2021 Glacier National Park with Karen and Wayne: Day One
2021 Summer in Glacier with Karen and Wayne: Day One
First trip—Glacier National Park
Day One: Tuesday July 27
My good friends, Karen and Wayne, retired during the last year and decided to take the vacation they have always dreamed of a, month-long, tour of the Rocky Mountain west. After two weeks on the road and visiting places such as the San Juan Mountains, Maroon Bells, and Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, they moved north into Wyoming and my friends from Tennessee crossed the state on I-80 before heading north by northwest to the Wind River Range and then up into Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. After a trip to Cody and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, they arrived in Billings, Montana, my home, on Monday, July 26. We left the following day for Glacier National Park in the extreme northern part of Montana on the border with Canada. This blog is about that trip plus a few shorter day trips nearer Billings.
We left early in the morning on the 27th of July, with the destination of Browning, Montana, a small city on the Blackfeet Reservation, on the east side of Glacier National Park. I must admit, I did not think we would be able to find lodging near Glacier in late July, and though we were able to secure a night’s stay in Browning for the first two days, I could not find anything on the west side. Karen finally found another place, named the Going To-The-Sun Inn & Suites, in Browning, for the first two nights, and the Dancing Bears Inn in East Glacier Park for the last night. They were both owned by the same people, and she even got a pretty good rate. After canceling the first reservation, we had our lodging secured for the three nights spent at Glacier. Neither motel offered anything fancy, but they were clean, the management was friendly and helpful, and we even got a pretty good continental breakfast with plenty of coffee to sweeten the deal.
The rooms came with a microwave and a 4-cup coffee maker, which included filters and plenty of coffee. In the mini-refrigerator there were several Jimmy Dean Sausage, Egg and Cheese (on English Muffin) microwavable sandwiches. In addition, there were Orange and Apple juices, bottled water, and yogurts. In a tray on the table, we found several Nutra-Grain bars, and small containers of peaches and mandarin oranges.
So, we wound up spending each night on the eastern side of Glacier, my preferred part of the park. On the last morning, my friends and I took US Highway 2, south of the park, and had a very late breakfast/lunch at the Echo Lake Café in Bigfork, a small Montanan town about forty-five minutes south of West Glacier.
Although the drive to Glacier was not as spectacular as it could have been, due to smoke from wildfires along the west coast and even some in Montana, we still had a nice drive through some very scenic country. I have always referred to the Rocky Mountains as God’s Country. Some people like the beaches, but I will take craggy mountain peaks every day, because I feel that much closer to the Lord when I am in the mountains. I have always felt some of God’s greatest creations were right here in our own country, the Rocky Mountains.
To begin our journey, we drove west along I-90, from Billings, to the junction with US Highway 89 N, with a stop along the way at one of my favorite pitstops, “The Fort” in Big Timber. With a population of 1,729 sturdy Montanan souls, this city, about eighty miles west of Billings, is the county seat of Sweet Grass County. We didn’t stop at two of my favorite pull-offs, mile markers 411 and 377, as the magnificent views of the Beartooth Mountains from the former and the Crazy Mountains from the latter vantage points were obscured by the smoky haze. Nonetheless, it was a pleasant drive with two old friends. And since I wasn’t driving, this journey gave me more time to concentrate upon aspen groves along our north-bound journey to what is known as the “Crown of the Continent,” Glacier National Park.
After driving around one hundred miles, we exited the interstate onto US-89 N. In S. A. Snyder’s Scenic Driving MONTANA, this is Scenic Drive #23 Crazy and Little Belt Mountains: Livingston to Sluice Boxes State Park. After passing through the small towns of Clyde Park and Wilsall, we made a stop at the Town Pump in White Sulphur Springs, the county seat of Meagher (pronounced Marr) County, Montana, to refresh ourselves. It’s about eighty miles from the interstate to this waypoint of 935 souls on our way to Glacier National Park. Along the way we passed the Crazy, Absaroka, Bridger, Castle, and Belt Mountains.
From White Sulphur Springs, US-89 passes through the Little Belt Mountains on its way north to Great Falls, the third most populous city in Montana with over 57,000 winter-hardened citizens. This stretch of road is known as the Kings Hill Scenic Byway, and it traverses through part of the Lewis and Clark National Forest. Kings Hill Pass, which sits at 7,385 feet above sea level, is just over thirty-one miles from White Sulphur Springs.
