We spent 12 days in Missoula.  Tom finished the project he was working on in Belize around 4pm on Friday, the new fan for the toilet arrived in the mail on Friday, and Lisa got home Friday evening.  So, we made plans to head for Glacier NP on Saturday morning.


Glacier NP is almost due north of Missoula, and it was an easy drive on wide open Montana roads.  We’d had a pizza dinner with Lisa and Stash the night before, and Stash had warned us that Glacier was requiring vehicle reservations to enter the park.  We looked on line about getting a reservation, but it seemed too complicated so we decided to deal with it after we got to the park.  We pulled up at the west entrance near Apgar, and saw the giant signs saying vehicle reservations were required between 6am and 3pm, and to expect lines to enter the park after 3pm.  It was already close to 2pm, so we drove about 7 miles from the entrance to a disbursed campsite we found on iOverlander to have lunch and make a plan.  The plan we made was to eat lunch, leave the scooter at the campsite to make sure it would still be open, and go into the park after 3pm to talk to somebody about our options.  

The line to get into the park wasn’t as bad as we anticipated from the dire warning on the sign, and a ranger was standing near the end of the line and letting anyone who has an America the Beautiful National Parks Access Pass bypass the line, so we didn’t wait at all.  We tucked ourselves into the last available RV parking space and went to the visitor center, where there was a long line at the manned information kiosk.  As we were deciding what to do, a shuttle pulled up and the driver got out, and since it was late in the day nobody was waiting there to get on the shuttle, Tom approached the driver to ask if we would be allowed to ride our bikes into the park the next day without a vehicle reservation, and she said yes.  Then she told us that a better plan would be to just get to the park before 6am, and because we have the access pass, we could just come in and park and be in the park for the day.  We wanted to see the Going to the Sun Road, and our camper is too big anyway, so we had planned to park and ride on the free shuttle.  She told us the shuttles start at 7am, and it’s better to get on an early shuttle because the lines get longer later in the day, so we’d only have to wait an hour anyway if we entered the park before 6am.​

This was a brilliant plan.  We went back to the campsite which was also a trailhead for a trail running into the National Forest, and took a very scenic walk.  We had an early dinner and went to bed with the alarm set for 4:45am.  We packed up the camper and left the campsite and drove into the park around 5:15.  We were among the first vehicles in the park, so we parked in an RV spot and had breakfast.  By the time we cleaned up and walked the dogs it was getting close to 6:30, so we got in the shuttle line.  The driver was absolutely correct about the lines, and even that early we were on the second shuttle, although each shuttle carries only 15 passengers since big vehicles don’t fit on the road.

​We spent the day exploring the park along the Going to the Sun Road.  The shuttle took us directly to the Logan Pass Visitor Center, where we hiked the very accessible trail to the Hidden Lake Overlook.  Even at 8am the parking lot was almost full, and a lot of people were on the trail.  The trail is some boardwalk and some very smooth gravel, but even with all the people who are obviously there all the time, we saw a lot of wildlife.  I found out that I’m apparently a marmot whisperer, since both the large hoary marmots and the smaller Colombian ground squirrels approached me for some reason.  It was odd enough that other hikers noticed and asked if I had peanuts in my pocket, which I didn’t, and all I could think was that I hoped the bears wouldn’t find me equally appealing.  We also saw big horned sheep and mountain goats, and lots of birds.  I fortunately didn’t find out about bears because the trail was closed after the lookout due to bear activity, so we didn’t see a bear.

​After the hike at Logan Pass, we got back on the shuttle and headed west on the Going to the Sun Road.  We got off at the St. Mary Falls stop, and hiked to the St. Mary Falls and the beautiful Virginia Falls, which was an out and back.  We then passed the St. Mary Falls stop and hiked down to the beach of the lake for lunch, then hiked past St. Mary Falls shuttle stop to go see Baring Falls.  We picked up the shuttle to head back to Apgar at Sunrift Gorge, and started the long ride back to the west entrance.

