Montana

So long Idaho, you've been great!

Our first stop in Montana was at Lolo hot springs (a soak and a shower sounded too good to miss) where "NUDITY OF ANY KIND IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED (except Wed and Sun 9-12)", highly amusing!

After a quick long stop in a rather excellent grocery store in Missoula we decided to head on up towards Seeley lake near Glacier national Park. On the way we got a bit distracted and ended up halfway up a mountain trying to find a ghost town, the view down into the valley and spotting of a snowshoe hare made the lack of a non-flooded campsite worthwhile.

The ghost town of Garnet was, like most ghost towns, settled by miners during the gold rush era. This town was unique in that it was very family friendly so lacked the vices of other towns. The mine works were all still there (complete with hazardous shafts!) and the town is relatively complete and undamaged by wild fire. You can even rent some of the cabins in the winter! 

On the way back down the mountain, past all the shot road signs, we came across the story of Shorty. Shorty was a miner with a tendency to drink and one evening after celebrating rather hard he fell in his cabin and badly burned his arm in his fire. The nearest doctor was summoned and after a long ride he arrived to inspect the damage. Deciding nothing could be done for the arm the decision was made to amputate it, whiskey being the preferred anaesthetic of the day. The Doctor joined Shorty in celebrating a job well done by staying up all night playing poker and drinking with him. In the morning the Doctor, whilst singing "loudly and incoherently" saddled up his horse to ride back home, taking Shorty's arm with him as a medical specimen. Unfortunately somewhere during the ride the arm was lost, never to be found. After a perilous descent thanks to a SatNav detour we ended up in a small town with deer eating peoples gardens and still no sign of any moose. 

Another day dawned just as wet as the previous one and we decided that Montana is beautiful despite the rain. 

 

After driving past endless ranches we headed across the Pioneer Mountains Scenic Byway, at least we were told it was scenic, the thick low lying clouds gave very little away...

 

After a brief stop at another ghost town, where we successfully avoided bears despite having left over pizza in our bags and discovered the true meaning of a watershed, we decided to investigate Crystal Park. 

We were expecting a small grassy area with some signs and could not have been more wrong. This area is famous for the rare crystals buried in the hillsides. For a small fee anybody can arm themselves with any hand powered implement of their choosing and dig the hillside for gems and crystals. Despite getting extremely muddy and only having one small hand trowel we had a fantastic time and came away with some clear crystals and lots of very interesting rocks. 

Our stop for the night was the town of Twin Bridges, it had to be in a town in order for Amy to have a birthday breakfast the next day. The monstrous stack of pancakes did not disappoint and after learning that a rodeo would be in town that night we decided to hang around, the library proving an excellent source of local knowledge, including a picture from the '60s of some old cowboys, including one called Shorty who did appear to be missing an arm! A reminder for us of just how short American history is, the ghost town was abandoned in the 20's so it could well have been the same man! 

After the happy discovery that hot cider is both non-alcoholic and an excellent companion to an all-you-can-eat nacho bar we rolled our way to the town park where the rodeo would be that night. We thought the crowd would be a little bigger, despite the rain, and were wondering why there was a lack of bucking broncos until the commentator announced that the oldest competitor was 84 years old! Turns out Senior Pro Rodeo actually means seniors competing! We braved the weather and enjoyed the rest of the rodeo with a renewed respect for the sheer tenacity of the people here. To be able to ride in your 80's is a major achievement, let alone rope and tie down a boisterous calf! 

The next day we bade farewell to Twin Bridges and continued our "Wild West" journey with a trip to Nevada and Virginia cities. Nevada City is mostly an outdoor museum of an abandoned mining town however Virginia City is still inhabited. We tried our hands at panning for gold (got some dust and garnets!), marvelled at a 2 storey outhouse, used proper old saloon doors and took a tiny train to the candy store at Virginia City where far too much money was spent and sugar consumed (#noregrets). 

The drive over the pass towards Ennis gave us spectacular views and took a good hour longer than it should've because of all the stopping to "ooh" and "aah" at the valley below. Turns out this is reputedly one of the most scenic drives in America. 

That night we wanted to stay in a particular area in preparation for the following day so decided to chance it at "Bear creek" campground, after reading the grizzly bear warnings we went to bed considerably less worried about mosquitoes than we had been previously! 

An early start always means an exciting day and this was no exception for we had arranged to go on a 4hr trail ride at a local ranch! The weather for once behaved itself and the views were just incredible. Our horses were called Deb (a dun with a love of snacking on the job) and Cupcake (a lightly spotted grey). Cupcake hated the mud and found many hilarious alternatives to the trail, until, much to Mike's surprise, he decided to jump clean over one of the little bridges we were crossing and landed in the biggest muddy puddle of the ride. 

Corinne, our wrangler and guide, had brought along her rescue dog, Britches, for the ride and entertained us with a story about him chasing off a mountain lion a few weeks ago. She thought he'd be killed for sure but he is made of tougher stuff and once he'd finished stealing the lions food(!) he reappeared back home, very pleased with himself and much to her relief. This reminded us of Ted and the rest of the ride has us swapping dog adventure tales.

Just as we finished the ride a huge storm blew in and after watching the lighting fork and hearing the thunder echo around the mountains we decided to head on down towards Yellowstone before the fabled huge hailstones began. 

The town of west Yellowstone is home to a wildlife sanctuary where there are 7 relocated grizzly bears who are the official testers of "bear proof" containers. A huge collection of chewed up coolers and wheelie bins kept us entertained while we waited for our laundry to finish. 

That evening we learnt the hard way that Yellowstone is very popular and very hard to camp in, exploring it in detail will require planning and tactics above our usual method of "winging it".

 

Next post: We decided to wing it anyway.