We're in America. There's a monster truck rally on in Kalispell.

It had to be done!

To be honest, it was amazingly good fun, despite the 30 minutes of tributes to the troops at the start of the show. The noise was incredible, most people brought earplugs, and there was a certain amount of good humour in the crowd.

Our favourite part came during the intermission when the public was allowed to race their old banger trucks around the course. Called the "tough trucks", about half of them were demolished and had to be towed out. The height these guys were getting on the jumps were amazing, I reckon they were feeling the landing for weeks afterwards. They make 'em tough in Montana!

Tough Truck #1 "I'm not a redneck"

Big air!

Dun, dun, dun, dun, another one bites the dust!

Lots of carnage. The red truck has a broked axle.

As part of our ongoing project to use as much petrol as we can, whilst it's still cheap, we took a day trip to Great Falls in Montana. This is the site of the main Lewis and Clark camp and marks the point where they left the Missouri river to continue on foot.

We skirted the bottom of the Glacier National Park, drove through Indian territory and had some time in the area.

A coyote we found just east of the Glacier park

The great falls, just after a dam.

Frozen lake, a spot for migratory birds (in this case, Snow Swans)

 

We took a day to drive around North-West Montana, the scenary is fantastic and well worth the drive. We drove through Kalispell, past Swan Lake, Missoura and ending up at Thompson Falls. The towns on the way range from nice little cosy places to some of the scariest trailer parks we've seen outside of Jerry Springer.

The route home was a bit of a nightmare, white tail deer are completely suicidal and seem to enjoy leaping out in front of the car when it's dark. Makes for a tiring and looooong drive home.

 

Bighorn sheep on the road

 

 

Here's a quick video to show the terrain and (lack of) people at Blacktail. Pretty awesome place!

Kim found a National Bison Park just south of Hungry Horse, well, a few hours south of Hungry Horse but well within striking range. As such, we headed down and took a look.

As usual, part of the park was shut for the winter but we still had a major area to look around in. We're getting used to National Parks being shut so it was no big surprise!

 

Kim found a few antlers

Buffalo!

Antelope

Blacktail Mountain is Kalispell's local ski mountain, it's small but very cheap and very fun. There's only three big lifts, but the snow and the terrain were amaaaazing. I was lucky enough to have had six inches of powder falling over the previous two days and, since most of the locals are skiers not snowboarders, the ungroomed runs were largely untouched.

The lifts were empty, the sky blue, the sun shining and there was fresh powder to plough through. It doesn't get much better than that!

Sadly I forgot to take my memory card, but I did buy an disposable camera which I will develop eventually. Photos to come eventually!

Edit : Here's the photos!

Powder! Powder!

Busy, busy, busy :)

Entry to the powder park

At the bottom of the powder park

 

We took a drive up to the dam in Hungry Horse, it was surprisingly impressive and we even saw some wildlife on the way!

 

We took a drive to the Glacier National Park, sadly the main route, the Highway to the Sun, was closed after only ten miles. Nevertheless, we took a drive through postcard land and took a few amazing photos.

The cabin we have is amazing, set into the woods but with all the amenities you could want. (including wireless internet!)

They have a couple of really nice dogs too :)

 

The deck

The office/kitchen

Kim says hello

 

On the 12th March we left Jasper and headed south through the Rockies on our way to Hungry Horse, Montana. We booked a couple of nights in Lethbridge on the way to break up our trip, as we weren't sure how long it would take us to cross the border to the USA.

Driving down through Banff National park (and Banff itself) was amazing again, the Icefield Parkway lived up to its reputation as being an amazing highway to drive down!

Lethbridge was a fun stopover destination, the scenary change we encountered was remarkable. Southern Alberta has an effect called the Chinook winds where the wind crossing the Rockies increases and then warms up as it drops down to the plains. This means that much of southern Alberta is free of snow! We really felt like we were entering cowboy country, the buffalo signs and place names were like something from a movie, and we were constantly stopping to have a laugh at the unusual names and sights.

Lethbridge itself was a moderately large town and we managed to catch another ice hockey game, this time from the stands so we actually saw the strategy part of the game rather than the up-close and bloody version.

The USA border took us some time to cross, but they allowed us in after 40 minutes of waiting around (we were the only people crossing at the time, I can't believe it took so long) Our first impression of Montana was a bit of a shock, the roads hadn't been cleared of snow for some time and the road signs were actually covered by the snow! The first few towns were closed for winter, so I was quite glad that we had plenty of petrol left and could take our time.

Sadly the road throught the Glacier National park, which we had planned to use, was also shut for the winter so we had to take a massive detour around the south of the Park. We made it easily enough and moved into our new cabin in the woods!

 

The Weeping Wall, in Banff National Park

Ridiculously picturesque scenary in the Rockies

Southern Alberta

 

Huh? Apparently this was the First Nations' prefered method of hunting buffalo before horses were brought over. Chasing herds over a cliff and letting them fall to their death. Nice.

 

Made it!

And this road sign is for.....?

Yep, we're in the USA!