Montana and Yellowstone (A tour of the West)

Montana

My father first hitchhiked out to Big Timber from Virginia when he was 16-years old to work on a ranch owned by extended family, but eventually he wound up in Jordan, Montana on his later trips for hunting. He would stay a month at a time, so I was never able to go. I enjoyed the stories of the people he met -- the ranchers and assorted small-town colorful characters, as well as descriptions of the landscape itself. I've lived with these stories a good long time, and I suppose as one gets older and you start to think of your parents as actual people, you get to wondering what it is that makes them tick. So I wanted to see my father's Montana, and this is where we depart from any travel route you're likely to take.

Jordan is the seat of Garfield County, described as the most remote county seat in the lower 48 states. It will probably not be on your Western itinerary. Just north is the Fort Peck Reservoir, so if you're a fisherman or a hunter, then you might find yourself in the neighborhood. Otherwise, it's only renown is for the Freemen uprising in 1996 and for its rich dinosaur fossil fields in the Hell Creek Formation nearby. From Miles City, you drive northwest about 84 miles through undulating low hills and pasture land, dotted by sagebrush, dressed momentarily in spring green for us. To my father, it was always brown and sere in September, empty and practically treeless, a straight road to a place only a few can love. I thought it was peaceful and beautiful in its spareness. Farms and a couple of tiny crossroad communities lie in between. I might have seen my first antelope along this road, just one or two wanderers, picking through the sage. They are very graceful, gentle looking creatures, golden brown with big patches of white on their rumps and stubby little tails. They would not look out of place on an African savanna.

Pulling into town, it looks dusty and quiet. At the crossroads is the Garfield Motel where we stayed. The desk is empty, but if you pick up the phone, someone will answer and scoot on over to check you in. I'm not sure if anyone else was staying there. The good news is, you can walk to just about anywhere you want to go in Jordan, as all the businesses are clustered around very handily. There's a museum where you can view area fossil finds (closed by the time we arrived), pharmacy, coffee shop, grocery, garage -- all your basics. Of the several bars, we went to Hell Creek Bar, where my father would stop in on his trips. This was Memorial Day, so probably not the most hopping time to be in town. There were only a few patrons and one long table that looked like a family having dinner. I ordered Wild Turkey (unusual for me, but good) and we had bar food for dinner. Don't come to Jordan for the cuisine. 

But the point is, I was finally there, perhaps sitting on the same bar stool where my father sat, and I would have called him had I had any cell service. We asked after a friend of my father's who owns a ranch nearby, but he wasn't in that night and we didn't know how to get in touch with him. So there we were in Jordan, Montana for no earthly reason other than it's the place my father liked to go. I wonder what the locals thought of us greenhorns showing up for an overnight stay and then disappearing without a trace. No one asked us any questions, but they were perfectly friendly. I expect that they do not tend to pry. I even wandered around the streets as dusk came down, swung on the swing set at the elementary school, smelled the fragrant shrubs blooming (lilacs?) here and there, snapped a picture of their war memorial where I expect they had some sort of remembrance earlier in the day. A good number of WWI names as well as WWII and other conflicts. I'm sure a few people saw us meandering. I hope they made up some good stories about us.

Little Big Horn

Little Bighorn Battlefield looking uphill where Custer made his last stand.

Not wanting to retrace the same ground on our circuitous southern path to the Little Bighorn Battlefield, we headed due west out of Jordan along Route 200, and traveled about 100 miles through sagey grassland, buttes, and coulees populated by mostly cows and browsing antelope. Cross the Musselshell River and eventually in the distance are the Judith Mountains to the north and the Snowy Mountains to the south. You hang a left at Grass Range and go another 90-odd miles on 87 to Billings. By this time, we are listening to Francis Parkman's decidedly dated but still engaging memoir, The Oregon Trail, a misnomer, as he didn't actually go all the way to Oregon, but went part ways, following his own interests (among them was living for awhile with a Sioux tribe, who apparently found him interesting or amusing enough to keep around).

All the Indians this Bostonian meets in 1846 are "savages" and the immigrants, trappers, hunters, Mormons and soldiers rarely fare much better in his opinion, but it is an interesting window on the prevailing attitudes of the time. His descriptions of life on the trail are meticulously detailed, full of adventure, and appropriately florid. Herman Melville reviewed it and liked it well enough but thought Parkman was too contemptuous of the Indians. "When we affect to contemn savages, we should remember that by so doing we asperse our own progenitors; for they were savages also." Melville needn't have gone so far back to find savages among the whites, but at least he's on the right track.

