Category: Montana

The more I talk to people on their vacations, something becomes very apparent. Everyone is talking about how many days they have left and how they are trying to fit in as much as possible in their remaining days.  Everyone is on a time table.  I know this is the way things work, but then they ask how long we are staying and I don’t really have a definite answer for them because I am not really sure.  Eventually I explain to them that we are out here indefinitely, as long as we like it and as long as we can make things work out financially.  Then they are really interested!

At our jobs everything was focused on deadlines and I guess in everyday life we all have deadlines.  Whether it is determined by upcoming events, weather patterns, business hours, family members, chores that need to be done.  We have decided to try and take a break from deadlines.  We are going to try to have a “no reservation” policy from here on out.  That being said we do have some camping reservations in place already in popular parks in July and October which we will keep.  The reservations just put pressure on us to be somewhere on a certain date, and many times there is a reservation fee which you do not pay if you just show up. This has worked for us here at Two Medicine on the east side of Glacier National Park.  We were able to get a campsite and also a boat/hike tour without reservations even though it says you should make them.  This is working for the time being but it is still early in the season up here and there are two holidays coming up, Canada Day July 1^st and of course the 4^th of July for the Americans.  We hadn’t even considered the July 1^st holiday until some Canadians mentioned it to us.  We are very close to the Canadian border and we are planning on heading to the Great White North very soon.  We are trying to plot a plan so at the very least we have a place to stay during this holiday period and we would like to avoid crowds, but I am not sure that is possible.

We are in a part of the park called Two Medicine. The Blackfeet Indians inhabited this area before the white man came in and took over.  The Blackfeet Indian reservation now borders the east side of the park.  The story of the name “Two Medicine” is from the Blackfeet.  It is something about a Blackfeet tradition of the young men fasting in a medicine lodge for four days.  Two women were sent out to find a place for the medicine lodge and they each came back with a different location on either side of the valley.  Both locations were used so there were “two medicine lodges”, so that is what they called this area.  It has been shortened over the years to “Two Medicine”.

This area is quieter than other locations in the park, there are beautiful views, wildflowers, wildlife, hiking trails, lakes and rivers.  The only drawback is no cell phone or internet service.  I suppose this could be considered a positive for some people, forcing you to unplug from technology, however I cannot help but consider it a negative.  There is service about 5 miles away in East Glacier Park. They do have a lot of bears here, both grizzly and black bears, and the park service recommends carrying bear spray when you are out hiking or biking… lots of talk about bears.  Now I am not only afraid of being attacked by a bear but I am also afraid if I were in a situation where I tried to use bear spray I would injure myself with it and not the bear.  They tell you to make noise when you are on the trail, which I knew, and hike in numbers.   In order to avoid the whole bear spray situation we have gone on ranger led hikes with a group of people.  We also learned about the wildflowers, medicinal plants, birds, animals, a bit of geology (not my favorite) and some stories of the Blackfeet.  The interpretive rangers here are very good at what they do.

Ranger-led group hike

Ranger Kelly

Beargrass – bears don’t eat it, mountain goats do!

We went into a busier part of the park, St Mary which is about an hour from Two Medicine, for a red bus tour up the Going to the Sun Rd.  It was a three hour tour to Logan Pass and back.  We wish we had more time at Logan Pass, we were only allowed 15 minutes!  There is a vehicle length restriction of 21 feet on the Going to the Sun Rd and our van is too long.  There is a free shuttle bus that goes up there but it doesn’t start until July 1^st.  We saw some wildlife on the tour, an elk, a herd of big horn sheep sitting on the snow, and the highlight was a black bear crossing the road!  Finally, I see a bear and in a safe environment as well.

