Our Road Trips

5/20/14

We are up early & off to explore NW Montana. Our day began with a visit to the National Bison Range near Moiese, MT near the intersection of US 93 & MT 200. As you can imagine, wildlife everywhere. Bison, pronghorn sheep, deer, and lots of birds that we saw and elk, moose & bear that we didn't see. The location is a beautiful valley with a pretty big mountain in the center, nice vistas of the valley. We spent a couple of hours driving the main loop...pretty way to start a day. You can see a long way from the top of the mountain.

We stopped at the Visitors Center (not open yet when we arrived) and then headed NW on MT 200, which follows the Clark Fork River on its way to meeting up eventually with the Columbia in Washington on its way to the Pacific. It joins the Thompson River near Thompson Falls and continues NW into Idaho. We stopped in Trout Creek (Huckleberry Capital of Montana) for lunch, where they were preparing for a professional bass fishing tournament, lots of expensive Bass boats in town. After lunch, surrounded by lots of dead animals on the walls, we continued on to MT 56 with a stop at the Noxon Rapids Dam, a hydroelectric dam that controls the river plus creates a lot of electricity, and creates smooth waters for bass boats.

Upon arrival at US 2, we turned back east, first stop is the Kootenai Falls, which required about a 2 mile hike through the woods, over the railroad tracks, and along the Kootenai River, which also flows into Idaho & British Columbia where it joins the Columbia. We were on our way east, passing through Libby for a visit of the Libby Dam, another huge hydroelectric facility and a reservoir that goes all the way to British Columbia...beautiful spot. These dams are an important part of keeping the rivers from flooding when the snow melts in the mountains, etc.

We then went back through Libby and followed US 2 back to Kaliispell and back to Finley Point & our camper. US 2 is a very scenic ride, lots of rivers to cross, hills to climb, a lot of mountains, and a gazillion trees. We got back about 930, a 13 hour ride, but we saw a lot of interesting things along the way...fun day. We enjoyed beautiful weather to go with beautiful scenery. We almost made to both Idaho & BC, Can.