As we set up camp, we noticed signs referring to the strangely named “Makoshika State Park”  only 2 miles away from the camping. So we decided to go take a look and were totally amazed by what we saw. Weird, alien looking landscapes, with “mushroom-like” geological formations, clearly caused by many of years of erosion.

We later learned that Makoshika (pronounced as “ma-KO-sh(ih)kuh”) is derived from “Maco sica” the Lakota term for “Bad Land” or “Land of bad Spirits”. The Lakota are a Native American people and one of the three prominent subcultures of the Sioux people. 

Dinosaurs too

As you can see in the image at the top of this post, there is a Triceratops on the entrance sign as the park also houses fossil remains of such dinosaurs as tyrannosaurus and triceratops. One of the visitor centers at the park entrance houses a triceratops skull.

Making our way through the park we could certainly see why they referred to this area that way. Parts were downright “Spooky” and so unreal we had never seen anything like this before. Yet it was hauntingly beautiful!

Here are some pictures to give you an idea.

You could walk right through these area as you can see in the picture below, with a little bridge.

Being out there late afternoon and early evening, presented some fabulous shots too.

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So it was with us. Yet, somehow, we picked this town as a place to stay, simply because it was convenient, “mileage-wise” to stop for a couple of days to explore things in the neighborhood. Helena to the north and Virginia City an equal distance to the south. To further fit our plans, the town had an RV Park that sounded quite decent so Linda called ahead to book us a spot.

To our surprise, they were full!? We were like, “Why? Who stays in Three Forks?”

However, the guy Linda spoke to suggested we call the local grocery market as the owner there was building a small RV Park on the back of his property. Really???

And so it was that we spent some days behind the local grocery store in Three Forks!

Yes, the owner had put in 9 spots for RVs in the property behind his store. He had full hookups, including 50Amps and said a 42 foot motorhome would not be an issue. He did state that he had no toilet or shower facilities, so would only accept RVs that were fully self-contained.

The RV spots turned out to be HUGE. Each site would easily be about 80 feet in length. The service was outstanding though. The owner himself came out to greet us, help us get settled in and later brought us a slip of paper with the WiFi password written on. He told us he had only been open for 2 weeks and the site we were in had never been used before, so he was really keen to make sure everything worked for us.

After we got over the idea we were parked in the back of a small town’s local grocery store, we realized we were quite comfortable and had the opportunity to check out some areas in the vicinity.

Walking around the area, we spotted this sign… We thought it was funny..

A surprising case of Klepto-Tide-mania

Did you know that Tide (yes, the stuff you put in a washing machine) is a high-theft item?

We didn’t either so imagine our surprise when we saw this:

EVERY bottle on the shelf was tagged! There were dozens and dozens of bottles and ONLY the Tide brand was tagged. Why? What could possibly require this, labor-intensive, treatment for Tide? So we asked and got the incredulous answer “Oh, Tide is a high-theft item”. Really? Since when did Tide become such a sought-after item that it needed tagging to prevent theft?

We looked it up and it turns out that in many areas Tide has become a form of “currency” to buy Weed or Crack Cocaine. Unbelievable! Now you should know that we had seen quite a number of billboards along the Montana highways, warning against the use of Meth and other drugs. Not having seen these billboards in other states, we assumed that drugs were enough of a problem in Rural Montana to put up these warnings. Never did we suspect there was an active black market for something as innocuous as Tide to generate money to buy these drugs.

Tide appears to be an untraceable item. A bottle has no serial number or anything that could be used to determine where it came from, but it is a quality item with enough of a demand and a reasonable price tag to make it appealing enough to steal and sell for a few bucks so one can get the next “hit”.

We were absolutely floored by this bit of information. We were obviously naive enough not to be aware of this happening and it left us shocked and saddened that this is even happening. We then started wondering what it is about life in rural Montana that drives people to this. Sure, we are aware of drug use everywhere, but had never seen the billboard warnings which included help line numbers. Not just one or two, but many. Every highway we drove on had them. FYI, here is a link to an article about the theft of Tide.

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Well, we can sort of attest to that.

Here we are in Montana, a state that neither of us have ever been to, and Linda knows people here! Amazing, but true.
So when Linda contacted them to catch up, they invited us for a day on the lake. How awesome!

Kathy and Rick have a pontoon boat and they assured us that we would love cruising the Hungry Horse Reservoir. Boy, were they right.

The lake (actually a reservoir) is nestled in the most beautiful mountainous area near Columbia Falls.
After discussing plans, we met them at the RVPark and followed them to the lake, which was only about 15 miles away. This lake is huge with a dirt road around the entire perimeter. We needed to travel about a quarter way around to the boat launch. Then we were off for the day, drinks and snacks loaded in the cooler!

