THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN FRONT DAY 2
Day Two:
After having a nice breakfast at the Perkins Restaurant in Great Falls we headed west to the Rocky Mountain Front. In S. A. Snyder’s Scenic Driving MONTANA, this is Scenic Drive #22 The Rocky Mountain Front: U.S. Highway 89, U. S. Highway 287.
We did not travel on the entire “Rocky Mountain Front” scenic drive. We would not be going over the Dupuyer-Browning part of the drive. Nor would we be traveling over the area between Augusta and Wolf Creek. We started the journey by going to Dupuyer via Conrad and Pendroy.
From Great Falls, we headed north on I-15. This stretch of the interstate can be described as part of the “big open”: sweeping, short-grass plains vegetation with very little timber. This landscape is punctuated occasionally by shallow coolies and isolated buttes. It’s a little over sixty miles from Great Falls to Conrad, Montana, located at exit 335. There was a rest area, just past the Teton River, at mile marker 319. Following Montana State Highway 19 west, it is about twenty minutes to the town of Pendroy and then another fifteen minutes to Dupuyer, a way point on the road to Browning. The Rocky Mountain Front looms prominently and impressively to the west of this section of US 89 N, but it still traverses essentially cattle country. However, aspen in Dupuyor proper were putting on a nice show.
Wanting to get in closer to the mountains, we took Swift Dam Road west toward the not-so-far-off Rocky Mountain Front range. Swift Dam was a little less than nineteen miles by a very well-maintained gravel road. In fact, we were able to travel safely at speeds of thirty to thirty-five miles per hour. We drove about fifteen miles before we saw the first stand of aspen off to the right; pockets and in some cases, good stands of aspen, pop-up with increasing frequency from that point on. In other words, the last three to four miles on the approach to Swift Dam present good fall foliage viewing opportunities. These stands, at present, range from summer green to light green and soft yellow.
The aspen here are not yet at peak colors but would present an increasingly impressive assemblage of color during the three to four miles closest to Swift Dam. The road dead ends at the dam. Just prior to reaching this spot, the Pondera Public Park and Campground provides a nice base camp for anyone wanting to hike or even horseback ride into the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area.
Returning to Dupuyer, which is, in Tennessee terms, nothing more than a “wide spot in the road” we ordered a quick lunch to go from Buffalo Joe’s Eatery and Saloon. This is a first-class eatery with the diverse menu, particularly for such a small community and in such a remote portion of Montana. Presumably, it is a local eatery as it was still open from 11 AM–9 PM during the shoulder season. Try their bison burgers or (after 5 PM) rainbow trout.
Another fall-foliage thoroughfare, Doug had mapped out for travel, was the Dupuyer Creek Road. We traversed the first 9.2 miles before encountering a crudely built fence that had a sign posted for mule deer hunters. Much of this road was in almost as good a condition as the Swift Dam Road, but the last half mile or so had one significant dip, which, when rainy, facilitates concentration of standing water. That section of road was approaching a state of impassibility for lower-clearance passenger vehicles. With rain clouds coming in, we decided to turn around at this point. Better to be safe than sorry has always been my motto.
Dupuyer Creek parallels this road to the north. Consequently, riparian forest consisting of aspen and cottonwoods accompanies the traveler on this road for several miles. It provides far more color than the corresponding portion of Swift Dam Road. On the other hand, no portion of the Swift Dam Road presents any difficulty in terms of road condition or access throughout its full length. And with possible storms coming in, not to mention the increasingly difficult roadway, we stopped far short of the looming peaks. There would be another day.
Thus, we returned to Dupuyer and from there, we traveled south on US 89 to Choteau, a sprawling city of around 1,700 Montanan citizens. The trip took a little over half an hour to cover the thirty-three miles. At Choteau, the county seat of Teton County, we picked up US Highway 287 and traveled southwest toward Augusta. The twenty-six miles to Augusta, a gateway to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area, took a little less than thirty minutes. From this small town, it took just under an hour, to travel east, by way of MT 21, MT 200, US 89 and finally I-15 to reach our stopping point, Great Falls. Taco Bell provided our evening nourishment and the local Motel 6 gave us a place to lay our weary heads.
Photographs in this article, particularly those taken near Swift Dam, indicate that the color transformation process was proceeding nicely and probably would have been farther along later in the week at the higher latitude and elevation of Glacier National Park. Unfortunately, the Weather Service’s warning of high winds in advance of an impending blizzard of historic magnitude abruptly put an end to our plans to visit the “Crown of the Continent.”
The leaves of aspen have extremely delicate stems and can easily be stripped by one strong storm. On the other hand, a cold snap that does not fall significantly below freezing can trigger incredibly rapid color change. In 2007, I traversed the Peak-to-Peak Highway east of Rocky Mountain National Park before and after a snowstorm had closed Trail Ridge Road. In the span of only forty-eight hours, aspen went from being well short of peak color to the most vibrant gold that I saw anywhere on that two-week fall foliage excursion in Colorado.
Testing, one, two, three.
Thanks.
Thanks.