BECKY’S TRIP Doug’s Notes
BECKY’S TRIP Doug’s Notes
On Tuesday, September 24, Doug and I returned from our first fall-foliage trip of 2019. The drive to the Rocky Mountain Front range was a good reconnoiter for a sense of how the aspen were turning in color. We felt certain that Chief Mountain, eighty-seven miles further north, should have a nice carpet of fall color (golden) aspen. We were looking forward to taking our friend Becky to see the sights of Glacier National Park. Those hopes were dashed when we returned home and heard the updated weather forecast.
Prior to leaving on Sunday, September 22, the weather picture looked pretty good. Oh, how different seventy-two hours can make. We first started picking up bits of startling news as we were making our way back home on Tuesday. In the rest areas, we were hearing snippets of weather prognosticators warning of impending snows of massive proportions. It was only after we arrived at our apartment in Billings, that Doug found out just how quickly the weather was going to turn. Below are my brother’s notes.
Excerpts from Doug’s Notes
Upon returning to Billings Tuesday afternoon, I logged into the Weather Service Facebook page and encountered this jaw-dropping forecast from the Great Falls office: “Winter Storm Watch for Northern Rocky Mountain Front, Montana, effective 6 PM MDT, Friday, September 27 until 6 PM MDT, Sunday, September 29 . . . Blizzard Conditions Possible. Total Snow Accumulations of 18 to 36 inches, with locally higher amounts in the mountains. Record or near-record cold temperatures in the teens and 20s with wind chills zero to 15 above zero. North and northeast winds 15 to 30 mph with gusts as high as 40 mile-per-hour . . . Extreme impacts possible . . . This early-season winter storm and/or blizzard has the potential to set a new benchmark for snow accumulations, cold temperatures, and resulting impacts for parts of the northern Rockies and the Rocky Mountain front. A similar storm in 1934 produced prolific amounts of snow in late September over North-Central Montana . . . Confidence [level was described as] high on accumulations, winds, and expected impacts, [but] low to moderate on the timing of onset and end of this winter storm event.”
A subsequent high wind watch was issued later that evening by the Great Falls Weather Service office for Thursday, September 26, for the “Rocky Mountain Front and eastern Glacier County, with West winds 40 to 50 mph, with gusts up to 80 mph possible. “Our original itinerary called for us to be driving north from Great Falls to Glacier on the 26th and spend the 27th on the east side of Glacier before heading to West Glacier. Faced with the prospect of dangerously high winds for travel along the Rocky Mountain Front, the onset of an early–winter storm of historic magnitude, extremely heavy snowfall, widespread power outages and the possibility of literally being stranded at the St. Mary KOA for several days before travel would be possible, we had no alternative but to scrap our original itinerary and, in the short term, formulate a new itinerary consisting of day trips from our home base in Billings to fall foliage destinations, such as the Beartooth and Big Horn Mountains, until we could project more accurately how widespread the impact of this system would have on other destinations in the northern Rockies that are farther to the south.
It is good, on occasion, to experience the sensation of being spiritually awestruck by the grandeur, power, and biodiversity of the natural world. And Montana is one of the few places in the lower 48 that still possesses the power to evoke such a response from the human soul. On the other hand, Montana has a reputation for legendary winters, and it does so for valid reasons. To this day, my most memorable winter-driving experience was driving through a blizzard on the Beartooth Highway in August 1978. That white–knuckle drive was produced by a storm then forecasted to dump 9 to 12 inches of snow on the high country. By comparison, the 2019 forecast from the Great Falls Weather Service was for a storm of historic magnitude, particularly for this time of year, one that would utterly dwarf my previous experience. Even in Montana, storms that powerful are exceedingly rare, but ONLY A FOOL WOULD FAIL TO HEED SUCH A POWERFUL WARNING THAT MOTHER NATURE IS PREPARING TO UNLEASH HER MONTANA FURY!
Montana is a spiritually powerful landscape that we, who have the privilege of residing here, share with an equally impressive assemblage of wildlife. To illustrate that point, I had the unexpected pleasure, on January 14 of this year, of viewing two bald eagles on the ground no more than ten yards from the shoulder of I-90, eastbound perhaps 20 miles east of Billings. It is a distinct pleasure to watch eagles “walk on the wind,” but you will be utterly astonished by the regal bearing, height and overall size of these majestic birds if you ever have the opportunity to be in such close proximity to them. I presume that these eagles were attracted by the presence of carrion that, in those few split seconds, was not immediately visible. I base that conclusion, in part, on an encounter with the fellow Montanan that I would not have expected to see in this part of the state. A few minutes after the Eagle siding, we passed a lone wolf who, standing in the media, was waiting for a break in eastbound traffic to safely cross the interstate. Wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone in the 1990s and have since expanded their territorial range in the Beartooth Mountains, but I was shocked to see a wolf so far east and out on the Northern Plains. I suspected that this wolf was following his nose to whatever had attracted the attention of those eagles.
On Wednesday, September 26, the Wyoming Department of Transportation announced that the Beartooth Highway was closed at the Montana State Line until further notice and, quite possibly, for the season. This closure was announced due to several late summer snowstorms that have already resulted in drifts that, in some places, are several feet deep. The Montana portion of this Highway can be navigated from Red Lodge to the Wyoming border and tops out at 10,300 feet. In Wyoming, the highway reaches its highest point (10,947 feet) at Beartooth Pass. That additional altitude often makes the Wyoming portion of this road the limiting factor in terms of early closures.
