Miles City and then south to the Devil's Tower

Leaving the Charles M Russel wildlife refuge, we headed south to the town of Miles City, located along the Yellowstone River.  We left the back country, where even grocery stores are few and far between and settled into an RV park in a town with a fairly good sampling of big box stores.  Miles City is an urban center for eastern Montana, and we found our RV park almost totally full of semi-permanent residents who were working on an oil and gas pipeline construction project nearby.   But they had a space for us for a few days, and that was all we needed.

We were mostly doing business, taking care of bills, buying stuff up and getting ready for our next outing.  But we did find some very interesting spots to visit in the area.  There was the Charles M Russell Museum, which contained a lot of his art works, a history of his life, and his old studio, still in original condition.  We didn't take pictures there, but the work was fascinating, and the history even more so.

But the best find was the Range Rider Museum in Miles City.  What an enjoyable museum this is!!   It's huge, spread among several sprawling buildings, and it consists entirely of photographs and artifacts from the western history of this part of Montana, lovingly collected by residents and donated.

My favorites were the photographs.  They showed such wonderful faces, and although they for the most part represented people of no great historical significance, they were so genuine and moving.  Both Ivy and I got a great sense of the history of this area from just wandering the museum and seeing all of the period equipment, furniture and photos.  It really transported us back to the period and gave us something of the feeling of living at that age.  The museum was entirely unpretentious, overseen by several  local codgers who took our five dollars and then sat around chewing the fat and paying us no mind while we wandered around.  But the breadth and comprehensiveness of the place was mesmerizing.   

Later in our stay we went to a small local bluegrass festival, held in the fairgrounds building at Miles City.  This was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, featuring a lot of local performers, some of them temporary workers on the pipeline, who put out some serious country western and folk as well as bluegrass.  It reminded both of us of Vashon, where there is so much local talent and the community turns out to support it. 




We moved on to the Devil's Tower National Monument  in Wyoming.  As a dyed-in-the-wool cinema fan, I couldn't pass up the famous symbol from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  Devil's Tower is a small park, and the local public campground had plenty of space with great views and spacious sites.  We settled in for brief visit. This tower is a form of lava extrusion, and is a world class spot for rock climbing.  There are massive columnar cracks extending all the way up the monument, and rock climbers come from far and near to test their skills against it.  We saw a couple of parties working their way up the rock as we toured the paths around the base of the tower.  Ivy and I will not be doing that, but we can applaud those who do.

It was here that we had our first Close Encounter with the noble prairie dog.  This charming little creature is found everywhere in the Great Plains, but this was our first meetup with the little devils.  The park had an extensive prairie dog colony right along the road, and much signage discouraging contact with the critters or feeding them.  But everyone, including us, was taking lots of pictures.  They are an awfully photogenic crew, and they had an enormous crowd of camper  papparazzi popping cameras in their faces.  You'd think it was the Academy Awards.


We both had some nice hikes and birding around the monument.  But the cool nights and the autumn colors reminded us that fall is encroaching, and reinforced our steady march south and east.  So after a couple of nights in this lovely spot, we headed out for the Black Hills of South Dakota, our last real encounter with mountains and altitude for awhile

The Charles M Russell

Charles M Russell was a famous western painter, and lots of things are named after him around Montana.  This wildlife refuge is one of the largest in the world, over a million acres, and covers a long stretch of the Missouri River known as the Missouri Breaks, as well as a huge reservoir that was created to supply water to the surrounding communities by damming the Missouri.  This is the area where the Missouri River and its tributaries have carved vast channels through the great plains, leaving an intricate network of canyons and bluffs packed with wildlife and decorated with old abandoned cabins and ranches.  The area is not much suited for agriculture, so it is still mostly wild and dramatic.  It's quite remote, in spite of occupying so much of the great Missouri river - towns are very small, and few and far between.  Highways are reminiscent of Nevada - miles of open plains and little settlement.

We stopped in two spots there, camping out in the James Kipp Recreation Area and the Hell Creek State Park.  The former is along the free running part of the river, and the latter is on the reservoir.  This was our transition into the post-Labor Day world of RV'ing.  Now the summer crowds thin out dramatically and the RV parks are mostly empty.  We never have to worry about a reservation - we just drive in and look for a spot.  But later on, many of these parks will start to close, and there won't be any parks available.  So this was a good time to be there.

James Kipp first.  This was a lovely spot, with lots of trees, right by the river.  The campsites were spacious and little occupied.  There weren't any services - it's quite remote - but our RV worked fine - we had water and battery electricity, and propane for cooking and heating, so we were quite comfortable.  The only drawback was the bugs - mosquitoes were awfully thick sometimes and interfered with Ivy's plein air painting in a big way.  

