Gates of the Mountain

Thursday, September 15

Today we left Dillon, Montana and drove 2 hours to Helena National Forest Montana where we took The Gates of the Mountains boat trip on the Missouri River.  It was spectacular.  Our captain was very knowledgeable, enthusiastic and informative. The trip took us through the same passage that Meriwether Lewis took in 1805.  As he passed through these lime stone cliffs he wrote in his journals that he had seen mountains like no others and called this place ‘The gates of the mountains’.

lime stone cliffs

Meriwether Canyon ~ yes, named after Lewis

Mann Gulch Canyon ~ site of the disastrous fire of 1949
where 13 firefighters (12 smoke jumpers) lost their lives

Native American pictographs etched into the rock wall dating back thousands of years

 As we traveled back down the river we saw the same sight that Lewis had seen.  The river passage through the mountains gave the illusion of opening and closing.  Very cool. 

door closed

door open

The boat we traveled on, the Canyon Voyager was new this season.  When the company that built the boat delivered it to Helena it was transported on a tractor trailer through the Lolo pass, the same pass that Lewis and Clark took 206 years earlier.

It was really a very interesting tour and the unbelievable part was ~ it only cost $12.

 

Then we started the four hour trip to Glacier National Park.   

The wide open Montana skies were wonderful and the mountains ever present.  We could easily spot storms brewing across the skies in the distance.  They don’t call it ‘Big Sky Montana’ for nothin’.

There is never a problem passing a car because you can see for 50 miles and the speed limits are very generous.

To our delight, we saw wild horses right along the road in Montana!  They were beautiful.

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We have seen several areas where land is set aside for wild horses.

             Love those wild horses!


















After calling the park reservation service we found that there were no rooms anywhere in Glacier National Park so we had to start searching.  We found a motel in Babb, Montana just eight miles from the St. Mary park entrance. We were happy with that until we arrived.  Then we weren’t so sure.  We thought it was another Alaskan Roadhouse!  We were pleasantly surprised although it certainly doesn’t look like much from the outside.

This was our 10^th day on the road.  We have traveled 3,300 miles, spent $700 on gas and cleaned 10,000 bugs off the wind shield ~ guess it will be more Franco American and granola bars for us.