The Rainsbow Road: Missoula and Environs

Two years ago we stopped in Missoula for a few days before heading up to Glacier National Park. We realized at that time that there was more to see in Missoula than we planned for so this year we decided to head back. What we didn’t realize is that July is Montana’s hottest month with temperatures rising into the 90’s. We even had a few days around a 100 degrees, so we just didn’t go to everywhere we planned because of the heat.

Whenever possible we tried to go to higher elevation but even though there are high mountains there aren’t roads heading there. We did want to finish up this segment of the Lewis and Clark trail so one day we drove over US Hwy 12 to Lolo Pass where the explorers crossed the continental divide at 5225 ft. elevation. It was pleasantly cooler up there.

Visitors Center at Lolo Pass

Schnoodle bait at Lolo Pass

Pleasantly cooler

The Clark Fork River

Preferred transportation

Another day trip we took was along the Clark Fork River. We bought some yummy cherries in St. Regis before heading on to Thompson Falls. The falls are now under water and we couldn’t find what we were looking for there but we did stop for some pictures of the river at the local state park. It was a lovely drive.

The cherry stand

Every year when we are in the west we have to get our bison fix. This year we may have overdone it as you may see in the pictures of this and future blogs. We drove to the National Bison Range (NBR) which is a little less than an hour’s drive northwest of Missoula. The NBR was established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 after the number of remaining bison in the wild had dropped to around 100 in the late 1800s.

The national bison herd at the National Bison Range

Today, the National Bison Range is a diverse ecosystem of grasslands, Douglas fir and Ponderosa Pine forests, riparian areas and ponds. The Range is one of the last intact publicly-owned inter-mountain native grasslands in the U.S. In addition to herds of bison, it supports populations of Rocky Mountain elk, mule deer, white-tailed deer, pronghorn, and bighorn sheep as well as coyotes, mountain lions, bears, bobcat and over 200 species of birds.

(National Fish & Wildlife Service website)

A closer view

A couple of deer

With our biology backgrounds, we just couldn’t resist a chance to see all this amazing wildlife. Well, there were a few hundred bison, because the federal government has put them there and fenced them in. We also saw a couple of white tail deer. But the alleged pronghorns, bighorn sheep, mountain lions, bears, coyotes and the Rocky Mountain Elk all failed to materialize. In Yellowstone that's not too surprising, but the Bison Range ain't that big a place. Maybe all those critters pass through occasionally, but "supports populations" of all of them? I frankly doubt it.

Taking a rest

Speaking of Elk, Missoula also turns out to be the home of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. This is a national wildlife conservation society of the traditional variety. Meaning they go to great lengths to protect and conserve Rocky Mountain Elk specifically and primarily so that they can go out and shoot them. Their foundation center has some nice displays and information on promoting healthy elk populations but there are also a couple dozen elk heads mounted on the walls and a loop video of hunting TV programs that plays constantly.

Elk conservation, Montana style

One unexpected pleasure was that Michelle, formerly a colleague of Vicki's from her hospice organization, was moving to Seeley Lake, near Missoula, at the end of June. We spent part of the 4th of July at the Seeley Lake parade with them and also visited Garnet Ghost Town with them. As usually works with selling and buying property, things got delayed so we didn’t get to actually see their new “cabin”. Hopefully next year on our way through we will be able to see it.

Seeley Lake

Seeley Lake is a lovely little town of about 500 during the off season with its very own alpine lake. The population swells to 2 or 3 times that number during the summer. We met some people there who live in Bozeman but own property in Seeley Lake. They move a 5th wheel up there during the summer, invite friends with RVs to park on their parcel and enjoy their weekends & occasional full weeks there. We don't know about hookups. The lake has a swim beach & the day we visited was hot enough to be tempting but dogs are not allowed on the beaches of National Forest lakes and it was too hot to leave them in the car, so we walked around a bit then moved on. The July 4th parade was a hoot. We've seen a few small town parades before and what they lack in ostentation they make up for in enthusiasm. Every department in the city had some kind of vehicle in the proceedings, a few groups of equestrians and motorcyclists rode by and various civic organizations had trucks that threw candy to the kids and hosed down the onlookers to prevent heat stroke. A surprising number of classic cars took part as well. Not sure if they were locals or were snuck in from out of town.


4th of July parade in Seeley Lake. Crack equestrian unit, local fire and police department representatives and antihyperthermia brigade

Garnet Ghost Town sits on BLM land and is supported and managed by the Garnet Preservation Association. The town was mostly settled in the 1890s by miners who were looking for gold in the local quartz. It was there, but not too concentrated and when the price of gold dropped at the start of the 20th century, it became uneconomical to mine it any more. Fire in 1912 destroyed most of the businesses and the town largely petered out It would probably have crumbled to dust by now, but the price of gold jumped up again in 1934 and the town had a brief revival. The town was finally abandoned for good in the 1940s but the high, dry climate has left much of it intact. It provides enough interest to fill a pleasant afternoon wandering through the ramshackle businesses and homes and seeing how the miners lived.