We took a short drive in the car around the auto loop - a twenty mile tour of the area that is on the only safe road for a vehicle like ours.  The views are fabulous.  The biggest attraction nearby was the elk viewing area.  Elk hunting season had started, and large numbers of elk had moved down to the viewing area, as hunting is forbidden there.  It was also rutting season, so we saw some bucks having a spirited discussion about females.  The elk paid us little attention, so we could get some good photos and get fairly close.

In walking around other parts of the area, we got acquainted with another feature of the Missouri Breaks - the amazing Missouri Mud.  I'm from Seattle, and I thought I knew mud, but this stuff is quite spectacular.  Ivy and I took a short walk down a road that looked quite innocent to get a bit closer to the river.  After awhile, I realized that my feet weighed about twenty-five pounds each.  Looking down, I found what amounted to mud snowshoes attached to my shoes.  Every time you step on this stuff, some new mud attaches to the old and the mud appendage on your feet just grows and grows.  It's pretty hard to get rid of it - just stomping and shaking is only partially effective.  And it doesn't even come off easily when it's dry.  They have a lot of back country roads out here, and they are marked Impassable When Wet.  They aren't kidding.  I wouldn't even try those roads on a bicycle, as it had  been raining recently. 


One day, we took the car up to the Bowdoin Wildlife Refuge, a lake north of the Charles Russell set aside for birds and wildlife.  Oddly enough, it was there that I got my best photo of a pronghorn antelope, one of my favorite critters from this area.  They are very colorful and you see them all over the plains in this part of Montana.  There was one right next to the road at the Bowdoin, and he didn't have any qualms about being photographed by a tourist.  Most of them are not so friendly.

Then it was on to Hell Creek, a state park by the reservoir backed up behind the Fort Peck dam.  This park is rather remote, out at the end of  a 25 mile gravel road from the town of Jordan, itself not much more than a gas station and cafe.  The park is lovely, with plenty of camping spaces by the river and not much traffic.  The water levels had been falling due to increased demand for the past 25 years or so, but the recent heavy rains have raised the levels of the lake, and we saw drowning trees all around the edges of the water. 


This is also a well-known dinosaur research area and there are fossil digs every summer around there.  The fossil beds were closed when we were there, but we went for a walk along what they call the Paleo trail, which led us by some of the geological features that were so important there. 

But mostly it was just  fun hiking, riding bikes and driving the area.  I did some birding that was very productive, while Ivy did some painting out along the road.  It was such a relaxing visit that we extended our stay until it was just imperative that we move on to Miles City for our mail and email and the rest. 

Great Falls and some old western towns

Leaving Glacier, we headed east toward the town of Great Falls.  Primarily we considered this to be a repair and maintenance stop, one where we could get the RV worked on and catch up on our bills and maintenance chores.  But we wound up staying there over a week, with some visits to neighboring places and some nice interludes in the town itself.

As we left Glacier, we were really struck by the transition to the Great Plains environment. We had been traveling almost entirely in the western mountains, and now we were headed off across relatively flat country.  From now on, until our return to the West, we would be learning to appreciate the vast expanses of the Plains and the relatively modest mountains in the East.  It was a lot of fun to travel in straight lines a lot of the time, and not to have to worry about big grades, up or down.

But it turned out that we were not through with the mountains yet.  Over the Labor Day weekend, while we were waiting for awning parts to be delivered, we had a chance to visit with a friend who has a house in Ennis, Montana, about 200 miles south of  Great Falls.  We drove down there in our little Hyundai and  it was a lovely scenic drive.  We stopped off to see the Missouri Headwaters State Park, a famous Lewis and Clark spot where the Missouri splits into three different rivers, the Madison, the Jefferson, and the Gallatin.  Lewis and Clark were faced with some tough decisions at that point - which of the three rivers to follow up into the mountains?  It's quite an intricate network near the town of Three Forks, with rivers running in all directions and no clear guidance as to where they are going to go.  We met some plein air painters there and Ivy had some good discussions with them.

Then on for a visit with our friend Judy and her lovely cat Jake.  Judy is a birder and also loves to fish, and the town of Ennis is famous for the fishing.  In fact, there was a fly fishing festival going on in Ennis over the weekend, and we wandered around a bit at that.  We toured the river and lake areas around Ennis, and saw birds and wildlife in abundance.  The deer really seem to like the farmers' fields around Ennis, but I'm not sure that it's mutual.

