South to East Glacier and then Bison and home.
Since Going to the Sun road was closed we had to drive around the south side of the park on US-2 to get to East Glacier. One road into the park was open and you drive through the Blackfeet Nation to get to there. There is a road, MT-49 that leads up the Two Medicine River and inside the park to St. Mary, MT but that one was also still closed. You can go up US-89 out of East Glacier to get there but we wanted to see Two Medicine Lake and St. Mary is at the east end of Going to the Sun Road so we'll get there when we can travel through the park.
The drive along US-2 follows the middle fork of the Flathead River and then Bear Creek till you cross the Continental Divide at Marias Pass. On the way you pass some cascades and some really neat views up the river into the Lewis and Clark Range. As we were stopped for photos the Amtrak Empire Builder was heading east from Seattle to Chicago. How fortunate. Due to the uphill grade the train was not as fast as driving so we were able to keep ahead of it all the way to the pass. I had the opportunity to catch shots of it passing at a couple places along the highway. At the pass there is a monument to Teddy Roosevelt, erected as a tribute to his work in protecting our nation's forests and creating the first National Parks. The pass is a broad expanse, actually a saddle between a couple mountain ranges. All along the track there were spring repairs being mad by railroad crews. It's that time of year. The snow is gone and good weather means track repair.
It's not a long drive to East Glacier. There ain't much there. It's smaller than West Glacier and has less in the line of services. This is the access to the Two Medicine lakes. We drove to the campground at the end of the road. It's a beautiful site. The lake abuts beautiful steep mountains, reminding me of the Tetons. The two most impressive are pyramidal shaped, Mt. Helen and Flinsch Peak. There is a trail that runs along the south side of the lake but soon after you leave the campsite area it got pretty impassable. While we were there a couple came out from the trailhead, wet to their knees and told us that they were trying to get a waterfall but the snow got too deep and it was warm enough that the snow no longer had a crust so they had to turn back. So much for a short hike. We were not prepared for snow, even 4-6 inches worth. Another "next time" trip item.
Two Medicine Lake
Here's a pano of the lake. I think Rising Wolf Mountain is the one on the right, Sinopah Mountain on the left, then moving to the right Mt. Rockwell, Lone Walker Mountain, and Mt. Helen. I'm using Google Maps to try and identify the peaks so it's kind of a guesstimite. On the way back to West Glacier we stopped and got some photos back to the east along the Middle Fork of the Flathead. There were some great views back into the moutain range.
We had dinner about 7 miles down the road from West Glacier in Coram at the Glacier Grill and Pizza. The pies aren't bad but they're American. The crust is a bit thick but the toppings are fresh. Go with the burgers and sides, they are better.
The next day we headed out to the south, down the east side of Flathead Lake to Poulson and Ronan. We were in Poulson about 1992 for a wedding. The place has picked up a few more stoplights since then. At that time there was only one, where the two highways met. This time we had to go through 3 to hit the highway south. We were headed to Kellog, ID by way of the National Bison Range. Well we got there but the high road along the ridgetop wasn't open yet. We were a couple days too early. It opened on Mothers Day. They had just gotten finished with laying a binder spray, say oil, to control the dust and it couldn't be driven on till it bonded to the gravel. Otherwise our car would have gotten a nasty coating.
The drive down the east side of Flathead Lake was a very different from what we expected. As you can tell from the panoramas above the Rockies have some pretty large, flat valleys within and alongside them. Huge grasslands with more horses than cattle in this area. The local tribes have been horsepeople since the animals first got here so the number of horses are not surprising. And, the herds are beautiful, especially the Blackfeet herds over by East Glacier. The east lakeside is right up against the mountains. Ain't no foothills to speak of. The land is not flat and grassy, it is full of cherry orchards. Anywhere there's enough space on either side of the road there are cherry trees, and they were all in bloom with white. I don't know why we didn't stop to get photos but all our cameras have no images. Maybe it's because orchards are not something spectacularly different from what we see here, especially in Eastern Washington. Oh well, we still got photos of the senic parts from the lakeside.
After leaving the Flathead reservation at Ronan we continued on south and west to the National Bison Refuge. As I wrote above we were restricted to the lower road because of maintenance work having been done to prepare the upper road for the summer tourists. We ran into a couple of the refuge's National Wildlife rangers at the vistors center. They had some family members visiting and were about to take them on a tour of the upper road in the government truck, a four-door pickup. They told us that there was a herd of bison on the lower visitor center loop road that had been hanging around for a couple days so we would definitely see some. We did not expect to get as close as we did. We actually had to stop several times as a small herd of bulls moved across the road. It did allow some up-close and personal photos though.
The next set of photos was taken on our way to the refuge after leaving the reservation and at the visitor's center once we arrived.
Look Rae, bison. And antelope and elk.
It took us about an hour and a half to cover the lower road network at the Bison Refuge. We then headed southwesterly to I-90 at St. Regis. The route took us along the Clark Fork River down through Quinn Canyon where we came across the Quinn Hot Springs Resort. It's really a nice place and surprisingly large. It must draw a lot of folks off I-90 and the Missoula/Boseman area. There's cabins, motels, restaurant and several pools with varying temperatures. We're considering staying some time when we're in the area. It's a long drive to Seattle though. Over seven hours. Kellog was our stopping point and it's six and a half hours driving time. Quinn's is at least another hour further. That's like driving from Twin Falls to Las Vegas, a killer trip. I've done my share of day-long drives and am over that. We prefer 4-5 hour drives so, even with stopping for lunch, you can sleep in, catch breakfast and hit the road about 10:30, arriving before 5. Vacations are supposed to be relaxing, and pounding the pavement for 8-10 hours is not relaxing. The 12 hour days my sister and brother-in-law do between Appleton and Phoenix are excessive, but then both of them drive and I'm the only guido on this bus. (Guidatore is Italian for driver.)
We spent the night in Kellog, ID rather than driving to Wallace because we stayed in Wallace on our Burning Bridges Tour last year. Wallace is only about 12 minutes west of Kellog and we were looking for something different. Well, we found out that we should have gone on to Wallace. There's not a lot of interesting choices for dinner in Kellog so we drove to Wallace where there's quite a few restaurants in the historic district. We ate at the Smoke House Barbeque that evening and I'd recommend it to whomever is stopping there. The owners are from Louisianna and spent time in Memphis. There are smoked meats and creole dishes. They use a Tennessee style smoke and have a couple housemade sauces. One is more of a Carolina style, a little vinegary, and their "spicy" sauce is closer to a Kansas City type. I asked the owner/server why she said the one was spicy when it would only be a medium or mild in most places. She answered that in local folks's tastes it was spicy. Well it was Idaho, and pretty white, so I can see why medium is spicy. Oh well, the meat is great. I can't recall why we didn't stop there last year. We think that they were closed early on that Monday because we would have eaten there as a first choice since we try the "que" wherever we are. She said that her partner does shut early every once in a while when they aren't busy so that may have been the case.
Well, I've done up everything I wanted to for this trip. Next weekend we head east for our spring wine hunting trip. Time to re-stock on Cultura and Sleeping Dog vinos. Our next planned trip is to Bermuda in August but there's a lot of days this summer. Maybe when the M's are on a road trip for a couple weeks and we don't have tickets we'll take off somewhere.
Ciao for now.