Well, now we're back on what might be any normal person's itinerary of the West. Traveling partly along I-90 southeast another 60 miles, we came to Little Bighorn in the Crow Agency. History buffs, we couldn't pass up a chance to view the storied battlefield. We didn't take any of the guided tours, but they do offer them and at least one is led by Crow Indians for the Native American perspective. There is also a  memorial dedicated in 2003 to the Native American tribes who took part in the battle -- Cheyenne, Lakota, and Arapahoe -- just down the hill from the monument to the fallen 7th Cavalry.

It's a lovely wheel-like monument with openings meant to represent gates to the spirit world where both soldiers and Indians meet again in the infinite. A bronze silhouette of Indians on horseback is traced against the sky and prairie.

We walked along the trail that ran down the hill where Custer made his stand to the deep ravine where many of his men were trapped and cut down easily by the Indians, who had the high ground on the edges of the coulee. It presents a stark realization of just how desperate the fighting must have been, and how completely wrongheaded it was to pitch a battle that set about 260 U.S. troops against the thousands encamped around the Little Bighorn in the valley.

White marble markers of the dead are erected where soldiers fell (marked by the Army when the bulk of it arrived a few days later). Newer markers of red granite have joined them as Native American historians have documented their own dead from the scarce records. Driving the length of the battlefield, the scattered remnants are lit by the sun in the waving grass. It's sad and eerie and oddly jarring as all preserved battlefields are -- all that terror and violence distilled down into a tranquil landscape that looks as peaceful as a dream, as if we were trying to blot out the pain of what once happened there.

Our third and final book for the journey was Larry McMurtry's short life of Custer. McMurtry is very good at fleshing out Custer and his wife and the rather long list of people who despised him. Custer was pretty easy to dislike, if for no other reason than his total disregard for getting his own men killed. I think he was a sociopath. One might argue that he put his own life in danger as well... except when he didn't. He was court-martialed for deserting his command in 1867. (I have saved Nathaniel Philbrick's The Last Stand for future reading and additional perspective.)

Wapiti

Indian Paintbrush

The end of our long day on the road was Wapiti, Wyoming, about 20 miles west of Cody, along the North Fork Highway. This is a lovely scenic drive along the Shoshone River with red, rocky cliffs and the snow-peaked Absaroka Mountain Range in the distance, forming the eastern boundary of Yellowstone. We stayed overnight at a pristine little inn with a place to do laundry and only about a half-hour from the park entrance. The hillside behind the hotel was dotted with sage and wildflowers. Just about dusk, as I was poking around out back and looking at the hills, a lone mule deer came down the slope, looked right at me (from a convenient distance) and ambled on out of sight. When I went out after dark to look at the stars, I spooked a huge owl (Great Horned?) sitting atop a telephone pole. One of my favorite things is watching wildlife, and there's no better place to do it than out here where you never know what you're going run into (hence, bear spray).

Yellowstone

Absaroka Mountains near Sylvan Pass in YNP

Our first national park is a wonder. So vast, so beautiful at every turn, and full of life. All those responsible for setting it aside deserve our eternal gratitude. I think the crowds of summer would make it kind of challenging to fully enjoy, but we were there early enough to avoid all the madness. While we're not heavy-duty back-country hikers where one might expect to be alone most of the time, even our shorter hikes on accessible trails were quiet and empty. I think we passed one couple as we turned around to hike back down the South Rim of Yellowstone's Grand Canyon and no one at all on a trail by Undine Falls, the next day. There was snow in the higher elevations and in the shady shallows of some trails, but the weather was perfect -- 70s and sunny.

Snowy bit of trail on the South Rim of the canyon.

For someone like me who is endlessly fascinated by roadside weeds, all the flora and fauna of Yellowstone could keep me in thrall for far longer than the two days we were there. But light crowds meant we could get around the park pretty easily, so we tried to make it around the entire loop (142 miles!), which is roughly a figure eight. The first day we came in the east entrance, over the Sylvan Pass and skirted the shore of Yellowstone Lake, still partially iced over. We drove up to Canyon Village where we stopped at Artist's Point and hiked part of the South Rim of the Canyon. We headed to Madison and made camp at our small tent site, and then in the evening we traveled down by the geysers to Old Faithful where we were planning to see the iconic eruption and have dinner at the Inn. This was one of the few times we had a sprinkle of rain. We were a bit underwhelmed by OF, but you know, if you're there, you gotta see it.

Cleopatra's Steps at Mammoth

On our second full day in the park, we drove up to Mammoth Hot Springs where you can walk a boardwalked path through the steamy, sulfurous, pools and springs. 

Fossilized bacteria in the hot springs beds

After lunch at Mammoth Village, we drove the northeast part of the loop toward Tower Falls, across the beautiful Lamar Valley. Lots of buffalo herds and elk in the distance, but a few fellows very close to the road. We stopped to hike along Lava Creek to Undine Falls -- another empty trail -- and I saw a marmot! No bear sightings, which is probably for the best.