As the holidays approach things start getting a little crazy in our campground.  The campground has a “FULL” sign every night.  People are driving through looking for spots, getting frustrated and desperate.  There are several law enforcement rangers here driving through as well.  There was a bit of excitement at the campsite across the way from us.  As far as we can tell the people were fined for a food storage violation.  The rules state that you can only have food or garbage outside when you are actually there.  When you leave your campsite, food is either in the provided bear locker or in your hard sided vehicle and garbage in the bear proof dumpster.  An interesting tidbit we picked up from a ranger, he said Yellowstone’s bears are now trained to break into minivans because they know there is leftover crumbs and food from kids in there.  He said the bears here have not learned that.  We are apprehensive about heading into Canada during the holiday weekend so we decide to stay in Two Medicine over the holidays and hope that it can’t get too crazy here since the campground is limited to a certain number of sites, but all bets are off for the day-use crowds. Since this campground is first-come first-serve if you already occupy a site you can renew it first thing in the morning and just stay.  I believe the limit is 14 days in the park.

Bears, bears, bears.  Since we are staying longer in Two Medicine we figure we have to bite the bullet and buy some bear spray and carry it with us so we can go off hiking on our own.  The bear spray is $41 and now that we have it we have to worry about where we are storing it and what to do with it when we are done.  Instructions say if the can is empty you can throw it away but if it is partially full you have to take it to some type of recycling place, great.  Also we are not really clear on transporting it over the Canadian border, one thing we read said you cannot, but a ranger here told us it is ok.  Hopefully we can just bring it, because there are even more bears up there!

Tim agreed to attach the bear spray to his belt and we head out on what turned out to be a 10 mile hike to Rockwell Falls and around Two Medicine Lake.  There was one section that was especially scary because there was a sign about a bear frequenting the area and the brush in that area was very tall with a narrow path.   Ranger Pat says he likes to hike in Grizzly country because he has a heightened sense of awareness and is constantly taking in all the beautiful sights and sounds.  When we were hiking, anytime there were no other people on the trail we were just yelling out to the bears.  I guess it worked because we did not see any.

We only found one place in town where we could get showers and do laundry.  Showers were $5 unlimited time and they give you a towel.  There were 6 washers and 7 dryers and a constant stream of people in the laundry area with no room to do anything.  But it is our only choice so we will be going back for a second round before we leave here.  Campground has a free dump station and you can fill your fresh water tank there as well. We went to the town of Browning which is on the Indian Reservation, to get our mail and groceries.  There was an IGA there but not what we are used to for groceries.  No organic food and lots of processed foods but it is our only choice so pesticide laden blueberries and factory bread it is. Since it is on the reservation there were lots of dogs just wandering around off leash.  I have seen this before, dogs wandering in the parking lot of Scottsdale Community College which is on the reservation and most memorably in the town of Supai at the bottom of Havasu Canyon.  Backpacking there with friends years ago there were lots of dogs hanging around the camping area.  They had learned to let the visitors pet them knowing they will get some food scraps.

The land mass that makes up Glacier National Park is long and narrow, shaped like a rectangle or a slanted parallelogram positioned vertically with the Rocky Mountains running lengthwise through the middle.  The famous “Going to the Sun Road” which just opened for the summer season after snow plowing was complete, crosses from one side of the park to the other over the mountains.  It seems the climate and terrain on each side of the mountains is different.  There are park entrances on both the west side and the east side.  Coming from Flathead Lake we entered the park on the west side.  Still suffering from sun blisters on my ankles from our kayak ride on Flathead Lake I am forced to take a few days of downtime because my feet are swollen and I can’t even put on a sneaker or hiking shoe.  The only thing I can get on my feet are some slip-on shoes that almost did not make the cut when I was packing the van.  I can’t even wear socks with them so this makes for some cold feet in this wet muddy mess they have going on here.  There are four campgrounds on the west side of the park, we decide on Fish Creek campground near Apgar with the mention of showers, even though it is the most expensive campground at $23 a night.  They do accept reservations here at Fish Creek but we just show up and are able to get three nights.  It turns out there is no hot water in the showers and only 4 showers for 178 sites not to mention they are very far away from where we camped, you are not allowed to drive to them and I have got some bloated feet.  No shower at Fish Creek for me.

