We are at the half way point of our trip. The potential horse ride in Glacier National Park has fallen through. T sent them a message yesterday and they called back this morning saying they do not take reservations for the same day as the ride. Well, she sent the message yesterday. Anyway, they suggested we just drive up to the stable (an hour's drive at least) and perhaps there might be a vacancy. We decided to do something else instead.
Yesterday, we traveled east, taking a the loop through Glacier National Park. It was a 250 mile, seven hour tour. Today we thought we would just take a day of "rest" and strike out west to see parts of Montana not on the normal tour maps. Without doubt, there was much much less traffic although almost all of the trip was over two lane highways (at best). Today, overall, we traveled 300 miles over a seven hour span. So much for "rest". But it was beautiful and much more relaxing than yesterday.
It was 58F when we left Kalispell at 9:30 am and went west on US-2, driving along the north bank of the McGregor Lake, the Lower Thompson Lake, the Middle Thompson Lake, the Upper Thompson Lake, the Crystal Lake, the Loon Lake and several smaller lakes that did not have names displayed. The highway then turned north up toward Libby. We did not stop much. The high of the day reached 72F with partly sunny skies.
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| Lake McGregor |
T noticed on the map that there was a ski area north of Libby, the Turner Mountain Ski Area (which was not identified by name on the map). We knew there was no snow skiing going on, but thought it would be nice to look at the resort itself. At Libby, we got on MT-37 going east and then quickly turned north onto MT-508 (which was not identified by name on the map). We drove about 25 miles and could actually see the ski runs coming down Turner Mountain. But, there were NO signs indicating where the ski area was located. As we drove up the mountain, the road became worse and worse. First, the center line disappeared, then the lines along the edge of the road disappeared. Then we seemed to stop going up and were going down again. This convinced us we had missed something so we turned around and backtracked. We had seen a road taking off from the highway that actually had a stop sign on it. We found it again and decided to take it. It started out as a one-lane gravel road and quickly became a rocky wagon trail. We took it about 1/2 mile before turning back. This turned out to be a National Forest Service access road (#4712, in case you ever get there). Going back to the "highway" and continuing to backtrack, we found a larger gravel road with an arrow pointing in its direction. No sign, just an arrow. There was a locked gate across this road. This we believe is the entrance to the ski area. When we got back to the hotel, we confirmed the area was closed for the season and obviously, they had taken down their signs to discourage unwelcome guest, like us!
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| NFS Road #4712 at 4,400 feet elevation |
The excursion up to Turner Mountain added about 50 miles and 90 minutes to our trip. But, it was fun and there was no damage done. We saw a lot of turkey and deer.
We got back on MT-37 and followed the Kootenai River up to the Libby hydroelectric dam. North of the dam is the Koocanusa Lake. This lake is 90 miles long on the US side and extends at least another 30 miles into Canada. We stopped to visit the Visitor's Center at the Dam, but did not find it. We did find the restroom, which might have been the Visitor's Center.
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| Alexander Creek Visitor Center |
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| View of the Kootenai River from the recreation area |
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| Libby Dam |
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| Libby Dam Spillway |
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| Kootenai River from the Libby Dam |
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| Koocanusa Lake |
We followed the lake up to where the highway met US-93, just north of Eureka, MT. We were only about six miles from the Canadian border but decided it was getting late and we would DO Canada another day. We headed south on US-93. Thankfully, the Montana speed limit seems to be 70 mph most places (even where you would not dream of going that fast). As we neared Whitefish, T noted there was a ski resort just north of that city. We wanted to see a ski resort so we diverted again. This time we were successful. The Whitefish Mountain Resort is open all year. The lifts were running but we did not go up to the summit. We did stop to take a photo of a deer standing out by a for-sale sign at one of the cabins. It seemed to have no fear of us.
At the end of today, we have logged 2,770 miles. Tomorrow we check out of Kalispell and head south. We will stay the night in Butte.