​Like many of the other major national parks we’ve visited, Glacier is at a crossroads between keeping the park accessible, managing huge crowds of people, and not disturbing the natural history of the area.  The reservation system I mentioned above is part of it, and the free shuttles are also part of the effort.  However, they’re still figuring out the logistics, and the shuttle system was frustrating at the end of a long and tiring day of hiking.  The shuttle from Sunrift Gorge to Logan Pass was fine, and had room for us.  We had to change shuttles at Logan Pass to continue west, and then again at Avalanche to get all the way to Apgar.  These west bound shuttles from Logan Pass were a nightmare.  There were too few shuttles and too many people, and everybody thought they had some good reason to get on the next shuttle.  We were among the first few people at the Logan Pass stop, but there wasn’t a line, so when a shuttle pulled up, people who had just walked up would go in front of us.  We waited politely for two shuttles, then decided we needed to put our Belize bus riding skills to use, and when we saw the next bus coming we elbowed our way to the curb and boarded.  That bus got us to Avalanche, where the situation repeated itself, although this time we made sure we stayed near the boarding spot even when the crowd got pushy.  We finally got back to the camper around 4:30, and headed back to the same campsite as the previous night, which was fortunately still open.  We decided to not do the early morning thing again, and made a vehicle reservation for the Two Medicine entrance at the other side of the park, as well as reserving a campsite at the St. Mary entrance for the next night.

The drive to the Two Medicine entrance wasn’t as stress free as we had expected.  It was scenic and easy driving from the West Entrance to the East Glacier Park Railroad Depot, but then the road to Two Medicine was signed as prohibiting vehicles over 21 feet in length.  We’re 24 feet, so Tom continued driving on Rt. 2 and I looked at the map to see if we could approach from the north.  Only one road goes by Two Medicine, and the north approach looked worse than the south approach, so we did a U turn and went back to the Railroad Depot.  I looked at the campground limitations for RV size, and they allowed campers up to 40’, so we figured vehicles over 21’ must be able to get to Two Medicine, but Tom went into a hotel in town to ask.  The desk clerk told him big delivery trucks and RVs go up that road all the time, so we went.  It wasn’t a problem in the end, and a much longer vehicle could have easily navigated the four miles to the Two Medicine turnoff, but we decided we’d retrace our steps at the end of the day and come out the same way.  ​

​We found Two Medicine to be much less crowded than the Going to the Sun Road areas of the park, but it was still a trick to park.  The rangers were very helpful and were letting people park pretty much wherever they fit, and we found a spot in a ragged line of cars parking tail in along the side of the road.  We took a nine mile hike, all the way around the Two Medicine Lake for which the area is named, and saw two waterfalls.  As usual, we talked to people along the trail, and were surprised to find that people were recognizing us and our vehicle, and asking questions after we responded positively to the “Are you the people from Belize with the big colorful camper?” question.  So much for stealth.

​After the hike, we headed east to avoid the 21’ limit road, and then north to the St. Mary entrance of the park where we had reserved a campsite.  That drive also took longer than expected because we hit a thunderstorm as well as construction delays, but we found the entrance and the campground with our campsite without any problems.  The campground is surrounded by mountains, and although the weather was gray and cloudy, it was beautiful.  We had planned to take a walk there in the morning, but it was still raining, so we packed up and headed for Alberta and Waterton Lakes NP, which abuts Glacier NP in Montana and is considered the other part of the International Peace Park.

​We could have driven across the border within the park, but because we’d been diligent about using all of our produce so we wouldn’t have to throw it away at the border, we went to the border crossing on the road to Cardston.  We were a little worried about the border crossing between traveling with all of our food, the dogs and cat, and using our US passports while crossing in a Belize plated vehicle.  When we got to the border, we had only a small bag of carrots and one lemon, and we had all of the paperwork for the animals and the vehicle ready.  We pulled up to the kiosk, and the officer asked us where we were going and if we were carrying any firearms.  We told him we were heading for Alaska, and didn’t have any firearms, and he asked about bear spray.  Tom told him we had one canister of bear spray, and two small canisters of pepper spray.  That was what prevented us from just driving right on through, because they didn’t care about anything other than the small pepper sprays, which are considered concealed weapons and are illegal in Canada.  In the end, it was just a convenient rest stop, since all we had to do was give them the two small pepper sprays, get a receipt, use the rest room, and we were on our way.  They never even asked about produce, or wanted to see papers for the animals or the vehicle, and were very friendly about the whole process.  We drove into Cardston and found a grocery store and restocked before heading for Waterton Lakes.

​We stopped at the entrance of Waterton Lakes and purchased our Canada National Parks pass and drove into the village of Waterton.  We hadn’t done a lot of research on this side of the International Peace Park, and were pleasantly surprised to find that it was much less crowded than the US side.  We easily found a place to park on a village street, and got out to walk around.  We went to the visitor center to see what there was to do in the park and what the deal was with camping, and found a very helpful ranger who not only explained the park, but also explained general camping and boondocking rules in Alberta and British Columbia.  We walked through the village and along the lakeshore with the dogs, until we saw a storm brewing in the valley south of the village.  We retreated to the camper and headed for the Belly River Campground which had been recommended by the ranger.

