Posts Tagged With: St. Marys Campground

Great Falls of the Missouri River

Our journey continues northwest, as we head out from Great Falls toward St. Mary to camp in Glacier National Park.  Leaving Great Falls we had to find our way to the Missouri River again, but this time we wanted a view of at least one of the 7 falls through town.  Our map wasn’t very clear about their location, so we stopped at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center and had a nice view of Black Eagle falls and the dam. Lots of gulls and ducks on the river, but a new addition for us was the white pelican.  Cool.

White pelicans

Grocery store for sale

And the local bar, too

Comes with a convenient bathroom

The road out of town, heading to Browning, Montana was a decent road that traversed the high plains through lots of hayfields and small towns like Fairfield, Coteau and Bynum.  Gosh, the general store in one was for sale along with the local pub and four outbuildings (looked like maybe the whole town).

One of many grain elevators

Cute farming towns, but gosh the shopping must be tough. As we crossed the hayfields a fawn popped across the road in front of us, but we avoided disaster this time.  On through Blackfeet Tribal Lands into Browning and we started on the last stretch of road before the east entrance to the park.  But, woah!  Serious road construction meant the nice paved 2-lane just stopped and became total gravel.  The roadway for a good 6 miles or more was being scooped up, ground up and moved around, with much of it a one lane, follow-the-pilot-vehicle, bouncy mess.  That was not fun in the motorhome towing an already damaged car.

Glacier approach

But the approach road to Glacier got better and the view became jaw-dropping.  Unimaginably tall mountains loomed, with others standing behind broad “U” shaped valleys.  Like nothing I have ever seen before.  Unfortunately, a wildfire burning on the western side of the park has most everything shrouded in haze, but it is still impressive.

Campsite in St. Marys

Campsite is in an open field surrounded by aspens, spruce and lots and lots of berry bushes.  We were given firm instructions on food storage, told about the bear safe boxes around camp and that grizzlies do frequent the campground.  Well of course, with all those serviceberry bushes, chokecherry bushes and ripe rose hips around. So we kept a cautious eye, but once we saw how darn busy the camp was (cars coming and going all night, it seemed), we were less concerned.

Lots to do tomorrow.