First of all, neither had ever been on a pontoon boat, so we were impressed with the amount of room on deck and the comfort with which one could just sit and enjoy. The boat has a canopy so really very pleasant. Add a hat and some sunscreen and you can spend all day out there. I could really imagine sitting there in a comfortable seat, sipping Gin and Tonics and just enjoying the scenery. Sadly, bottled water was all we had that day.

Kathy and Rick both were born and raised in Montana and have enjoyed a life and lifestyle that city folk like us could only imagine. At one time, they owned and operated the concessionary Horse Riding business in Glacier National Park. They owned over 100 highly trained horses and took tourists out on horse riding tours in the park. How awesome is that?

Their stories about living in Montana were amazing! Here we are, traveling to far and away places with the hope of seeing a bear (we still have not seen one), but they told us about having them in their back yard! Rick has actually hunted bear, something not many hunters get to do as only a very few permits are available annually. He told us how his senses have developed with the hunting he has done and could often smell a bear or moose well before he would see them.

When we asked him about danger, he admitted that hunting bear is not for the faint of heart. Actually, any kind of hunting can be dangerous as the bears of course don’t care if you are hunting them or some other animal. You are in THEIR space and if provoked, they will attack. Apparently, a bear has an amazingly sensitive sense of smell and can smell you from miles away. To emphasize that always-present danger, he told us of a time that he and Kathy went out together and had left her at a safe location, while he scouted the area. The next day, Kathy decided not to join him and when he passed the same spot, found it to occupied by a mother bear and some cubs! Had that happened 24 hours earlier, things would be been quite scary.

Rick also told us that Moose is delicious to eat! Who would have known?! Neither Linda nor I had ever given that any thought so were quite intrigued by that statement. Rick smokes a lot of his meat and Kathy agreed that smoked Moose is fantastic. Both of them particularly liked Moose ribs, which, of course are HUGE when compared to pork or beef ribs. In describing this, Rick had us imagining Fred Flintstone gnawing on a huge meaty bone!

Kathy too had some amazing stories about bears in her backyard. She described how, one day carrying her then baby chile, turned the corner of her house and found herself standing face-to-face with a Grizzly! Can you believe that?! She told us of how the grizzly would raise up on its hind legs and then back down on all fours while “woofing” loudly. If I close my eye, I can just “see” it! And did I tell you how large a grizzly is! Thankfully, having been educated in what to do, she stopped and stood still, against all her instincts of course and feeling helpless as a mother with a small child in her arms, but her mind going 200 miles an hour on what to do, when to make her move. Then, in that split second as the bear came down to all fours again, she took a chance, turned around and ran indoors and called the local rangers. They were there within 5 minutes she said. What a story! We found it hard to imagine what that would have been like.

All in all, the day was amazing! We had such a great time. The scenery was beautiful, the boat ride was relaxing, the stories were amazing and Kathy and Rick’s hospitality was more than we could ever wish for.

Thank you both for an awesome day!

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This is how I imagine things were at Garnet, Montana’s most famous ghost town.
I’ve always been fascinated by these old ghost towns and my imagination runs wild as I try to visualize what it must have been like. Garnet is no different. Literally located in the middle of nowhere, your first thought is “why here”? Turns out that was easy to answer, it was gold. Placer gold to be precise. Placer mining, of course, is the mining of gold by sifting through a stream bed and only requires a gold pan or a rocker if you were really serious.

The gold was mined there during the 1860s and the town has a history of boom and bust, but was still actively mined well into the early 1900s. What I found particularly amazing is that the town was still occupied as late as 1960! The Dahl Saloon gets the honor of being the last abandoned building. It still stands today and is now used as the visitor’s center. In 1960 it had a gasoline-powered generator in the back, but today we spotted an array of solar panels that provided electricity. Now get this, 1960 is in my lifetime! Amazing! And did I mention that Garnet is in the middle of nowhere? It is a 25 mile drive, over a dirt road, just to get there! Whatever kept this saloon going until 1960 is beyond me.

Because the town is relatively “young” there are some old photos around that showed what it was like.

Pretty cool, huh?

Some more photos of Garnet (click the thumbnail to view a larger picture).

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This year is the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service and a lot of press attention has ensured that visitor levels are up. We noticed that almost immediately when entering the park on the first day. We made the mistake of going there about 10:30am. After standing in line, just to get into the park, we headed up the “Going to the Sun” road, the name of the main road through the park. We got about half way when we decided to call it a day. All car parking locations were full, we couldn’t stop anywhere to check out the scenery. Is was also quite hot (~ 90F), no clouds and the bright sun cast these harsh shadows over the beautiful scenery, making photography quite the challenge. So we headed back and decided we’d come the next day, but much earlier to beat the crowds and get better light conditions for photography.