I kept hoping to see one through binoculars though. The Yellowstone River winds through the area and drops down to Tower Falls. We came back down toward Canyon over the Dunraven Pass (8859 elevation), where the sheer drops at the side of the road made me rather nervous. A few sections have guard rails, but not all. I was too scared to take pictures!

After a full day of driving the scenic loop, we went back to our campground for brats roasted over the fire and cold beer. My husband built a huge fire to warm us until bedtime -- the temperature was dropping steadily on a clear, starry night. It would get down to 32F, but we stayed pretty toasty in the tent. The next morning was getaway-day, but our trip was far from over.

Going home

Grand Tetons

The return itinerary took us out through the South Entrance, into the Grand Tetons National Park, and then we were going to take one more dogleg west to Salt Lake City for an overnight stay, just for kicks. It's amazing what seems "in the neighborhood" once you've adjusted to the Western scale of things.

Utah

The drive through northeastern Utah was pretty spectacular. We stayed in Denver for two nights and took in a history museum and had a great meal at Osteria Marco. Then the long ride through Kansas back to KC for a night, before the final leg home. 

We will probably never make such an epic car trip again, but we felt extraordinarily lucky to make it through this one with few mishaps along the way.

A tour of the West: Louisville to Wyoming

In late May my husband and I embarked on an 11-day, 4500-mile road-trip from Louisville, KY to points West. The main goal was Yellowstone National Park, but it was also an opportunity to see and experience some of the iconic places of the West that I've only read about. I hesitated over all that time in a vehicle. I'm not really that great on car trips, and this would be the granddaddy of them all. But, when I found myself at liberty (um, unemployed), we decided to just do it. Armed with car snacks and audio books, we took to the road. Our first day, we drove to Kansas City where you can get great, spicy barbecue at Gates & Sons (and delicious gelato downtown). It's also the historic jumping-off place for the Oregon Trail and the Santa Fe Trail. And, roughly, one follows at least some of the Lewis and Clark route.

 I've been as far as KC before, but I never went north, so all of the Mountain West was going to be new territory for us. We shot up I-29, stopping for lunch and a local beer in Sioux City, IA on a sleepy Saturday afternoon, and then pushed on to Sioux Falls, SD, a cool little city where we spent our second night. The falls are on the Big Sioux River, which runs through downtown, and they are surrounded by a neat green park with a new observation deck that you can climb for views in all directions, including the city's skyline. As on pretty much the rest of the trip, we were blessed with clear blue skies. We spent a late afternoon there taking pictures and hanging out by the rocks before dinner.

If you ever find yourself in Sioux Falls, go to Phillips Avenue where many restaurants, small shops, and bars can be found, and you can take in the sculpture walk. I didn't get a good picture of it, but there was an awesome dinosaur sculpture made out of what looked like old tractor parts and other random bits of machinery. It looked pretty fierce. We had juicy steaks at Minerva's, the flagship restaurant of a regional chain of nine or so steakhouses. It's fairly upscale with an excellent playlist of jazz and indie artists. Yeah, we were really roughing it so far!

Badlands

The next day was a big one, and we needed the extra hour we were going to pick up crossing time zones. From Sioux Falls, we headed west again across southern South Dakota, where our first stop was going to be Badlands National Park. We took the Loop Road through, stopping at pull-outs but not doing any hiking. It was a pleasant day in the upper 70s, maybe even 80s, and it doesn't take long to figure out that if you got yourself stuck out there in the heat of summer, you would pretty much dessicate on the spot and blow away in a puff of white dust. It is bleak and weird and awe-inspiring scenery, the result of sediments deposited by an ancient sea, and eroded into buttes, pinnacles, and every contorted shape of rock you can imagine. It's a huge fossil bed surrounded by grass prairie, a place where saber-tooth tigers once roamed.

While I can be amazingly oblivious to things around me most of the time, in wild places I tend to ratchet up my attention several degrees, looking for wildlife large and small. There are warning signs about rattlesnakes (don't stick a hand or foot where you can't see what's there), and Badlands seem made for them -- lots of blazing hot surfaces with handy cracks and crevices to hide in. I did not spy any, thankfully. But for once, I had my binoculars so that I could spot the Bighorn Sheep ambling around the canyon rocks, too far away to see with the naked eye. My husband went back to the car for the zoom lens and managed to get some pretty decent pictures, considering how far they were. There were three or four (none with the huge, curved ram horns), including a little one. It's heartening to see these animals in a place where they are unlikely to be disturbed.

