Thursday, July 4, 2024
Happy 4th of July
After Monday's marathon drive through the Park, we knew we would be tired on Wednesday, so we allowed ourselves some rest. We did go into Kalispell for breakfast and the laundromat. We found a really nice family restaurant for breakfast and asked for information about a laundromat. The one they sent us to was terrible -- half of the machines were broken and the row the dryers were on was so narrow, you could only go through there one at a time. But we got it done, went back to the camper, and that was it for the day. There was a wreck on the highway outside the campground about 11 o’clock. We didn't go out, but could see the reflection of the lights from the police vehicles, ambulance and wreckers in our windshield. We never heard any details about it, but this morning we could see the ruts along the side of the road. We actually heard the crash but didn't realize what it was. We thought it was just fireworks -- in fact, Joe said it sounded like a cannon.
So this morning, after a lazy morning of phone calls and trying to get reservations for the future, we finally decided to take a drive down to Hungry Horse Dam. We didn’t get started till about 1 o’clock and there’s a rodeo in town tonight that we might try to take in if we get back in time but the reservoir is 34 miles long so it may take several hours.
On our drive to the dam, we passed two runners carrying torches (we couldn't tell if they were lit or not), then we saw their "Peace Run" bus parked at a pull-off.
We stopped at the dam and went in the visitor center and got a couple of maps. The entire loop drive is 112 miles, since the road follows the shoreline, up and down most fingers of the lake. We went down the west side and looped back on the east side, I guess. It never felt like we were going the direction the GPS said we were. 14 miles of pavement, the rest was gravel. We did see a big Eagles nest in the top of a dead tree at the beginning of the drive, but no eagle there. The second photo is the river coming out of the dam.
There’s numerous campgrounds and boat launches along this lake. We drove back into Lost Johnny Campground. It was pretty full. I only saw a couple of empty spaces. I don’t believe there’s any hook- ups here. There is a boat ramp in this campground, and several boat trailers were parked, and we could see a couple boats out on the lake. There’s every kind of camper in here. A few motorhomes, some tents, even a little pop-up on the back of a pick up. We still have snowy mountains in the distance. They’re not really snowcapped anymore, there’s just snow in the valleys.
This drives circles the lake. We went down the west side and came back up the other side (east). The first side was not the scenic drive, and we only had a few glimpses of the lake below. There are numerous creeks that feed this lake, and they are all beautiful. Since they are coming off the mountains, they are all bubbling over rocks and tree limbs. Not many waterfalls, but they are all rushing to the water.
It is very picturesque, and the water looks very inviting. A lot of people were on the lake today, but it is so huge, with lots of boat ramps for access, that it didn't look busy.
The lady at the visitor center said there had been two fawns down by the dam this morning. We got lucky enough to spot one deer on our drive, along with several prairie dogs/chipmunks and squirrels (one was black). The deer was right at the edge of the road, but still in the brush when Joe saw him. Joe backed up a little bit, and we were able to find him through the brush and look at him again. All the prairie dogs seem to have a need to cross the road. One of them crossed the road right in front of us and we barely missed him. Another one just a little bit later didn’t make it as somebody else ran over him and he was belly up. This road was not busy at all which made it a nice drive. Every few miles we might meet one vehicle but there was usually no one in sight behind us.
We came up on another creek and bridge. This was Graves Creek. It had a waterfall practically under the bridge with water pouring into the lake -- very pretty.
At 3 o’clock, we stopped at a pull-off with a nice view of the lake and had our little picnic. I had bought sandwiches at the gas station and we got our chairs out and enjoyed the view.
As we got to the end of the river on this side, we came up on a little dirt side road that let us to an airstrip so we forded the mud puddle and went over to check it out, because Joe said there’s always animals on the airstrip, but we didn’t see any. We also did not see any airplanes on the air strip.
But when we got back on the road and came to the end of the airstrip, there was a sign "Spotted Bear Landing Field," and there was an airplane parked there. Still no wildlife.
We got to the end of the lake where it flowed in from Flathead River. It’s pretty shallow here. The ranger station was named "spotted bear," but we never saw any of them either. Not sure if it means they spotted a bear, or the bear was spotted. Either way, nothing appeared for us. That half of the drive took about three hours with a 20-minute stop for lunch. It's now 4:15.
This is supposed to be the scenic route so hopefully we’ll see more views of the lake and maybe something else. The drive itself is beautiful. Even when we are not in view of the lake, we are driving through tall trees, with mountains in the distance.
Joe could see some rapids on the river so he found a pull-off where we could get out to take a picture. When we got out of the car, we startled an eagle who had been sitting in a tree. He then flew across the river and resettled in a tree on the far side, but Joe had grabbed his binoculars when he got out of the Jeep, and he quickly found him. The eagle sat there the whole time we were looking, even as we left. When we got out of the jeep, we saw some rafters at these rapids, and we eventually caught up with them and got a picture.
We saw where they put in and come out. The forests on this side are a lot clearer and you could actually see an animal if one chose to appear (which it didn't), but you could imagine animals walking in them and grazing. On the west side, the forests were too thick for animals to walk through, although we did see that one deer.
All these creeks are very pretty as they bounce over rocks. Second picture is same creek, just zoomed in.
This road wasn’t nearly as bad as those the other day, but it did have clusters of potholes which allowed Joe to do his NASCAR driving. We came upon this horseshoe bend in the river. I told Joe to get out and stand up to get a better photo, but he didn't. But the water actually wraps around through the top of the horseshoe, and there were a couple of islands out there.
At one point, we saw a boat pulling a skier on the lake. It did not appear that the skier had on a wetsuit. We thought that would be mighty cold water. I guess we were next to a finger of the main lake and when we came around the end of it, we saw people swimming so that must be a warmer end.
Our loop around Flathead Lake and Hungry Horse Dam took us five hours, about 110 miles. Not much wildlife but we did see a deer, prairie dogs or chipmunks, a black squirrel, and an eagle -- not too bad of a day. As we came through the town of Hungry Horse, people were beginning to line the street so it looks like they’re going to have a parade in a little bit. I guess Summer has arrived today because there’s lots of people in and on the water. We were tired so we didn't stop for the parade. And we came through Columbia Falls about 15 minutes before the rodeo was going to start, but we were too tired for that too. And it looked like parking was a problem. We got back to the RV and stayed in the rest of the evening, although we did walk outside when they started setting off fireworks all around us. Too many trees to have a good view but we could see some in the distance. And we could certainly hear them, for hours.
We have to get serious about our next place to stay. We leave here Sunday and haven't been about to find any place around Missoula that has openings for Sunday night. So that's the mission for today, Friday.
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