We also had a very pleasant trip to the old western towns near Ennis.  My favorite was Nevada City, an old gold mining town that has been preserved and turned into a tourist destination.  It was a lot less pretentious than some similar places, and staffed entirely by volunteers, some of whom drive for three hundred miles to spend time in costumes there staffing the town and putting on performances of historical events for their guests to watch.  An entire period town has been re-created there with all of its old buildings and streets, all lovingly preserved by the organization that runs it.  Well worth our visit.

Nearby is Virginia City, a very different type of old western town.  Here the buildings and look and feel of the old town have been preserved, but the town is entirely adapted to modern use.  There are stores and rides, all kinds of tourist services.  So we had hot chocolates there - it was kind of cool - and visited some of the stores.  There are a couple of theater companies there that put on shows for the folks - we tried for tickets but were too late.  So we headed back to Ennis.   

The next day we made our way back to Great Falls, traveling through a very picturesque canyon that the Missouri River has carved.  We stopped at Tower Rock State Park,  a high point that Lewis and Clark climbed to try and figure out how to get further up the Missouri.  The canyon is dramatic, and we stopped briefly by the river to enjoy the feel of it.  It was a great afternoon stop, very relaxing.

On our return to Great Falls, we were able to get our repairs completed and prepared ourselves to go on the road once again.  This time, we're aiming for the  Charles M Russell Wildlife Refuge, in a remote part of Montana.  There won't be much in the way of RV parks out there, but we look forward to exploring this famous part of the Missouri Breaks.  More from there. 

On to Glacier

We arrived to claim our reservation at San-Suz-Ed RV park, just outside the gates of the Glacier National Park.  This is our northernmost point, and it's getting a bit late, creeping up on Labor Day, so we are prepared for weather that is not as warm as we're used to. Sure enough, the weather turns cool and rainy for awhile, but we are able to get some good days and some good adventures.

We are meeting with friends of long standing, John Bolles and Mary MacGregor, who live in Moscow, Idaho, but have driven over to meet us here and tour the park with us.  They have been here before, years earlier.  So on our first day, we head off along some of the roads on the west side of the park, to get a less crowded view to start with.  We're visiting a short trail to Hidden Meadow, where there are supposed to be wildlife, and then off to Bowman Lake.  Much of the road is outside the western edge of the park, and we pass through a cute little summer settlement just outside the park called Polebridge.

The meadow is lovely, though a bit short on wildlife.  There is a lake in the meadow, hosting an entertaining territorial battle between a falcon and a kingfisher, which goes on for some time.  And we meet a lovely family who bring their two small children all the way up the trail, the youngest in a three wheeled stroller.  The little girl is a chatterbox, and keeps us all entertained most of the way back.  Then it's off to Bowman Lake for a picnic lunch and a short walk.  The scenery is stunning and a great introduction to the park. 

For the next few days, we focused our attention on the famous Going-to-the-Sun road.  That is a truly amazing highway, built during the Depression by public works funding.  What job of work that must have been!!  Miles of narrow road clinging to the side of the mountains, from the Lake MacDonald valley to Logan Pass.  It's still being maintained and upgraded today, but the original work is a real wonder. 

There were stunning views all along the road, so many that we were thankful for the age of digital photography, where you can snap and snap and never run out of film or have to worry about development and printing.  The power of the glaciers can be seen very clearly, and the huge gouges that they tore in this countryside, left some of the most dramatic peaks in the US.

On a little side-adventure, we took a hike along about a 1.5 mile trail to a cirque called Avalanche Lake.  The reason for the name can be seen right away in the steep mountainside drops which have built the lake's reputation over the years.  It was a lovely hike, and on the way back a deer stepped onto the trail behind Mary and Ivy and followed them down for some time.  Eventually the presence of other tourists caused it to wander off. 

Besides the views, there were occasional wildlife sightings to enjoy.  Here's a back view of a black bear that we saw running alongside the road.  And some bighorn sheep were across the road from the visitor center at Logan Pass, posing very elegantly for their portraits as a horde of tourists snapped away. 

Between our first and second visits to Logan Pass, there was a night of rain at the RV park, and when we went up again, the tops of the mountains were covered in snow.  The lower elevations where the road went were still clear, but we took this as a notification that winter is approaching and we need to turn our nose gradually to the ESE.  We'll be heading to Florida for the winter, and we've updated our map of travel, so you should look at that when you can.

Yellowstone - Queen of National Parks

Waving goodbye to our good luck moose, we headed off to Yellowstone.  It's a short drive north through the Grand Teton Park, with lovely views all the way.  Our approach led through Grand Teton, then into Yellowstone Park and out the western gate to West Yellowstone, where we had a reservation in an RV park.  We attempted to stop at Old Faithful on the way, but by that time it was the middle of the day, and there was literally no place to park a rig like ours.  The crowds were enormous.  So we continued on, vowing to return the next day for a visit.