The other residents are the prairie dogs, which we passed on the way out. First, you spot their dirt mounds, then all the pert little figures, paws folded down in front, alert and watching your progress, probably thinking, good riddance! as they yap to each other and zip across the grass to the next dog's doorstep. We could easily have spent more time there, but we aimed to reach Deadwood before dark, so rejoined I-90 at Wall. Wall Drugstore -- you probably know about the billboards lining the road for miles, even if you've never been there. You might as well stop in if you're already there, but it's kind of crowded and touristy otherwise. Still, they have good ice cream, which is the only reason you need. I pretty much craved ice cream for this entire trip. Must be the dry air.

Black Hills

I should mention at this point that my husband picked out the books for this trip. He's not a professional librarian for nothing. First, was an excellent book in the Penguin Series of American Indian History, The Lakotas and the Black Hills: The Struggle for Sacred Ground. As we were headed for the Black Hills, it was especially relevant, and it certainly gives you a different perspective on visiting Mt. Rushmore, which we did on the way to Deadwood. From the distance, just outside of Rapid City, you can see the hills rising, blanketed by spruce and pine, looking as mysterious as you would expect even with the signs of modern suburbia in the foreground. There's a little tourist trap called Keystone that you pass through, got up tackily like little Gatlingburg, that sort of hurts your heart as you get closer to Rushmore.

It started a fine drizzle as we parked the car and mounted the steps to the platform space where you can view the mountain. It's impressive, but if you're fairly ambivalent about the whole thing, it only takes about half an hour to have a look, take a few pictures and skedaddle on out of there. You actually get a view of it on the road up, so you know, you could just opt not to pay the fee and keep on going. We actually had to backtrack to get on the road to Deadwood, which is a scenic route through the National Forest, skirting Sheridan Lake and the Pactola Reservoir. The drizzle sent a swirling mist through the trees and gaps that was appropriately ghostly, but it brightened up as we got closer to town and our little, no-frills hotel for the night.

Once we checked in and freshened up, we headed to town proper and the main street of kitschy bars and restaurants that have grown up around the fabled gulch. We were big fans of the HBO series, so who could resist having a drink in Deadwood? I had a sissy gin on the rocks in some dark bar I don't remember the name of. It was the least cutesy-looking. Cue the Swearingen jokes and rude quotes. Most of the bars have big, shiny slot machines and do not look like anywhere Wild Bill would be caught dead in (the site of the No. 10 Saloon where Bill met his doom is noted but no longer a saloon). The Bullock Hotel was on the list for dinner but we ended up in a little upstairs joint I found on Yelp called the Deadwood Social Club. It was pretty darn good. My husband had a bison steak, well-prepared and juicy, and I had some pasta with wild pheasant and mushrooms. Deadwood is also Mecca for Harley enthusiasts -- they have a huge bike rally every summer in nearby Sturgis; you will want to avoid that time unless you're into that sort of thing. In any case you would want to make your lodging/camping reservation many months in advance. That was it for Deadwood -- a drink and dinner, and a place to sleep.

Devil's Tower

We found some coffee for the road the next morning and headed west into Wyoming. Devil's Tower is all by itself, not too far from Sundance, but you pretty much have to mean to go there. It's very pretty country with rolling hills studded by buttes, pines and shrubs, and grazing cattle. Devil's Tower is stark and surprising in the landscape -- there is literally nothing else that looks like it anywhere around; it's eerie. No wonder that the Indians revere it as a sacred space. I think there are several stories about how it came to be, but my favorite one is this: seven sisters were being chased in play by their brother who magically turned into a fierocious black bear. They scrambled on top of a tree stump and were saved when it ascended toward the sky, the bear's claws scoring the sides as it rose. The sisters were set in the heavens as stars. There are signs at Devil's Tower reminding visitors not to disturb the prayer flags and bundles left around the tower's base.

We wound up to the base where you can park and get out to explore. If you are an adventurer, you can register to climb it, and we saw a handful of daredevils who were doing it. We were happy to walk the trail around it, very easy and bordered by trees for shade and little meadows of wildflowers. There are also overlooks into the green valley below, a curve of river, and cows, more cows!

Gargantuan tumbled columns of rock have fallen around the base, accounting for the vertical striations in the face of the tower. It is a type of igneous rock called phonolitic porphyry, according to the geologists. Apparently hot magma seeping between gaps in softer rocks cooled underground and then everything eroded around it. I need to bone up on geology -- the West is a geologist's (and archaeologist's) dream! Everywhere you look, there's some strange feature of rock, a riot of colors, rivers still carving up everything, and avalanches of stone in the making. Devil's Tower was more interesting than I expected it to be and worth going out of the way for if you're traveling in the area. It was not terribly crowded when we were there, even though it was Memorial Day. We had a little lunch on the way out at an overpriced grill, so you'd do better to pack a sandwich or go a little further out for food. Now, to head north again.


(To Be Continued)