The scenic route

The impetus for our trip to Montana was a family wedding in Billings (Congratulations and thanks, Chris and Becca!) but it worked out better for our overall plan to fly into Great Falls. We arrived there Thursday in the early afternoon. Then, to get closer to Billings, as well as to begin our exploration of Big Sky Country, we drove south to Livingston for the night. (It was one of several enjoyable little towns we encountered out west; I'll tell you about all of them in a later post.)

Since Livingston and Billings are both on I-90, it was an easy drive east Friday, even after a nice short hike (more about this later). We had time to stop in Big Timber (at the Timber Bar) for lunch and were able to watch most of the Netherlands' World Cup dismantling of Spain. (Keeping up with sporting events in the world outside was an important, though subsidiary, activity throughout our trip.) Then on to Billings and the fun weekend of wedding activities.

Since we had to back-track west from Billings to get to Yellowstone* post-wedding, we were very pleased to learn, of an alternative to I-90. Two of our nephews had been to Yellowstone pre-wedding, and they told us about the Beartooth Highway, US 212, a much more scenic and fun way to get there.

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What a great road! Although, as you can probably tell from the map linked above, it's a pretty exciting drive. Here's an example of its extreme switchbacks; the red lines point out sections of the road we'd already traversed (click on any picture to see a larger image):

Henry was up to the challenge, though, in our trusty Rogue (which was not to meet its untimely almost-end until a week later).

In addition to the great scenery, and the interesting feeling of having trouble keeping track of which state you are in (on the left is a boundary sign at the top of Beartooth Pass), we got a type of entertainment we weren't counting on in mid-June—watching skiers!

Not just folks at a regular (well, not exactly regular; you'll see what I mean in a minute) ski area, either. We saw kids (yes, they all looked pretty young) getting ready to, or finishing up, skiing down some of the backcountry snowfields that still covered many of the slopes.

skiers at the top of the pass hiking to their run

Now, we know that people do this. We even have some (young) relatives who have done it. But we'd never really seen it, or thought about the logistics and effort that would be required! The young lady taking off her gear below had just finished coming down the snowfield you can see behind her. As you might notice, it doesn't come all the way down to the parking lot. (That last part must have been fun!) She gave us a quick review of what was involved in getting to the field and negotiating her way down; great fun for her, but it sounded pretty crazy to us!

Here are a couple of friends of skiers (see the red line), waiting at the bottom and taking photos/videos of friends further up that incredibly broad field...true friendship, I guess?

As crazy at these folks are, I must say that they've found an absolutely wonderful place to be crazy in. And they were smart to take advantage of this beautiful Sunday...just a couple of days later we saw signs in

Yellowstone that the highway was closed. There was a light dusting of snow where we were, but in the higher elevations they got enough to close the road. In the middle of June.

I did mention a "regular" ski lift operation. Well, it's somewhat regular, in that it has lifts (2 T-bars). But they're buried during the winter and get dug out in the late spring for summer skiing only! (You can't get there in the winter anyway, as the Highway is always closed all winter.) There's a neat video  on Beartooth Basin's website, with some amazing [i.e., crazy] guys freestyling there as well as gorgeous shots of the scenery.

Here is all we could see of this operation and activity from the road and the parking lot, just the top of the top T-bar:

At the risk of repeating myself, what an amazing, wonderful road! 

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Coming down from the heights, we still had lots of fabulous stuff to see before we found our way to a bar in Gardiner to watch Game 5 of the NBA Finals.

We stopped at this lovely lake; I'm pretty sure it's Beartooth Lake, but wasn't as careful with my note-taking as I should have been. Can you blame me for over-looking such a mundane task amid such scenery?

There was a great waterfall, too, before we even got to Yellowstone. It was also un-noted, but I'm reasonably sure it's Lake Creek Falls...yes, this is a creek. We were there at perhaps the perfect time to see creeks, rivers, and waterfalls at their most impressive. And I will have much more to say on this subject in future posts.

I will need to stop here for now, since the rest of the joys of the day were in Yellowstone and will fill up their own post quite nicely. And at the end of the road in Gardiner, we had even more sweetness awaiting us before bedtime, as our beloved Spurs came through and crushed the Heat for their 5th championship. Joy on all fronts!

Next up: Yellowstone, Part I of many.

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*Here's a map in case the geography of our comings and goings in the Rockies are confusing.

Is this heaven? No, it's Many Glacier!

I don't have an actual-written-down bucket list. But if I did, spending the night at Many Glacier Hotel in Glacier National Park would have been on it since I was a little girl. When we used to come to Glacier to camp back in the '50's (you can see some pictures from that period here) we would occasionally come here to eat, buy supplies, and just enjoy the incomparable views.

But we never splurged to stay here. However, in keeping with the "silver linings" theme of my last post, we were able to do so in 2014.

Since the main road through the park was still closed (we were gambling on its being open, but it was a long shot) some folks apparently cancelled their reservations, and we snapped them up.

Yes, it was a little pricey, given the size of the rooms, but the extra amenities were pearls beyond price! Not only did we have close access to the fabulous deck, from which you can take in views like this:

no worries about driving after taking in the late sunset!

the sun was so bright before that sunset we were lucky to cop some shade

Yes, these bucket-list views were only a short walk from our room, whose location could only have been improved by being up a floor,with one of those nice balconies, where it probably would have cost twice as much. As it was, we were very happy with our lodgings location...

the view from our porch...priceless!