Our reservation was at an RV camp a few miles north of West Yellowstone, located on National Forest land on the shores of a large lake.  It was a great location, out in the forest with miles of National Forest road all around.  There had been a grizzly with cubs in the area only a week earlier, so there were lots of alerts and we carried our bear spray faithfully when we went on bike rides in the area.  The only drawbacks were the access road, five miles of corduroy gravel, and the unreliable internet service.

The next morning we headed right off to visit Old Faithful and the surrounding geyser country.   We arrived quite early, which gave us a good parking place and a less crowded visitor center.  It seems that all the national parks have been seeing big increases in visitors this year, and the Yellowstone park is no exception.  The park rangers look very busy and traffic is a big issue.  But Old Faithful did not  disappoint, and the surrounding geyser country provided an endless variety of steaming, bubbling and exploding thermal sites.  We took lots of photos, but it's impossible to capture the variety and complexity of these sites.  We hiked the boardwalks around Old Faithful and wore ourselves out.

Yellowstone is a huge park, and we were hard pressed to cover even a small part of it.  The next day we toured further north, up toward Mammoth Springs.  We had to wend our way through all the construction, but the delays this time were minor.  We learned quickly that if we wanted to spot some wildlife, we just looked along the road for something that looked like a twenty-car pileup, and sure enough there would be critters.

It was as much fun watching the tourists following the critters around as the critters themselves.  Despite all the signs to the contrary, folks persisted in trying to get close to wildlife, even pretty dangerous critters like bears and buffalo.  We didn't see any actual injurious encounters, but the animals certainly had plenty of opportunities to squash, gore and/or trample tourists if they had wanted to.  Fortunately, for the most part the tourists were treated gently. 

We couldn't resist a stop at the Artist Paintpots along the way.  It was a great little geyser hike, with a lot of those colorful bubbling springs that are so common in the caldera.  There were great views and a variety of these displays.  Then a picnic at a small rock formation near the road and moving on to Mammoth Springs.  That end of the park has a large visitor center and the old army fort which was used to protect the park in the early days from poachers and illegal loggers and such. That army unit is credited with saving the park, and the history of their struggle is fascinating.  On the way back, we got our one and only look at a grizzly bear, with two cubs you can barely see in our photo.  There were plenty of people there running up to it to try and get eaten, but the bear was steadfastly ignoring them all.

The next day we got a late start, with a leisurely breakfast in a popular West Yellowstone bakery, followed by some serious internet time in the local library.  Then we were off again to the north side of the park, through the construction and then up to the Yellowstone Canyon area.  That spot is truly spectacular and lives up to its reputation as the most photographed site in Yellowstone.  Like everyone else, we took lots of pictures.  Then we drove off into the Lamar Valley, reputed to have lots of wildlife, particularly right at dusk.  We saw some buffalo and some pronghorn antelope, and had a pleasant conversation with a serious wolf-watcher who was following the pack that lived in the area.  But we weren't able to see them.  It got dark and started to rain, and we headed home.

The next day was a wildlife tour.  After a brief stop at Old Faithful, we went on the road toward the Hayden Valley, which was reputed to have lots of wildlife.  Sure enough, a crowd by the road indicated some bull elk.  How those critters ever get through the forest with all those antlers, I do not understand.  But they must do it.   We stopped for a picnic in a very nice uncrowded spot by a river with buffalo grazing in the distance and the ubiquitous fishermen casting their lines.  It was an idyllic scene, and just what we had gone on the road for.  

There were herds of buffalo all around, and no lack of photo opportunities.   We also saw a pair of coyotes.  These two were quite tourist-savvy, ignoring the dozens of photographers as they combed the grasslands for little treats.  You rarely see coyotes that are that indifferent to humans, but coyotes are smart critters, and they quickly figure out that we're no threat.  But that makes them a lot easier to see. 

Toward the end of the day, we took a very pleasant and peaceful little hike along the edge of Lake Yellowstone.  It was a lovely day, and a fitting windup to our visit.  We met one or two other travelers and had some good conversations, but for t he most part it was just sunny and quiet.  Ivy spotted this little fella emptying out his tunnels, popping his head in and out.  It took about twenty photos to catch him outside.  And there was a small flock of mergansers along the lakefront.  And there were lots of marmots, occupying the choicest real estate, sunny with a view of the lake, and chirping in outrage at their visitors.  After that it was the long drive back to the RV park.  A thoroughly satisfying visit, but one that leaves a whole lot of the park unseen.  We hope to return and spend more time at a later date.