Goodbye Montana

20090913—Goodbye Montana

I did a little more exploring at Glacier this morning, taking a quick look at the Fish Creek campground area, then heading North, just inside the park on the “inside west side road” . Fish Creek campground is a lot more to my taste than Apgar, with no commercial adjuncts and it is right on the shore or Lake McDonald. It was closed for the winter a few days ago.

The West Side road stayed low and flat on the perimeter of the Park. It cut through almost 10 miles of the area that burned in 2001 or 2002. The blackened trunks, most with some branches still on, and most with bark peeling off permitted open views of the rugged terrain to the East. The blackened trunks made a nice contrast with the emergent evergreens, now 4-6 feet high. There were a few isolated living older trees and even fewer isolated living clumps that even now are making some habitat diversity, but in general the feeling I got from the area reminded me of the visits I had to the Mt.St Helens devastation zone. While interesting, it was a relief to get back off that road and back to the greenery.

Leaving the Park, I traveled West on US2 most of the day. The road goes through National Forest and other protected lands, with some private inclusions, so, for much of the time, I had the feeling of driving in a natural area. A lot of this is pretty rugged and follows stream beds, paralleling the railroad (the Amtrak route) that I had traveled earlier. There were signs that there had been a few frosty evenings already, with some of the lower shrubbery in bright yellows and reds.

I left US2 for about 10 miles at Hope, ID for a RV site that was shown as a POI on my GPS. This was on the lake shore and had a lot of “permanent residents”. I had a welcome shower and am off to bed.