What's even more stupendous about this place is that the views aren't the only draw. It's an historic structure that dates from the era before park roads and cars, when visitors commuted from sight to sight on horseback. Next year will be its centennial anniversary and folks there told me they're already almost sold out for this celebration.

Over the years, of course, they've modernized and added amenities, from wifi to plenty of plugs to nice showers and lo-flow toilets. But they've kept the turn-of-last-century ambiance to a very large extent. Providing this fabulously comfortable and inviting lobby, for example:

What a wonderful place to hang out! We saw groups of families and friends playing cards and games all over the place, as well as just sitting and relaxing. Such a wonderful alternative to sitting in your room and watching TV—which is not on the menu, as the modernization has not extended this far. 

But who needs it?! Especially when there are lederhosen-clad guys keeping the fire stoked and such a fabulous space to occupy.

There are also various re-supplying and feeding options: from a little grocery store with food to go for backpackers and campers who stop in for a little taste of luxury before heading back out to the wilderness; to this recently renovated restaurant, where we opted to take our dinner and breakfast:

Having done plenty of hiking in the park, we thought we deserved some relaxation time here, where even we could enjoy our downtime like the rich and famous. The food and wine were pretty good, but the real draw, not surprisingly, is the views!

the view at dinner

the view at breakfast

By the time we got to the restaurant for breakfast Tuesday morning, we'd already been up for more than an hour. We suspected that the views in the morning would be even more spectacular than those of the evening, with the sun rising behind the hotel and lighting up the panorama before us little by little.

Let's just say...we were not disappointed. Even though the near-solstice sunrise time made the wake-up call come really early, we were glad we didn't hit the snooze button. 

I probably took about 200 pictures at Many Glacier, and I will show you more of them (including some stitched-together panoramas, if I can figure out how to do that, and some video). 

But I'm a little uncomfortable with this last-days-first chronology in telling you about our trip. So you'll have to wait a while for the Many Glacier photo album. I'm going to go back to the first days of our visit to the land of Oro y Plata and the Big Sky, and show you all the great stuff we got to see before we reached the pinnacle here. Yellowstone, the Beartooth Highway, Great Falls and other neat Rocky Mountain towns...I hope you'll enjoy hearing about this multi-faceted vacation as much as I'll enjoy reviewing it!

Silver linings

Since 99.9% of our Montana trip was not only good news, but awesome news, I want to get the .1% bad news out of the way right up front.

Yes, it looks pretty bad, but by the time I'd taken this picture, the aforesaid silver linings behind this little mishap were already shining through.

What happened was that we hit a deer on a highway as we left a remote part of Glacier National Park, heading to our home base in Kalispell, on our penultimate night in the Rockies. We'd spent the afternoon buying some of the famous pastries at the Polebridge Mercantile (we'd been hearing about these treats from many different sources and they didn't disappoint) and viewing the lovely scenery at Lake Bowman. Here are a couple of samples:

And, just about 20 minutes before our accident, we saw this little guy:

He hadn't gotten the PR memo and turned tail too fast for us to get good pictures. But, he had the good sense to make his presence known so we could slow down and admire him. 

Unlike the poor doe, who chose to try and cross the road just as we rounded a curve at a bit less than 70 mph. The unfortunate girl never had a chance.

Which leads to the beginning of my "silver linings" list:

1. Henry didn't have time to react and try to avoid the collision, which is when a lot of people end up getting hurt during these types of encounters.
2. We only collided with the front quarter of the deer, which was good for us, in that the car wasn't severely damaged, she didn't come through the windshield at us, and it was a mercifully quick death for her (Henry went back down the road to see what all had fallen off the car, and saw that she was dead).
3. So not only were none of us hurt, but the car was actually driveable after Henry and Steve pulled a lot of loose plastic gear out from under the hood and popped some plastic back in place. The tire was ok, and so was the radiator.
4. We were cheered by two groups of helpful motorists (from Colorado and Montana) as well as a cyclist, who stopped to help. It's always heartening to find helpful people when you are in a travel crisis. (Interesting fact not in the AAA guidebook: if you hit a deer in Montana, you can legally harvest the meat (not so in Colorado). Since we replied to this bit of legal advice by saying that we wouldn't have room in our carry-ons for it, we rather hope the folks who shared this information with us came back later and helped themselves.)
5. We had no cell phone service at the point of the incident, but got it soon thereafter (in Columbia Falls) and were able to get in touch with Alamo Rental Car (great service in the face of this crisis, btw). 
6. Giant piece of good news: they have an office near Kalispell at the Glacier International Airport (where I took the picture of the car above) and they fitted us out with a replacement vehicle in what seemed like record time to me.
7. So, although we were tired and hungry and a little punchy after all this excitement, and ended up not getting to join friends and family in the area for dinner, we were able to get on our way on schedule the next morning.

The last item above was especially important. For one thing, we had flights home to catch from Great Falls in less than 48 hours. And, we had non-refundable reservations at a very special location for the next night. 

If we'd had to miss getting to stay there, it would have been much more painful than just losing the money. As you might gather from this...

I'll have lots more to tell you about this dream-come-true experience in my next post.

Wordless Wednesday: Log jam!

Preview of coming attractions

I am planning on making a lot of blogging hay out of my current fabulous trip west.

Here's a few photos to whet your appetite...and mine!

Wordless Wednesday: Goin' Rogue

Wordless Wednesday: Inca homage