Lake McDonald is on the west side of the park and there is a grand old lodge built in the Swiss chalet style right on the lake.  These old lodges in the park were built a long time ago so that they are a day’s horse ride away from each other and the tourists could go from one to another and experience the beauty of the park.  Lake McDonald Lodge offers boat tours and red bus tours on the going to the sun road from the lodge and they also have a nice restaurant with good food.  We plan on taking the red bus when we are on the other side of the park at St. Mary.  Since it had been a few inactive days, and there was intermittent rain, we ended up spending some time sitting on the back porch of the McDonald Lake Lodge.  It is there that we met Magic.  I regret that I didn’t take a picture of him.  He is a guide dog for a lady who is legally blind.  He is a black lab and of course still has that friendly, playful lab personality even though he has graduated from guide dog school.  The owner told us he was actually returned to the guide dog school by someone else and when she heard there was a lab available without a second thought she took him right away, not asking why he was returned.  Well she now thinks it is most likely because he still wants to play.  She said he was very excited about the ground squirrels popping their heads up and down on the lawn here.  I did see his tail wagging when other dogs walked by and of course everyone who loves dogs had to stop and pet him.  But Magic got to go on the Lake McDonald boat ride and the red bus tour up over Logan Pass even though he had to sit on the floor of the bus which must have been uncomfortable for the pooch.  It looks like Magic has a job for the time being in spite of his happy-go-lucky attitude.

Leaving Fish Creek we stayed at a private campground right outside the entrance of the park.  We were able to get showers and laundry.  With the increased rainfall, humidity and muddy tree debris everywhere, including inside the van, I was getting more and more negative about this region.  I just felt cold and wet and muddy.  I try to convince Tim to cancel our camping reservations at Banff in Canada thinking this in not the climate for me, we are too far north already.  He reminds me that the east side of the mountains has different weather so we should check that out before we make our decision on Banff.

There is a vehicle length restriction of 21 feet on the Going to the Sun road, we are 22.5 feet long.  A sign at Avalanche Creek tells you to turn around there, don’t go any further if you are over 21 feet.  To get to the other side of the park we have to take route 2 on the southern border of the park.  We set our sights on Two Medicine which is a less visited area of the park but they have a campground there, beautiful views, hiking trails and a small ranger station.  As we get closer the weather gets drier, the sun comes out, a good sign.  Campground is self-registration, first come first serve, perfect for our vision of a non-committed, flexible lifestyle.  We are able to get a site easily.  The weather is dry and sunny.  The scenery here is beautiful.  There are wildflowers everywhere.  Things are looking up.  Two Medicine feels good to us, so we are staying.

View from campsite

We are headed to Glacier National Park in Montana but we thought arriving at the park on a weekend would lessen our chances of getting a good campsite.  Weekends are always more crowded in the parks.  So we decided to spend a couple days at Flathead Lake to wait it out.  There are many state parks around the lake but we settled on Big Arm State Park because it is the closest to Wild Horse Island, the biggest island on the lake, and Big Arm is only about 75 miles from Glacier National Park.  The island is supposed have wild horses and other wildlife like bighorn sheep. We had thoughts of getting over to the island and seeing some animals.  Montana State Parks have different prices for Montana residents and non-residents.  However, as a non-resident you can purchase a non-resident pass for $35 and get the resident prices for all Montana State parks for one year.  For us it worked out to be a better deal to get the pass so that is what we did.  Many sites in the campground are right on the lake.  They have a mix of flush toilets and vault toilets and they also have showers for $3.00.  There were yurts for rent in the campground as well, it was actually very nice.

Every evening we would take a walk on Meadowlark Lane, a very peaceful street right next to the campground with houses right on the lake.  We saw a deer one evening and there were always lots of birds.  Most of the houses had boats on trailers, jet skis and camping trailers parked outside.  I am not sure if these are just summer homes or if there are any fulltime residents.  These horses looked like they had a pretty sweet life in this serene environment.  Every time we walked by it seemed like they were eating.

