Montana Burning

Check the wildfire reports and you'll see that large patches of Monatna are on fire. You don't have to go online to see this if you are in Montana, however.

Yesterday when we were getting ready to leave Idaho it looked hazy and overcast. I had seen a weather report calling for a chance of rain, so we hurried to pack up and get on the road. The haze stayed with us as we drove. As we crossed the pass into Montana it started to get thicker. We could smell the smoke, like the smoke of hundreds of campfires. It was pretty obvious that we were seeing the haze of wildfires, not looming rain.

It got thicker as we moved East. Three large vans with Oregon plates passed us, heading into Montana. On their sides were "Forest Fire Brigade", on top were tooles and cans of chainsaw fuel; fifteen people were inside each van. By the time we left the freeway (33 miles into Montana), the smoke was irritating our eyes and throats. It got worse. As we drove north we had to slow down. The haze resembled the morning mist of the Blue Ridge or Smoky mountains, but this was not early morning mist. I timed visibility while driving a steady 60 mph. Less than 30 seconds, or under a half mile. The landscape looked desolate and barren, you couldn't see beyond the ridge just next to the road because the sky was so clouded with smoke. As we reached Flathead Lake there were white pieces of ash visible floating in the air. We stopped for gas and it was spooky, with ash fluttering down on us, no sun, and a strange orange glow to everything.

I asked the gas station attendant where the fire was. She laughed and said "Everywhere." A bit of an exaggeration, perhaps, but not much. We looked at the map later and there are thousands of acres on fire just east of where we were. In fact, the main US highway is closed between Missoula and the National Park because of the fires. Fortunately, we weren't going that way. We'll have no trouble with any of the existing fires during our stay here at Glacier.

What the fires are doing to our trip, however, is another thing. Views in the park are hazy. Heavily overcast, as if there's a dense fog over everything. It's very hard to see mountains, lakes, waterfalls, or glaciers. Hiking is complicated by the irritation of the smoke to our eyes and throats. Thin high-altitude air is even harder to breathe with all the smoke everywhere. It's strange, but we can still see things up close, so we're still enjoying ourselves.

Yesterday evening after supper we went into the national park to scout out the visitor centers and plan our day for today. This was a good idea, because we found a moderatly difficult hike we could do at the continental divide, which we would reach using the shuttle bus service.

To get to the Logan Pass Visitor Center you take the Going-to-the-Sun Highway. This road is incredible, a narrow ribbon of pavement that winds its way up the mountains with only one switchback. Vehicles over 21 feet long are prohibited. There are no real guardrails to speak of (one shirt we saw at a gift store says "Real Men Don't Need Guardrails"). We were glad to use the shuttle, to save our gas and our nerves. Plus we had fun talking with people from all over the world on the bus.

We planned a hike for tomorrow with the help of a park ranger at the visitor center, took the shuttle down the other side to the East side of the park, then went back to the top and took our hike. On the way back up the road was blocked by two bighorn sheep, standing there as if they owned the road.

Our hike started at the visitor center and went 1.5 miles uphill to the Hidden Lake overlook. It was a pretty steep trail in spots, but there were many Mountain Goats right next to the trail (including a mother and baby), as well as some bighorn sheep, again right next to the trail. We got some good pictures along the way. The view from the top was hazy and obscured by smoke. It's hard to get a good scenery picture in the tricky light caused by all the haze.

Our hike tomorrow is to three different waterfalls. Hoepfully there will be clearer air. The locals tell us that they can't remember fires this severe, or this much smoke. To put this in perspective, the nearest fire to us is at least 30 miles away, but when we were on the Going-to-the-Sun Highway at the end of the day we had about a tenth of a mile visibility. It was really that thick. I heard on the news as I typed this that Missoula (a hundred or so miles away?) is pretty much shut down due to the air quality alerts.

We leave here Sunday, through a pass that goes right next to an area where the fire was out of control a few weeks ago but now is "75% Contained." The pass is open and we've been assured there won't be any trouble with getting through. We'll see.