The next day we were in the park before sunrise and well up the Road to the Sun road before the sun was even visible. Not too many locations for any stunning sunrise shots, but beautiful light and scenery. Just the way we like it.

Glacier National Park at dawn – seen from Logan Creek lookout (6560ft elevation) – Linda Norvelle

We found the best scenic locations along the second half of the road, towards the Eastern section and got multiple beautiful shots in well before we started to see the number of cars with visitors increase. Our decision to hit the road early certainly paid off for us. We could stop anywhere we wanted and never had to wait for, or get frustrated by, people scrambling all over the scenery we wanted to shoot.
We have certainly seen our fair share of stupid people doing stupid things at National Parks. By this I mean things like people climbing onto delicate structures (like fragile arches that took thousands of years to form). Thankfully we have never seen anyone doing actual damage like carving their name into rocks or painting something with indelible ink. You would have read about those in the news recently. Unbelievable that there are people who think it is OK to do such things.

Coming back to the beautiful scenery of these National Parks. Glacier got its name from the many glaciers in and around the area. Originally there were 150 of them, but today there are only 25 and these have shrunk in size considerably and are hard to spot. We saw ONE and needed our longest telephoto lens to get a picture of it. Sad, but we hear that Global Warming is not real, that it is a ploy to fool us all. Yet we got our feet wet sitting in Venice due to rising water levels, we see the diminishing glaciers at National Parks and experience 94 + degrees heat in locations that used to consider 80F a heatwave. This post is not meant to be a rant on global warming, but it is frustrating to see such precious and beautiful natural features, like glaciers, melting before our very eyes.

After exiting the park on the Eastern side, we decided to head south and around the bottom end of the National Park to go back. A significant detour, but we hoped we’d see some of those mountain goats at a place called “Goat Lick”, a location known for these goats to come and lick certain rock types there. Studies have shown these rocks contain minerals and salts needed by the goats. Sadly, it was too hot for them at the time we were there. The local ranger told us they stay at higher elevations when it is hot and hadn’t seen them there for a few weeks (another indication of the higher temperatures experienced in Montana).

So we returned back to the camp site, satisfied with the shots we got, but a little saddened by the effects of the unusually high temperatures there.

The lovely town of Whitefish

The next day, we decided to do something different and headed off to explore the nearby town of Whitefish. We had heard lots of good things about it and were not disappointed. It is a gorgeous town, with a downtown area right out of some travel magazine and a beautiful lake nearby.

We first checked out the lake and marveled at the Yoga class happening there . . . on paddle boards! Yep, there were about 12 people out on paddle boards which were somehow all strung together for stability. There they were, about 100 feet off the shoreline, doing their exercises. Some of these positions were quite intricate and we were amazed at how they maintained balance on a board that is quite “wobbly”.

After that we hit downtown, strolled around the town center and had a coffee at the local cafe. The town’s location is quite spectacular. You can see a big mountain nearby called . . . well, “Big Mountain”. We had seen photos of this in the winter, when the mountain is covered in show. Just spectacular. There was no snow there now, but still a beautiful sight.

We also spent a day on a pontoon boat on Hungry Horse Reservoir, but that will be covered in a later post.

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And so it happened . . .

I should state upfront that Linda is against the way the animals are treated. She finds is all extremely cruel. However, she wanted me, an ex-Dutchman, to see a real Rodeo in person so she found a rodeo in the town of Eureka, about an hour drive north of Columbia Falls, almost on the border with Canada. It certainly was perfect location. Set in the midst of “horse country”, the area is dotted with ranches and, mountain enclosed plains full of grazing cattle.

The event started at 8pm so we knew we’d be shooting in the dark. You should know that the lights in a stadium might be just fine for the human eye, for a camera, not so much. For an event like that, you want to “freeze the action” by using fast shutter speeds and for that, you need a lot of light. Anyway, I digress.

The event, as big an event this appeared to be for locals, was decidedly “low key” for city folk like ourselves. No parking attendants (nor a parking fee), just park your car where you thought it would be good. No secure box office for tickets, just a lady at a folding table with a sack of money. The entrance “ticket” was a rubber stamp on your hand. Regardless, we had a blast at this event. For me, it was something completely new. I had only even seen snippets of a rodeo on TV so actually being there, seeing it for real was quite something different. You can really see the effort and skills and there is clearly a lot of experience (and nerve) required. Pretty awesome.

There were multiple events and I later learned that this is how a rodeo is set-up.