​The Belly River Campground is a National Park primitive campground, with 24 sites with no amenities other than bear proof garbage bins.  It’s first come first serve, and it turned out to be a good thing that we got there relatively early in the afternoon.  We had our choice of sites, and found a nice spot along the river, but by dark most if not all of the sites were full.  It’s honor system self pay, and it seemed like everybody there was following the rules.  The campground is only a few kilometers from the in-park border crossing, so a lot of the people there had either just crossed into Canada, or were on their way out but had to spend another night because of the weirdness of the uncoordinated open hours of the border crossing, where the immigration and customs offices open and close at different hours on either side of the border.  I forget which is which, but one closes at 6PM and one at 10PM, so depending on your nationality and which way you’re heading, you might be able to cross until 10PM, or you might be stuck where you are at 6PM.  But, it’s all pretty laid back and nobody really cares, so everybody just relaxed at the campground.

The next morning we drove back to Waterton and took a hike to Bertha Falls.  The trails certainly weren’t empty, but they weren’t as crowded as the hiking trails in Glacier NP.  The waterfall and the views of the valley from the mountainside were well worth the hike, and we met a couple who drove to Alaska last year, and had lots of tips and advice for us, which really made it worth it.  We got back to the camper in time to eat lunch and take the dogs for a short walk around the village, where we saw more wildlife in the form of ground squirrels and semi-aggressive deer than we had seen on the mountain hike.  ​

​Our next stop was Calgary.  We still weren’t entirely happy with how the truck was running, and the tuner Tom had been working with from Missouri was getting frustrated because it’s difficult to tune it remotely.  He had recommended finding a shop that could do it, so Tom had called our friend Mike who knows people in the area to see if Mike had any recommendations.  Mike’s guy didn’t do it, but recommended another shop.  Tom talked to the shop, who seemed to know what they were talking about, so Tom made an appointment for the next morning.  We drove to Calgary and parked in their lot for the night so we’d be there first thing in the morning.  It was strange to spend a night in a city industrial park after half a week in national parks, but it was actually pretty peaceful.  Working on the truck in the morning was a little weird, because most of the work happened on a computer in the shop while we hung out in the camper in the parking lot.  Just after lunch, they installed the tune on the truck, and we headed for Banff.  However, we got about 50 miles out, and there were still a few things that weren’t quite right, so we turned around and headed back to Radical Diesel so they could tune the tune the next morning.  We spent another night in the parking lot, and the next morning’s tune was a lot quicker.  We were on the road and heading west shortly after 10AM

This is one of the few and far between “this is where we are right now” blog posts. I’m usually weeks behind, but every once in a while we have a forced stop and I get things up to date. The last one was when we were waiting for the turbo in Missouri; this one is because Tom’s project is taking a little longer than expected and he needs to stay near good internet. When we got to Missoula on Monday last week, he thought he’d be done by Wednesday. Wednesday turned into the end of the week, which turned into “after the weekend,” which has now turned into the end of this week which is, I believe, the final deadline since the company is supposed to deliver by end of day Friday. 

However, we are making good use of the time and getting all sorts of things done.  We spent one day while Tom was waiting on some data driving back and forth on Rt. 12 between Missoula and Lolo with the truck diagnostics on line with the tuner in Missouri, and we now believe the truck is running as it should.  And, if it isn’t, we were here long enough for our very own HP Tuner to arrive in the mail so if we have any problems, we can have the tuner dial in no matter where we are.  We’re also waiting for a replacement fan for our composting toilet to arrive in the mail, since the fan that came with the toilet was considerate enough to crap out (pun intended) while we are sitting somewhere long enough to have another shipped.  I have to give a big up to Nature’s Head, since they not only ship a replacement for free, but have told me that they send two, just in case the second one goes when we’re in a place where we can’t get a replacement. I mildly wonder why they didn’t send us an extra with the original kit, but suspect this is a problem that’s cropped up since we bought the toilet almost two years ago. Part of the reason we picked this brand was because they get five star reviews on customer service, and I would support that. Their phone is answered by a live human who is actually helpful, and who is willing to work with you to get you what you need.  

Lisa has gone above and beyond not only in allowing us to share her space, but also in showing us the best of Missoula.  We’ve taken some great hikes both in and around the city, and we’ve had some delicious food, including the best ice cream.  We went to the weekly farmers’ market downtown on Saturday, and have learned how to use the bike & hike trail to get just about anywhere.  The city is super dog friendly, so getting the dogs out and about has been fun.  Lisa had planned to be away for the holiday weekend and part of the week, but was gracious enough to not only let us stay at the house, but also make us feel like we might actually be helpful by watering the gardens and keeping Cheese the cat company. And, it gives her a break from us so we don’t start to smell like old fish.  