After crossing the pass, US-89 N winds down, from its lofty perch, for the next eight miles before coming to the Memorial Falls Trailhead, at mile marker thirty-five. There is a small parking area complete with pit toilet, so it is handy if one needs to relieve themselves, though the town of Neihart is only a couple miles further. The best aspen groves were in the area immediately after this settlement, of about fifty, and for the next few miles. It is definitely an area that Doug and I will want to check out on our way to Glacier National Park during the fall of this year.
It is right at twenty-five miles from Neihart to Sluice Boxes State Park. About the first fifteen miles or so was through a nice little river valley, which the Belt River carved out on its way north to its terminus into the Missouri River. After leaving the valley, the terrain opened up and remained so, past the state park and up to the intersection of US-89 N and US-87 N/MT-3 N/MT-200 N at Armington Junction, a quick ten-minute hop from the park. There is a very nice rest area at this point.
From this juncture of two US highways, it is about twenty miles to the outskirts of Great Falls. I’ve been to this eastern waypoint along the way to Glacier National Park several times, now, but still haven’t seen the waterfalls this city, of over 50,000, is named for. From the photographs I have seen, though, it is something I want to do. Oh well, as the saying goes, there is always next year. Along the way, we passed the C. M. Russell Museum as well as Malmstrom Air Force Base, home of the 341st Missile Wing of the Air Force Global Strike Command. Russell was one of the premier artists of western America. Closed on Tuesdays, the museum is open from 10am-5pm Wednesday thru Monday. To this point, we had driven 273 miles. If you are traveling later in the year, when there is much less daylight, Great Falls is a good stopping point on the way to Glacier National Park. They even have a Motel 6. And yes, they do keep the lights on.
From Great Falls, we took I-15 north for about thirteen miles, to the town of Vaughn, where we exited onto Montana State Route 200 W/US Highway 89 N. It is a little less than twenty miles to the CDP, or census-designated place called Simms, Montana, a small Cascade County town of about 350 people, approximately halfway to Augusta, a gateway to the one-and-a-half-million acre Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex. Montana State Highway 21 W took us the remaining twenty miles to the small town in Lewis and Clark County.
Augusta is situated on US Highway 287 N, about one third of the way from the southern entrance to what S. A. Snyder, in his book, Scenic Driving MONTANA, calls the Rocky Mountain Front, or Scenic Drive #22 Rocky Mountain Front: Browning to Wolf Creek. Augusta is a little over forty miles from Wolf Creek, a small town of around 500 citizens, just off I-15 a little over half an hour north of Helena, the state capital of Montana.
Following US-287 north brought us to Choteau, the county seat of Teton County, Montana, in a little less than half an hour. With a population of over 1,700, this small city has the largest population density along the Rocky Mountain Front drive.
We picked up US-89 N, at Choteau, and continued north by northwest to the town of Dupuyer in Pondera County. This wide-spot-in-the-road has a population of just 120 people. There is not a lot in this unincorporated community, but they do have a road-side rest area about a mile north of town. When Doug and I first arrived in Montana during October 2018, we stopped at a small general/grocery-type store, named the Dupuyer Cache, along the main strip. The lady who ran the shop, in answer to Doug’s question, said the coldest temperature she had seen at this waypoint in the middle of nowhere, was -53° Fahrenheit. Now that is some serious cold. It took just over half an hour to reach Dupuyer, and with nothing to do since the views of the Rocky Mountain Front range were diminished by the smoky haze, we continued onward toward Browning our final destination for the day.
About thirty-four miles after leaving Dupuyer, we glimpsed the mountains of Glacier National Park for the first time. Another five miles saw us entering Browning, Montana. With a population of just over 1,000 citizens, Browning is the headquarters for the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and is the closest big city to the east side of Glacier National Park.
We had driven a little over 440 miles when we pulled into the parking lot of the Going-To-The-Sun Inn & Suites, in Browning. We stayed there for the first two nights, and the Dancing Bears Inn in East Glacier Park for the last night on our journey to the Crown of the Continent.