The Events were:

Sheep Riding for Kids

This was a fun start to the evening. Small kids, we guessed somewhere between the ages of 3 to 6 or 7, would ride a sheep. In most cases, the dad would run alongside the sheep and grab his child before he fell off. Some kids did amazingly well and would proudly raise their arms in victory at the end, like they see their dads do, receiving loud cheers from the crowds.

Bareback Bronc Riding

Instead of a saddle, the bareback rider uses a rigging made of leather and has a strap that resembles a suitcase handle to hold onto.

There are strict rules – the rider must have both spurs touching the horse’s shoulders until the horse’s feet hit the ground after the initial move from the chute. If the cowboy fails to do this, he is disqualified.

Saddle Bronc Riding

This is perhaps the most “classic” of the events and demands style, grace and precise timing.

It is pretty clear this evolved from the task of breaking and training horses to work the cattle ranches of the Old West.

Similar to bare back bronc riding, the saddle bronc rider must have both heels touching the animal above the point of its shoulders when it makes its first jump from the chute. If the rider misses his mark, he receives no score.

The saddle bronc rider has only a thick rein to hold onto. The rein is attached to the horse’s halter. He can only use one hand , if he touches any part of the horse or his own body with his free hand, he is disqualified.

Steer Wrestling

Originally, this event was called “bull dogging”. The aim is to jump from the running horse onto the back of a young steer, catch it behind the horns and wrestle it to the ground.

The bulldogger is assisted by a second rider, called the hazer, who rides along the steer’s right to keep the animal running straight.

Calf Roping

You can really see this event can be traced back to the working ranches of the Old West.

The cowboy starts from a box adjacent to the chute holding the calf. The calf receives a head start and has a breakaway rope tied to its neck. After the calf is released and reaches its “head start” point, the rope releases the barrier allowing the cowboy to start. If the cowboy breaks the barrier before the calf reaches its head start, the cowboy gets a 10-second penalty.

What really impressed me is that the horse needs to be highly trained. When the cowboy throws his loop and catches the calf, he immediately dismounts, sprints to the calf and throws it by hand, a maneuver called flanking. While he sprints to the calf, his horse must pull back hard enough to eliminate any slack in the rope, but not so hard as to drag the calf.

When the cowboy finishes tying the calf, he throws his hands in the air to indicate he is done and the timer is stopped. He must then remount his horse and ride forward just enough to create slack in the rope. Then waits six seconds to see if the calf remains tied. Only then is he awarded the time. If the calf frees itself and gets up, the cowboy receives no time.

Barrel Racing

Barrel racing is a cowgirl event and is only judged on time.

The cowgirl enters the arena and passes an electronic “eye” which starts the timer. She then rides the horse as fast as she can around a cloverleaf-shaped course of three barrels. When complete, she races past the electronic eye again, which stops the timer. That timer is the one and only judge, but if she knocks over a barrel, she receives a 5 second penalty. The event is timed to the hundredth of a second, so a 5 second penalty is massive, pretty much assuring no placement.

Team Roping

Team roping is the only team event in Rodeo. It involves two cowboys (called a header and a heeler) and originated back when cowboys needed to treat or brand large steers and the task proved too difficult for one man.

After the steer is released, the header casts his rope first. There are only three catches that are considered legal: around both horns, around one horn and the head or around the neck. Any other catch is considered illegal and the team is disqualified.

After the header makes his catch, he exposes the steer’s hind legs to the heeler who throws his rope around the hind legs. If he catches only one foot, the team is assessed a five-second penalty.

When both cowboys have successfully caught the steer and backed up their horses so there is no slack in their ropes, the timer is stopped.

Bull Riding

Bull riding was clearly the most popular event and was saved for last. This is a 2000 pound animal and it is very obvious this is a dangerous sport. While very exciting, it demands intense physical prowess, mental toughness and courage.

Bull Riders are solely judged on their ability to stay aboard the twisting, bucking mass of muscle.

Rodeo – A Controversial Sport

As stated at the beginning of this post, Linda finds Rodeos to be cruel. Now that I have seen one, I cannot help but agree. While regulations demand a vet to be present and that a steers’s horns must be wrapped, those measures hardly reduce the pain or risk of injury. The calfs and steers are yanked about with great force. Getting the broncos and bulls to buck is even worse.

While horses and bulls will naturally buck and kick to get this weight (the rider) off their back, we could clearly see a guy yank a strap with all his might as the animal leaves the gate. You can see that in the picture below – just look at the guy with the black hat in the middle of the picture. Needless to say,the strap is attached to the animal’s private parts.

Having said this, we totally get that Rodeo is a huge part of the lifestyle and culture in states like Texas, Wyoming, Montana and others and the skills and agility of these cowboys and cowgirls were absolutely amazing. Thank you Montana.

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