multiple log home builders, and some interesting bars like Liquid Louie’s.

Many beautiful lakes.   Seeley Lake had lots of lovely white water lilies.

We have seen several sandhill cranes in Montana, like this pair.

Next stop was the Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site in Deer Lodge.  A fun, interesting stop.  It is a working ranch that has been preserved, with home, bunkhouse, blacksmith, chuckwagon, carriage house and multiple other structures.

One of the highlights was watching them use a beaver slide to build hay stacks. We had seen these slides in hayfields and wondered what they were. Many horses involved, as one pair pulled a rake that gathered the hay in the fields, another pair picked up the hay on long prongs and brought it to the slide, while yet another pair moved the carrier up and down on the slide. 

Interesting to watch.  Most farmers now use some sort of baler, but some still do haystacks and swear that the hay keeps much better that way.  Learned about timothy, alfalfa, clover and other components of hay.

Next highlight was a female blacksmith who made a “hoof pick” while we watched and talked about blacksmithing.

  She teaches the skill as well.  She asked a trivia question about one of the owners of the ranch and Greg was the only one to answer correctly, so he won the hoof pick…. That will make one interesting Christmas Tree Ornament, or, we could buy a horse!

There was a fully decked out Chuckwagon too.  Named because food back then was called “chuck”, not after Texan Charles Goodnight who supposedly created the first one.

  Ken, the park ranger, was very knowledgeable.  They typically carried a 30 day supply of food for 10-15 men, which included flour, rice, beans, jerky, coffee, and quite a bit of canned goods.

We toured the house, bunkhouse row and some nice gardens, then said our farewells.

We got onto I-90 towards Bozeman.  Found a good boondocking spot at Homestead Pass, of course on a dirt road in the National Forest. 

Greg grilled burgers and we had carrots and potatoe salad.  Greg noticed some hikers communicating with lights from the hilltops nearby after dark.  Rained during the night.

Thursday, July 23 and Friday July 24, 2015

We had a hard rain last night.  Some lightning, but the thunder rumbled through the canyon – loud and long-lasting.

It was 51 and cloudy at 7:30 when we headed out.  We are traveling through the area of a 1959 earthquake, Earthquake Lake and a visitor’s center that was still closed.  Lots of signage along the road, though. Many campers were killed in the ensuing rockslides.

Out of the mountains, we travel through many ranches, mostly cattle, some sheep.  The land is grassy now rather than sage, with irrigation in some areas.  A few antelope join the other grazers.  Lots of stacks of bales of hay, or bales in the fields where they have been recently mowed.

 

Beaver slide for building haystacks

After Ennis we are back to hills and sagebrush, a few trees.  41 south to Dillon.  Many of the small towns we go through have had painted fish statues.  Also many signs directing you to fishing spots.  Occasional signs for fishing guides, fly casting shops, etc.

We stop at the Beaverhead Gateway Ranch outside of Dillon, where we make breakfast.  This used to be a stage-coach stop on the Montana-Utah Trail and a shipping route when gold was discovered.  Now a restored wetlands area, developed through “Undaunted Stewardship”, a statewide organization of agricultural and conservation groups. This was our breakfast view.

We are back to many hay fields, grasses and cattle.   Bannack, a mining ghost town preserved by the state is our next stop.  Interesting collection of buildings from the mid 1800’s.  During the height of the gold boom it had 3,000 people.  Most of them moved on as the County Seat and railroad depot went to Dillon,  or as gold was discovered in other areas.

The Jail

There is an interesting history  which included a group called the Innocents who robbed gold shipments, stagecoaches, etc.  It was headed by the sheriff of Bannack (who had previously served time in San Quentin).  Another group called the Vigilantes captured and hung quite a few folks, including the sheriff.

We went by many small towns, less than 100 people.  This was the only portable post office that we saw though, in a town called Jackson! (Port-a-Potty too.)

Next we traveled to Big Hole Battlefield, named after the nearby Big Hole River.  This is where the US Army and Nez Perce Indians fought a huge batte.  Nice Visitor’s Center with a short film.  Once again the US promised the Nez Perce a lot of land, but when gold was discovered in 1860 they reduced the Nez Perce lands by 90%....and wondered why they had a battle on their hands! Many of the Indians are buried here.

tipi poles mark where the Nez Perce village was.

Beaautiful Nez Perce beadwork.

The Nez Perce put up quite a battle and the survivors fled – heading for Canada.  But they were followed and captured 40 miles from Canada. Chief Joseph and those who surrendered were sent to reservations that weren’t even their homelands.  Yellow Wolf and a small group did escape into Canada.

The ranger at Big Hole pointed us to some national forest campsites and we find one called Pettingill with three sites, two empty! 

The other people camping there have cut  a lot of wood and left some at each site, so Greg just has to split some and he gets a good fire going!  We are 100 yards or so from a rapidly flowing river.  Dark clouds roll in later, and the thunder rumbles, echoing and vibrating down the canyon.  Glad we aren’t in a tent!

Friday, July 24

Rock Day in Montana

We start the day with a drive to Crystal Park, about 18 miles.  Here you can dig for your own quartz crystals.  We are the only ones there, so head to the designated “Digging Area”.  We have a small shovel so we locate a likely spot (??who knows) and spend a while digging, sifting, sorting and finding a few interesting specimens. When we left, after 2+ hours, there were quite a few folks arriving.

We head north then, to a town called Anaconda.  Through high mountain meadows with more hay, several deer along the way.  In Anaconda Greg gets an oil change and picks up a few groceries while Beth uses the library wi-fi.  We stop at a Forest Service office and lern about  an area for boondocking, but first we head to Gem Mountain Sapphires outside of Philipsburg to try our hand at finding sapphires.  We stop at an operation which has already collected gravel from the sapphire-bearing layer of earth and we simply purchase a bucket, wash it and pick through.  We find a few tiny sapphires,  mostly blue and green. 

No jackpot, but it was fun.

Onward to Maxville and Forest Road 676.  An odd collection of cabins, trailers and nice homes along this dirt road.  This guy’s wife must have said “Not in MY house” to his collection of trophies.

We find a pleasant spot, close to yet another rushing stream which makes wonderful “white noise”. 

Greg gets another good fire going.  At each campsite he cleans the trash and ash out of the firepit and leaves wood for the next person….paying it forward! Some more light showers later, but we are asleep by then!