The only route from Helena to Great Falls was via I-15 northbound for the first 20 miles. Then I turned off on the Recreation Road that wound for 36 miles through Wolf Creek Canyon. Here the river tightened and crashed through narrows, passed steep cliffs and tight turns. This was an anglers, boaters, floaters and kayaker's paradise. And it was a beautiful drive for me.
But then the mountains gave way and the valley widened out into the high plains 30 miles from Great Falls. I was now in the High Plains again, surrounded by wheat and alfalfa fields.
Temperatures rose into the 90s by 1pm and we were miserable. Warnings of 35-mile gusts were also expected.
The town did not impress me. Unlike the other towns I've seen so far, including Billings, Great Falls was more of a silo town with refineries. Even the down town was deserted. I abandoned plans to stay the night at the nearby air force base.
The one worthy landscape was the river, both the breaks and the dams. Even the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center was worthy of a visit but I didn't go in because I had spent enough time at the interpretive center in South Dakota. Nor did I want Sadie to suffer in the heat.
As soon as we got to the Breaks 14 miles NW from town Sadie darted for the water to drink water. She kept lapping up water as if this was her last water on earth. The shore was smelly and full of discarded fishing lures, but white pelicans floating in the river seemed oblivious to the trash.
The dams, built in the 1930s, are quite an architectural miracle, with the power of water behind them. "Abandon area when eight short blasts are heard" said one sign to visitors.
It took the Corps of Discovery almost a month to portage this section of the cascading river, averaging a mile a day in July 1805. I can just imagine both Lewis and Clark screaming "Holy Shit!" at the first cataract, "Fuck!" at the second and "@#$#@$#" at the third. Yet they persisted. They had Jefferson's orders to follow, to find a Passage to the Pacific Northwest, anyway.
Had it been 20 degrees warmer I would have enjoyed hiking the 4-mile North Shore Trail from one dam to another, but in the heat and over the dry plateau it would have been miserable for Sadie, who was barely walking as it was. That's when I knew I had to get out of these windy high plains. I could only imagine how this area would be in the deep of winter, as the north winds blow over the plains. From Great Falls down to Pierre the river flows down a plain. I've seen the best parts of the river.
I didn't stay long in town. If it hadn't been for the falls I would say the long drive would have been a waste of gasoline, but once back in the foothills east of Lincoln on MT200 I was happy again. I could see the distant outline of Glacier National Park. I was now back to rolling hills, dark-brown barns, dairy farms and fertile buttes. These mountains were the edge of the roaming buffalo two centuries ago.
We stopped at every historical marker, stopped at a few river access points to walk around. The Bitterroot River came out of the mountains as I approached Missoula at dusk, as flyfishers were still thigh-deep in the cascading waters.
I made it to Missoula after 8pm, with just enough light to walk the River Trail out and back, enjoy the end of a Native American flute festival in the city center.
And then I did the unpredictable: I decided, after a quick google search, to head west on US12 toward Idaho and camp out at the Lee Creek Campground. And that's exactly what I did, driving at night for the first time on my roadtrip (only because I'd be driving the route back the next day in daylight). This was the Nez Perce Trail through the Lolo Pass, which even at near full darkness offered a spectacular aura of pine-studded mountains, curvy roads and warnings of moose crossing, but alas the moose remained unseen.
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