Day 8 - Striking Differences

One thing we have noticed on this trip are the striking differences between the different locales in

western Montana. For example, while Phillipsburg is a touristy type of town, we never felt like we were in big crowds, or congested areas. Even when we traveled down to the Ruby Reservoir and Virginia City area. There were other people, other campers, but no huge crowds traveling through this sagebrush valley. 

And the road to Chief Joseph Pass had very few other travelers. We were glad there were few other vehicles on the road as we drove north from the

pass, through seven miles of curvy downhill roads with steep rocky dropoffs. The southern portion of the Bitteroot Valley, also, continued the trend of sparce populations. The shallow Bitteroot river meandered through the valley giving us glimpses of fly fishermen 

The change occured as we approached Missoula. There were more cars, more people, more stores, and more stoplights. Of course that should be expected as one of the main cities in Montana, along with the college crowd.  However, north of Missoula, traffic got a bit crazy.

Heading up Hwy 200 along the Blackfoot River, there were tons of cars going both ways! Of course it was a hot sunny summer Sunday and people were getting their rafts, tubes, and floats out on the river. We continued heading north on Hwy 83 which wound through some fields and farms until we neared Seely Lake. Then, oh man, it got to be crazy! Cars, boats, campers, ATVs, people, people, and more people. The town of Seely Lake reminded us of Long Beach on a busy summer weekend day!

We ended up camping at a campground on Seely Lake, which is a pretty good sized lake surrounded by

thicker larch and  pine forests. Whew! Boats and jetskis flying everywhere. Paddle boards, kayaks, and canoes took their chances with the wakes. And noisy people! Sheesh, we were wishing for our high mountain meadow. Of course, in addition to this being a busy lake, this road is also one of the main routes to Glacier National Park. However, the noisy campers are what we call "city campers".  Those are city dwellers who venture out into the woods, but want to take all of the city trappings with them. One group even had a karoke machine, but nothing resembling music was coming out of them! 

North of Seely Lake the road wasn't quite as busy for a while. However, when we got to the junction

near Flathead Lake, Kalispell, and Columbia Falls the traffic picked up again. This is near the entrance to Glacier National Park. We had contemplated going in there, but due to the Coronavirus they only have the western half of the park open. Information out of the park said that there were long lines waiting to get into parking lots and campgrounds, but "be sure to keep your social distance". That didn't really make sense to us... close half of the park which forces people into half the area, but then tell them to social distance. 

We drove out to Hungry Horse Reservoir to check out their campgrounds. A narrow road winds its way around the lake usually 100 feet above the water. The two campgrounds we stopped at were small, with only about ten sites each. Of course they were full, which we realized is why there had been tents and trailers parked at every wide spot along the way. It was too crowded for us so we drove on.

Just a bit northwest of Hungry Horse is the town of Whitefish. It was a large busy city that had many interesting looking shops and eateries. For being a busy town the main road was a narrow two way street. A few truck mirrors nearly clipped ours as they passed by. It seems the town got bigger before they realized that they needed wider main roads

Very shortly after leaving Whitefish, the cars thinned out, housing developments turned into small farms, and then we were driving through thick conifer forests. Highway 93 at that point runs north/south just west of the Whitefish Mountain range. It leads to a border crossing with Canada which is probably why we saw so many semi trucks.

The last change for the day came about 40 miles north of Whitefish. We drove through a thick forest and spotted a teal blue lake on our left. It was fairly large, pretty calm, and with only one boat that we could see. It turned out that there was also a campground at the north end. It was fairly large and had quite a few spacious campsites which

were available. We pulled into a likely site, happy to be in a quiet locale. Even the swimming beach here wasn't packed. The water was clear and cool, but definitely refreshing on a 80+ degree day.

Yes, there were many striking changes we had experienced the past two days. There were high mountain meadows with 34 degree evening temperatures to lakeside forests with 80 degree evening temperatures. We drove through steep mountain passes, along winding shallow rivers, through busy large cities, past fields of hay,  below sagebrush hillsides, and ended up in a pine forest by a clear blue lake. In some places we were the only people for miles while in other places there were crowds. It is interesting to note how change can occur gradually or in the blink of an eye around the next bend.