Some things we learned while at Flathead Lake:  1) We need leveling blocks 2) It will take time for our bodies to adapt to the colder temperatures of the north 3) Kayaking is way harder than it looks 4) Never underestimate the evilness of the sun.

The first camp site we chose at Big Arm State Park was right on the lake and the ground slopes down toward the lake.  No matter how the van was parked in the small space, it was tilted.  Some RV refrigerators will not even work if they are not level but our refrigerator does not have that restriction so we never really thought we would have a problem with leveling the van.  One day living in a tilted van proved otherwise.  When opening cabinets or the refrigerator things would go flying.  Also when we were in bed we just kept rolling toward one side.  There are things called leveling blocks that are used in this situation for trailers and RVs.  Basically they are plastic blocks that you put under your tires to lift one side or another to get the vehicle level.  I even saw people using some wooden 2 x 4s stacked up.  So we need leveling blocks but I am not exactly sure how they will fit into the limited space in the back of the van.  We were able to move to a different campsite that has a more level parking spot the next day and it was still on the water so that worked out.

It is summer in Montana, people are walking around in shorts and flip flops and enjoying boating, water skiing, fishing, canoeing and kayaking on the lake. Even though the highs are in the 60s at Flathead Lake, sitting on the shore in our camp chairs in the shade with the breeze off the lake was nearly unbearable.  I was all bundled up in multiple sweatshirts and a jacket with hood and still felt cold.  It stays light until 10 pm up here but I could not stay outside long enough to enjoy the sunset because I was freezing. It is shocking how our bodies cannot handle the lower temperatures at all.  Living in Phoenix for over 20 years our bodies are optimized for the heat.  Someone once told me that after living in the heat for a while your capillaries are much closer to the surface of the skin.  This is a cooling mechanism for the body, but also makes you much more sensitive to lower temperatures.  Hopefully, we will adapt at some point.

We expected there would be some sort of shuttle boat over to Wild Horse Island so we could go over spend some time walking around the island but no such luck.  It seems you have to rent a watercraft and get yourself over there.  Flathead Lake is all about water sports.  Not something that we have ever pursued in the past but we thought we should give it a try.  We decided to rent a tandem kayak and paddle over.  It is supposed to be about two miles and take about an hour to paddle over.  We had no idea what we were getting into.  The kid that helped us did not really give us any information, just gave us life jackets put the kayak in the water told us to get in and have fun.  I was in front, Tim in the back and we start paddling.  I had read that we are supposed to stay in sync and both paddle on the same side at the same time so we knew that, but our main problem was we could not stay straight.  The kayak kept turning in one direction or the other.  While we were floundering not far from the shore, the dad of the boat rental business yells out to us from the shore and says you can hook the straps of the back rests up.  It turned out the back rests were not even up or attached.  So each of us would try to get the straps attached on our own backrest while the other paddled and we were getting nowhere.  I was just thinking we have to get away from the boat rental place because we looked like idiots.  Eventually we got going but progress was slow.  It was like we were paddling against the wind and the waves from the power boats out there.  We kept paddling and paddling and the island did not look any closer.  I honestly thought we would never get there, that we were just paddling in place.  Our shoulders and arms were getting tired.  Exhausted, eventually we got close to the island.  We were not sure where we were allowed to land and ended up going ashore on some private land but it looked like the houses were not occupied so hopefully no one saw us.  Since we only had the boat for five hours and it took us two hours to get there all we had time to do was rest, have a couple energy bars and then head back.  No wild horse sightings.  We did make it back in the timeframe with 5 minutes to spare so that is good but kayaking is way harder than it looks!