​If all goes as planned, at least at the moment, we should be heading for Glacier National Park on Saturday morning.  In the meantime, we are enjoying lovely Missoula. If we have to be stalled somewhere, I can’t think of a better place.  

We left Cabela’s with the intention of stopping for a hike at lunchtime, then getting to Helena, then finding someplace close to camp for the night which seemed like it would be easy since the entire area is National Forest. Tom wanted to get settled earlier rather than later because he had more work to do for his Belize client, so this seemed like a good plan. Around lunchtime, I looked at All Trails for a nice place to take a hike, and found a perfect 4 mile loop around Skidway Campground, just before Townsend. We pulled off at the campground sign, and drove around the campground looking for the trail head. We found the trail head, but we also found a perfect beautiful spot where we really wanted to spend the night, so we decided to check in, eat lunch, and go for a hike. The hike was lovely, winding along a creek, through a pine forest, and then up a hill though a meadow strewn with all colors of wildflowers to a majestic 360 degree view of the mountains at just above 6,000 feet. We took longer than planned on the hike because we spent a lot of time gawking at the views, but since we had decided not to move, Tom had time to get his work done. 

In the morning, we did the hike in reverse before setting off for Helena. Tom had determined that his project was going to take longer than anticipated, and he needed good reliable internet, so we contacted our friend Lisa in Missoula who we had planned to visit anyway and asked if we could camp in her back alley for a few days until Tom finished the project. Lisa said it was fine, so we shopped and did a few errands in Helena before visiting the Capitol, which isn’t the biggest or the fanciest or the most beautiful, but which is set in the middle of the small city and definitely holds its own as far as stateliness goes. 

We walked around the city, and then started the drive to Missoula.  We took the back roads rather than the highway so we could see more of the scenery, and this turned out to be a great decision since we got in the middle of a serious hailstorm. On the county road, we had no trouble pulling over, along with a lot of other people, until the storm passed. If we had been on the interstate, we would have had to have kept driving, and kept up our speed, just to be safe. That would have been miserable, and probably not very safe for us either way, so we were glad we had decided to back road it.  The weather holdup was only a short time, so we still made it into Missoula in time to go to an indoor picnic - because of the weather - with Lisa and some of her friends. 

We probably wouldn’t have bothered with this National Recreation Area if it hadn’t been so close to the Little Bighorn Battlefield NP, but we found the Yellowtail Dam to be very interesting. The dam itself is very impressive, and the setting is stunning. The visitor center at the top of the dam had interesting exhibits, as well as a most impressive view of the dam. To us, the most interesting thing about this dam is that it was built upstream from an existing dam, so not only is there a reservoir above the dam, but another lake sits between the Yellowtail Dam and the lower dam, and both dams are used to control the water. 

We looked at the Yellowtail Dam from the visitor center, then drove down to check out the campground, which is on the lower lake, and walked around that area. We tried to walk to the lower dam, but the trail ended at an uncrossable ravine filled with water from the previous night’s rain.  We then drove to the closed visitor center near the lower dam and walked on the trail back to the ravine, and then down to the lower dam. The dam is also a bridge for pedestrians and vehicles, which gave us a great viewing spot to watch the fishermen putting their float boats in the rushing river.  A lot of trucks and trailers were at the boat launch, and as we watched we figured out the game.  Each boat had three occupants, two to fish and one to man the oars and steer. The three man crew would come with the truck and trailer, and another car or motorcycle. They would take the boat off the trailer at the base of the dam, then two of the three would take the trailer to another boat launch about five miles down river, and drive back in the car, or on the moto if one person did the transfer.  Then all three would get in the boat to do the float to the next boat launch, where their trailer was waiting.  The river was moving quite quickly, and we wanted to go to the other end to see how long the float took, but by this point it was mid-afternoon, and we decided we had to head west. 

