Glacier to Baker's Hole

Monday August 24, 2015     Day 27     Gallatin National Forest, Baker’s Hole Campground, site 41

386 towing miles

Left Two Medicine campsite at 07:30 and headed to the dump station on the way out.  Left the campground at 08:00.

Took US-2 to Browning, about 15 miles away.  Browning is the headquarters for the Blackfeet Tribe.  The town is very run down like they are having hard times.  There is a casino in town with a Holiday Inn Express next to it that were the nicest buildings in town.  Just past Browning, picked up US-89 south to Choteau.  This highway was very boring.  Easy to drive, all straight with no traffic.  But scenery was just flat, grass covered rolling hills, with the occasional dried up creek.  There was a beat up looking ranch every few miles, and occasionally some old dilapidated homesteader log cabins.  We turned onto US-287 south to Wolf Creek.  The scenery was more of the same.  At Wolf Creek we entered I-15 south.  Here we started entering the mountains.  And smoke. 

 

It's not very exciting, but this is the only

picture we took while on the road. 

 

 I-15 took us through Helena, the state capital and we could see the capital building from the highway.  Stopped in Helena for gas.  Continued on I-15 to Boulder, MT.  A nice little town, where we got of the interstate onto MT-69.  This was a little jog to take us to I-90, west of Bozeman.  This was a very pleasant and scenic highway through the mountains.  I-90, unlike I-15, was busy with much more traffic and trucks, being that it is a major east-west route across the northern part of the US.  Nothing like the I-90 in Chicago, though.  At this point I was on familiar territory and knew my way without GPS assistance.  In Belgrade, which is about 5 miles west of Bozeman, we got off I-90 to take US-191 south, ultimately to West Yellowstone, MT.  At the exit we stopped at Albertson’s for more groceries.  We hadn’t seen a real grocery store for about two weeks.  We picked up some Moose Drool there.

 

A 12-pak of Moose Drool and a Yeti to keep it cool. 

You can buy this at Mug's in Grand Haven.

Now for the home stretch.  Our destination was Baker’s Hole Campground in the Gallatin National Forest.  It is about 5 miles south of West Yellowstone.  About halfway, is the town of Big Sky, MT.  A ski resort in winter and a fly fishing, rafting, and hiking destination in the summer.  The highway follows the Gallatin River all the way to Yellowstone, where the Gallatin has its headwaters.  The highway passes through the park boundary and re-enters the Gallatin N.F. a few miles south of the campground.  Baker’s Hole Campground is named after a section of the Madison River.  The Madison River was formed at the confluence of the Firehole and Gibbon River at Madison Junction, in the park.  It joins with the Jefferson and Gallatin Rivers at Three Rivers, MT to form the Missouri.  The rest is history.  Lewis & Clark named these rivers after their buddies back in Washington.  Except the Missouri.  It was already named that because it was already known in St. Louis, but no one knew where it went until Lewis & Clark followed it.  And they didn’t have a buddy named Missouri.

Baker’s Hole is a nice campground, but it’s only downfall is that it is close to US-191 and you can hear the road noise.  On the other hand, it is very convenient to West Yellowstone and its tourist traps, restaurants, grocery, gas, propane, car wash, and other such services.  The campground is only 6 miles from the west entrance to Yellowstone, and only 35 miles from my favorite fishing spot on the Madison River.  So we choose that location for those reasons.  Plus, it is one of the few national forest campgrounds that offers electric hookups.  We also get a 3G data signal there.

We arrived at Baker’s Hole Campground at 17:00 (5:00 PM).  The sites were $16 per night and $22 for electric.  We have our Senior Pass so we get $8.00 knocked off.  We paid $14 per night for an electric site and signed up for 3 nights. 

Coffee and fire in the morning, because we can.

Awning and lounge chairs ready to go.

 It’s not smoky here from fires like we’ve experienced over the last week or two.  We saw a Smokey the Bear sign on the way that indicated “Fire Danger-Medium”.  That means no immediate fire threats and we could have campfires.  Yeah.  We do have to use safe bear practices here. 

 

Forgot to mention we say two coyotes on the way here, both at the same time, together.  Never saw more than one at a time.  Shortly thereafter, saw some pronghorn antelope among the sagebrush by the highway.