Just loving the Wild West

Wallace (Silver Mountain) & the Hiawatha Trail

After Rick's reunion with his past we took Amy for our roadtrip through the states. Our plan: driving from the west to the east (final destination: New York). We headed direction Glacier National Park but spontaneously stopped at Silver Mountain. We had to! Rick learned snowboarding on that mountain.

The old gondola was still there and looked the same but the town around the gondola has grown since 1999. The mountain was calling so we took the gondola up Silver Mountain and just chilled there and enjoyed the views. All the old lifts were still running but obviously more tourists have come there till then so they expanded the whole skiing resort (what shame that there was no snow when we went up...).

As there is a little camping in a small town called Wallace close by to Silver Mountain, we decided to stay the night there. Someone tipped us to rent a mountain bike and take a trail called the Hiawatha trail.

"It was called one of the most scenic stretches of railroad in the country. When the Milwaukee Railroad was operating, the trains traversed through 11 tunnels and over 9 high trestles, covering a 46 mile route that crossed the rugged Bitterroot Mountains between Idaho and Montana. The "Route of the Hiawatha" is most famous for the long St. Paul Pass, or Taft Tunnel which burrows for 8,771 ft. (1.66 miles) under the Bitterroot Mountains at the state line." (source: http://www.ridethehiawatha.com/the-trail)

That sounded like a fun ride so we stayed one more night. The next morning we drove up the Lookput pass, rented two bikes, drover further up to the beginning of the trail and started our downhill biketour. It was great fun as the road leads you through old train tunnels (which scared me a little bit - me old chicken) and over high bridges. The views were great and the 15 miles went by very quick. At the finish a shuttle bus picked us up and drove us back to the first train tunnel (we had to cycle through that long tunnel again). But....we even saw a moose!!!

Back at the camping our lovely camping neighbours Nancy & Steve took us on a short ride on their razer (thank youuuu). We had no more water power after that as a little accident happend while driving away ... LOL.

Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park is one of THE most visited tourist attractions in Montana. We should have taken that into an account when driving there, expecting to easily find a camping spot in the park. Well, we did not. People reserve spaces weeks in advance so we did not get a spot in first place. We could reserve a one night spot though for the upcoming night right next to Lake Mc Donald and after hours of asking around, we luckily find a camping spot at the 'last resort' for our first night at Glacier.

As the Dutch saying "every disadvantage has an advantage" says, we met very people at the last resort. Sandy and Suzie provided us with excellent coffee and donuts for breakfast. We had a great talk and might even go down to New Mexico to visit them. Thanks guys for the invitation! :)

The next morning we went into the Park to our Camping Fish Creek next to Lake Mc Donald. We did a small hike (taking our new purchased bear spray with us which is recommended and might come in handy being in bear country). You are advised to clap and shout regulary while walking to keep the bears away, so we did that, too. After the small hike we were cruising around just a little more with Amy.

Just before dawn Rick lid a campfire and as he had to watch the fire I had to go the ranger information show about geology by myself that took place that evening (lame excuse Rick ;)..). After the show I gave Rick a summery as I had taken notes throughout the whole power point presentation. Ha ha ha.

Going-to-the-sun-road

We took this road the next day in order to get to Helena (capital of Montana) and Yellowstone. It was build between 1920 and ~1934 and takes your right through the Rockies. You cannot describe the views, the nature and the animals you come across when taking this road:

We did not reach Helena that day. The road we took after the going-to-the-sun-road led through the Blackfeet Indian Reserve and miles and miles of nothing. Rick got very tired so we decided to stop at Wolf Creek which turned in Wesps Creep. We hate those bugs! And they kept chasing us but we saw pelicans.

Helena & Butte

In Helena we did not stay but just used the Wifi at Starbucks and went to T-mobile. Yes, we still do not have internet as we have learned that Rick's simcard is using 5 G technology and our phones do not pick up that signal. It should be better as soon as we will head further east.

Butte is an old and current mining city (it used to be the wealthiest cities on the planet back in the mining days) and was our new place to stay the night. We danced with some Canadian Geese and visited the mining museum the next morning. Yes, we do culture as well.

Ennis

While driving to Ennis we passed some lovely smalle (ghost) towns such as Virginia City and did some more sightseeing. It was very interesting to see how those towns popped up like mushrooms in the gold rush period and died out when the gold or silver ran out.

We stayed 2 nights in this little fishing & hunting village in the middle of the Rocky Mountains that looks like a town back in 1960. In Ennis we spotted the poster advertising for the Red Pants Ants Festival (Country Music) upcoming weekend. We decided to go although it is in the direction we just came from back up north. We do not care and will go anyway. F*** the budget ;)

Big Sky

As we had already booked a full day horse riding trip before seeing that poster, we drove further south to Big Sky. We found a spot on a small camping in the forest as we went their early in the morning (lesson learned from Glacier).

The rest of the day we were just cruising around, doing a short hike to the Ousel Falls and I was already getting all excited about the horse riding the next day.

Horse-riding was awesome! Elliot, the wrangler, took us dudes on a 7 hours ride through the mountains of the backcountry. It was so nice to see the nature on the back of a horse (or a mule). We loved it even though our knees, bums and backs hurt now.

Funny story: I booked a nice camping site in Townsend. When we arrived in Townsend we could not find the camping and even after having called the camping owner we still were not able to find the right adres until I found out that we did not book a camping in Townsend Montana but Tennessee. We cancelled the booking as the camping owner herself realised that we would not be able to make it to Tennessee today which is actually 1974,9 miles = 3159,84 km from here).

Next destination: White Sulphur Springs for the Red Ants Pants Festival. Yihaaaaaaa!

Ps. We changed our flight back to Europe. We will fly back on 10/03/107 instead of 09/16/2017 ...