As we wrapped up Yellowstone and left the crowds of the park behind it was time for find a quieter spot for a couple days. Our remaining travels traversing southwest Montana would very much be dominated by river drainages. To start out this trend it was down the Yellowstone and up Boulder Creek where we settled in for an evening of afternoon thundershowers (the first in a series of afternoon storms).
This video is a summary of our travels detailed in this post as well as the previous two posts (The Beartooth Highway and Yellowstone, North)
Boulder Creek was absolutely beautiful, and looked like a great trout stream. The only hang up was so much of it was private property it was hard to find a spot to fish. The morning following the thunderstorm, the creek was blown out and muddy, but we headed further up the drainage and found another camp and a few fish as the water cleared.
The next morning we moved on to another fork of Boulder Creek. Along the way we stopped at Natural Bridge Falls, where Boulder Creek disappears underground for a stretch.
After Boulder Creek we moved west a couple of drainages to the Gallatin River. If I had to describe the Gallatin in one word, I’d use ‘crowded’. We kept driving upriver, hoping to find a stretch of river to fish, but every turn out and river access point was chock full of cars. We were starting to notice the river getting shallow and small before we decided we had to turn around, head downstream and keep looking if we were going to do any fishing. We found spot with just one other car and nobody in sight on the river, so we took it.
Fishing fix in ,we continued upstream, and found a quiet spot in the headwaters to spend the night. Another round of afternoon thundershowers rolled in, but some magical line in the sky seemed to keep pushing the clouds just north of camp, so we could enjoy the show and still stay dry.
The next day we dropped in to the next drainage west, the Madison. If you think of Montana and fishing, the Madison might be the first thing that comes to mind. What we found was scores of trucks and boat trailers at every river access, full campgrounds, and mountain views blocked by ever thickening smoke (thus, no pictures). After spending most of the day looking for a place we could camp and fish, we finally gave up on the Madison and moved on without wetting a line. We sat back at Ruby Reservoir and watched the evening showers roll by while the sun set through the thickening late July smoke.
We continued making our way west the next day with a trip across the Big Hole drainage. We mainly followed backroads, picking back up on a segment of the Montana Backcountry Discovery Route that we had also been following on our northwest Montana trip. In contrast to the Gallatin and Madison, this segment of the Big Hole was pretty quiet. We found a few unexpected spots to stop and fish along the way. I guess sometimes it is easier to find what you are looking for when you stop trying and just find a back road to follow.
We spent the next couple days following the Pioneer Mountains Scenic Byway. After concluding our previous northwest Montana trip, the main reason we got back out to southwest Montana so quickly was that fire season was getting more active and there was no telling when the air would become unbreathable or some area we wanted to visit would be closed by a fire. Well, I’m glad we saw the Pioneer Scenic Byway when we did, because as of today it is closed due to two large fires. The Bobcat fire burned right up to the edge of where we spent the night along the byway and the Sand Creek fire has burned across the byway closing it for the forseeable future.
As we finished up the Pioneer Mountains Scenic Byway we took a short side trip to Bannack State Park.
Founded in 1862, and serving for a short time as Montana’s territorial capital in 1864, Bannack once boasted a population of 10,000. Now a ghost town managed by Montana State Parks, a stroll down main street features several well preserved buildings and mining implements.
Leaving the ghosts behind, we continued our trek west. We decided we’d end our July in Montana the same we started it, with a few days at a high mountain lake. Up into the Beaverhead Mountains we went, and at the end of the bumpy road was our final stop of the trip.
We were finally able to break out the inflatable packraft and went for several paddles. The sizeable cutthroats we found in these Twin Lakes were a nice size and kept us entertained as we soaked in the views of the surrounding mountains. It seemed the smoke that had been thickening the past several days even cleared up a bit.
And with that our road trips across western Montana for the month of July came to a close. Time to take a break from Montana, but who knows, we might just make it across to see the far east side before the end of the year.
We got an early start for our trip home. As we bumped along the road leaving the lake, something large, dark and mysterious bounced ahead, just within sight, but not allowing for a good picture. No, it wasn’t a bigfoot, or even an angus cow. A huge bull moose trundled along until he found a break in the thicket of lodgepole and disappeared into the woods.
A pretty fitting farewell to a unforgettable month in Montana.
