Meet me in Montana

Oh, Montana, you have soothed my soul.  If you could meet me underneath that Big Montana Sky, you wouldn’t regret it. Not for a second.

Montana gives you big, seemingly endless, clear blue skies (they don’t call it big sky country for nothing), the greenest landscape we’ve seen in the west, and crystal-clear mountain lakes. I’ve missed the east coast a little bit. Missed the green, missed the hardwood trees, the wetness (you know, like after a summer rain in the south. How everything just sort of stays damp with that hot, summer rain smell?) and have really, really missed grass. There’s nothing but dirt and sagebrush out here.

The dessert is not for me ya’ll. But Montana has finally brought us back to a land of mountains, a land with rain, a land with full lakes, and a land with grass.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love, like really love North Carolina. You couldn’t get me to move out of North Carolina for anything. The Old North State will always be home and North Carolina will always be on my mind. But Montana. Oh, Montana. Montana has brought the competition in spades.

Our first few days in Montana were spent staying in the Tally Lake Campground outside of Whitefish, MT. The campground itself was a bit of a disappointment. Way too many people, the vault toilets were the dirtiest we’ve seen, and we got our first real share of side-by-sides going through the campground at all hours. But, this campground put us at a close spot to Glacier National Park.

We’ve been looking forward to Glacier for a while now. We’d seen on the internet how incredible Glacier is and we were really excited. And granted, it was awesome, but unfortunately, the Eastern half of the park was still closed. Why?

Because parts of the Going to the Sun Road that runs through the Eastern half of the park was still under 30-40 feet of snow.

Yes, 30 to 40 feet.

I don’t think I’ve seen that much snow in my entire life. Not even if you totaled every snow I’ve ever seen. Ever.

So, with half of the park being closed, we turned our sights to the Western half of the park and made a point to drive the long dirt roads and do everything we could in the day we were there.

Our first drive was 25 miles or so up to a teeny border crossing at the US/Canadian border. The border crossing has been closed since 9/11, but we were still able to go up and look out across into Canada. So now we’ve been all the way down south to the Mexican border at the Rio Grande in Texas and up to the Canadian border in Montana.

Our next stop was to Polebridge, MT. A bucolic community with about 2 buildings, with one serving as a small general store. We loved this little stop over and would really like to experience it in the winter. I mean, how incredible is this place?

After a short stopover in Polebridge for some postcards, a patch, and a pizza (a really good pizza). We headed out to Kintla and Bowman lakes. Both of these were quite a bit of a drive down bumpy dirt roads, but totally worth it. These lakes are secluded. And quiet. And calm. And surrounded by trees, and the lakes are full to the brim with the clearest lake water you’ve ever seen and the most beautiful pebbles. I still don’t know what the Eastern half of Glacier NP has in store. But the lakes in the Western half alone are worth the trip. I could’ve sat on the shoreline for hours.

To add to the serenity of these clear blue lakes, we had our first run in with wildlife here. At least wildlife we don’t have at home. We saw a momma and baby elk, two moose, and our first bear! The black bear was right off the road on the way to one of the lakes and he was pretty big. We got a great go-pro video that we’ll share later on, but he was so close! We watched him from the truck, and he didn’t stick around long before he took off in another direction.

Side note – the town of Whitefish, MT is interesting. There’s quite a bit to do there, with several places to stay, shop and eat. But it’s a bit snobbish. We thought at first that it would be a pretty down to earth and chill place. But ultimately it seemed like there were just a bunch of people with too much money who either wanted to throw subtleties into their conversations about their Ivy league education or who wanted to complain-brag about anything, so long as someone was listening. It just wasn’t our style. You might enjoy it, but I’m not sure that I’d go back.

After our day in Glacier we spent an easy day at the campground at Tally Lake before heading on to Seeley Lake and another few days of camping. The Seeley Lake campground was so great after our stay at Tally Lake. The lake in itself was beautiful, with more crystal-clear water and spectacular mountain views. The campground was well maintained, the vault toilets were clean, and the camp hosts were very helpful and friendly.

Our stay was made even more pleasant by a dad and his two sons riding bikes. One son already skilled on his bike and the other still learning. The older child would speed by on his bike while the dad held the back of the younger child’s seat. This went on for quite a while with the dad continuing to decrease his hold with each pass. Until finally, the older son sped by, followed not too far behind by the younger brother, and the dad walking a little bit behind, not holding on to the bike at all.

So Montana is big skies and even bigger mountains. Montana is crystal clear lakes, warm summer days, and countless stars in the night sky. Montana is small towns and big bears. Montana is long cherished memories of the summer day you rode your bike by yourself for the first time in the friendly campground, by the big lake. Montana is. Well, Montana is incredible.

Rachel