Our next major stop was Helena, the capital of Montana, so we had to go through Billings. We found that the Cabela’s in Billings is considered one of the best Cabela’s in the country, so we needed to check it out.  It is indeed entirely set up for boondocking RV’s, and even has dog kennels and a horse corral.  It had a hydrant for fresh water, but the lines froze in the winter and they haven’t fixed it, so no water.  It has two small lots of long pull though spaces, each long enough for a class A towing a car.  We had heard that the lot fills up, so we pulled to the front and another short camper pulled in behind us and we shared the space.  It felt more like a campground, and we talked to a number of our neighbors, which doesn’t usually happen at those types of boondocking spots. The only negative was one very long Class A pulling a trailer with a Cadillac SUV, who pulled in and straddled two spots so they had room to pop their slide outs, and who then ran their generator all night because they obviously needed air conditioning during the 50 degree night, and because they were self absorbed entitled assholes. They probably didn’t even notice that the lot did actually fill during the night, although those who came in late just parked in the regular lot and nobody at Cabela’s seemed to care. 

Our plan to avoid the high winds worked, but that’s about as far as we got with plans.  Because we got to the Little Bighorn Battlefield so early in the day, we figured we would be out of there by lunchtime and would head over to the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area to see the Yellowtail Dam.  By lunchtime, we had walked around the area surrounding the visitor center, and were sitting in the little auditorium waiting for the site’s movie to start.  Tom’s phone buzzed, and it was one of his Belize clients sending him a text asking him to call her ASAP.  He texted back that he’d be a half hour since the movie was about to start, and we watched the most excellent movie…more on that later.  As we walked out of the visitor center, he called back and found out that they had a problem that needed immediate attention.  So, instead of getting some lunch and heading out on the site’s driving tour, we drove into town to find a parking place with internet where we weren’t taking up needed space for a business or a park.  Tom spent about four hours working on the problem, while I worked on the blog offline.  This was on a Friday, so he needed to get enough information from the client in Belize before the close of business so he could work on it over the weekend.

He did that, and we packed up and headed back to the Little Bighorn Battlefield.  The movie we’d watched in the morning had been a detailed dramatization of the battle, which we learned was having its anniversary just two days after we were there.  It also highlighted a few spots we hadn’t walked to in the morning, so we set out to see those spots before driving the road.  We walked to the top of the famous hill of Custer’s Last Stand, and then went to the Indian Memorial.  We’d walked around the National Cemetery in the morning, but we had learned from the movie that the entire area was basically a cemetery, since all of the soldiers were buried where they were killed, although the Indians had taken their fallen warriors.  We were planning to walk to the path that wound through most of the battlefield to see these markers, when the thunder started rumbling.  It very quickly got dark and windy, and the thunder got louder and more frequent, and we started to feel raindrops.  We abandoned the plan to walk the entire battlefield and ran for the truck.  We thought we could maybe do the drive, but the thunderstorm quickly turned into a deluge with very high winds and very low visibility because of the sheeting rain.  So, we sat in the truck and waited for it to pass.  

We never did get to drive the road, but sitting in the truck gave us time to process what we’d seen.  We’ve visited a number of historic battlefields, and the National Park Service seems to try very hard to be even handed, fair, and non-judgmental.  Of course the victors of the battle usually get top billing, but as part of American history, the losers are also fairly represented.  This site is different, because nobody won this battle, and while the US wouldn’t be what it is today without the western expansion, current understanding of basic human rights makes contemporary thinkers, if nothing else, at least feel compassion towards the Indians since not just their homes, but also their way of life were being destroyed.  Custer’s men lost this battle, with most of them killed and the rest fleeing for their lives, but the Indians also suffered many casualties, and ultimately lost the war since the white man’s retribution drove them to increasingly smaller reservations and they lost their homes and were forced to compromise to the white man’s way of life.  The movie and the entire organization and presentation of the site do a great job of making this clear.  

When we were working and realized we wouldn’t be getting to the Yellowtail Dam that day, we’d looked for camping options.  We found that all of the rivers have access sites like where we’d stayed the previous night, and we had three options along the Bighorn River between the Little Bighorn Battlefield and the Bighorn Canyon NRA.  We planned to start checking the sites out from north to south, with the backup plan of going to one of the official camping areas in the Recreation Area.  What we didn’t think about was the effect of the torrential rain on the river levels, and the first site we pulled into was already going underwater when we got there.  We drove partway in and realized we were driving in the river water, so we made a quick exit and headed towards the next access site.  The next one was also right on the river, but the boat launch was more of a ramp going down to the river, rather than a straight shot, so the river would have to rise at least a few feet before getting to the parking areas.  Even with that observation, we parked away from the river, and did the trick we’d learned in Belize of putting a substantial rock at the water line so we could look later to see if the water was rising.  We took the dogs for a walk and ate dinner, and checked the rock before bed and determined that while the water may have risen a little, we weren’t in any danger of it overflowing the banks.  Even the next morning, after another night of hard rain, the river had risen about two inches over the rock, but we still had plenty of room.