Living in the Valley of the Sun for over 20 years and being an avid hiker, you think I would know all there is to know about the evils of the sun.  Apparently not.  When hiking, my legs never really get much sun, I think it is because they are vertical.  I have to worry more about my face, chest and arms as far as sunscreen.  In the tandem kayak you sit on top of the kayak with your legs straight out, horizontal to the sun.  Neither one of us thought to put sunscreen on our legs which ended up getting burnt to a crisp.  Tim already had a biker tan on his legs but that is really only from the top of the leg of the bike shorts to the knee.  In the kayak his shorts rode up higher on his thighs and they turned totally red.  I had capris on and from my knees down to my ankles are red and blistered.  Unbelievable!

We always envisioned Missoula, Montana as a cool, hip mountain town similar to other towns we have visited in the past and loved like Boulder, Colorado or Flagstaff, Arizona.  But when we arrived in Missoula it was much more urban than we expected.  There were lots of cars, stores and people.  We decided to stay at a KOA (Kampgrounds of America) because it was in town and we really wanted to check out the town itself.  KOA campgrounds have all the amenities – showers, laundry, camp store but the sites were packed in.  We were able to plug in and now we actually have a coax cable to get some cable TV as well.  They do have wifi but it was just too slow, we had to use our own cellular data.  KOA ended up costing $44 per night.

Tim had thoughts of doing a road bike ride in Missoula but the weather was cold and rainy so ultimately we did not ride.  We were able to catch the free bus to the downtown area.  We had lunch and just walked around.  There is a river that runs right through town and a walking path along side.  They do have a cycling culture here as evidenced by all the bicycles outside the businesses downtown, so we like that.  The Adventure Cycling headquarters is also in Missoula.  They are all about bicycle touring. Touring is taking a several day trip on your bike with all your gear strapped on the bike and usually involves camping along the way.  Of course there are bikes made specifically for this purpose which can carry the weight and make it up those hills with all the gear.  Bicycling touring has always intrigued me, maybe one of these days we will try it.

And of course there are the breweries. We were able to walk to Highlander Beer from the KOA where we had to wait in line at the bar to get beer, then they give you two tickets.  They are only allowed to serve each person three beers per day, so you have to trade in your tickets if you want additional beers.  Some kind of law in Montana.  Each state or county or town for that matter can have its own liquor laws, so we are never sure what to expect.  The only food they had at Highlander was pizza and nachos which you also order at the bar and they bring the food out to you.  We did have a slice.  The beer and pizza tasted great but it was a little cold as we were sitting outside.  At least you don’t have to worry about your beer getting warm!

When we were downtown we had lunch a Tamarack Brewing which was more of what we are used to – a full menu with table service in addition to the great beer.  The Mafia Citra IPA was delicious!  Food was good as well, I was able to get a vegetarian wrap and a side salad so I was happy.

Montana has some kind of legalized gambling.  You see tiny “casinos” everywhere like in strip malls and gas stations.  Tim kept encouraging me to stop in at Montana Lil’s and see if we could “double the nest egg”.  This is a reference to an old movie from 1985 that someone suggested we watch before head out to go live in a van. The movie is “Lost in America”, a couple sells everything and heads out in an RV with visions of “dropping out of society”.  Sounds good so far right?  At the very start of their trip, the wife ends up gambling away the nest egg in Vegas.  They are forced to go back to their old jobs in the city.  Let’s hope our story goes better than that one!

As a side note, we had more of our mail forwarded to Missoula but it was a bit more complicated picking it up in Missoula than when we were in Baker, Nevada.  Baker only has one post office, Missoula has three.  When you address something with the words “General Delivery” you are supposed to put the city, state and zip, no address of the actual post office.  Each of the three post offices in Missoula said they offered General Delivery services so since they each had a different zip code we thought our package would be delivered to the post office of whatever zip code we addressed it to.  We had it addressed to the zip code of the post office that was within walking distance of the KOA.  When we went there to pick it up they informed us that they do not do General Delivery at that post office and all Missoula General Delivery is sent to one of their other post offices.  We were able to pick up the mail at the other location the next day.  So it seems like the easiest thing to do when sending mail General Delivery is to send it to a small town with only one post office.