Holland Lake. Deeper Into the Smoke.

Wednesday August 19, 2015     Day 22       Flathead National Forest, Holland Lake N.F.C.G., site 37

437 towing miles

 We snuck out of the campground at 07:10 trying not to wake our neighbors.  Stopped at the dump station on the way out to dump our tanks and fill the fresh water tank.  We had it all to ourselves and no one was behind us, waiting for us.  We left the dump station at 07:40 and hit the road.

Took Gros Ventre Road west out of the campground towards US-191.  On the way out of the campground Marsha snapped this picture of a plane taking off from the Jackson Airport over the Tetons in the early morning.

We took US-191 south to Jackson Hole where we picked up WY-22 west to go over Teton Pass (8,431 ft.) with its miles of 10% grades.  The truck downshifts to about 4,000 rpm to maintain 45 mph on some of those hills.  I have never had a problem with the transmission on these long steep hills.  I always downshift on the downhills to minimize brake use.  Coming down went on for miles before we flattened out.

 

 

 

 After the pass, we crossed into Idaho where the highway becomes ID-31.  Then we quickly turn north on ID-33.  Went through a nice little town called Driggs where we stopped at a nice grocery store called Braulin’s.  ID-33 eventually hooks up with US-20 for a short way in Rexburg.  Here Marsha found a propane place right off the road where we can easily pull in and park and get one of our 20# tanks filled.  It ran out a few days ago.  That was easy and we moved on and reconnected to ID-33 until it came to I-15 north.  We don’t like to take interstates, but we needed to make time.  The state roads slow down to 45 or 35 mph for a mile or two every time you come to a town.  I-15 in Idaho has an 80 mph speed limit, although I do not tow the trailer at that speed.  I don’t go over 65 mph.  I-15 was a nice road with almost no traffic.  The scenery was miles and miles of hay fields and potato fields.  The potato fields are all irrigated.  The land was flat with mountains and ridges on the edges.  Typical of western valleys.

 

The green fields are irrigated potato fields.

The tan stuff is grass (hay).  Miles and miles of this.

Going north, we crossed the continental divide (again) which is the border with Montana.  The potato fields ended and it was more like ranch land and sagebrush.  The further north we got, the higher the mountains and the greener it got.  More forests, less sagebrush and grass.  However, the mountains were hazy from smoke, more so than at the Tetons. 

Nice mountains up ahead.  But can't see them.

MT-83 through Lolo National Forest

 

This is a good photo of the Smokey haze

This one too.

We took I-15 all the way to I-90, just west of Butte.  Followed I-90 to Garrison, MT where we got off on US-12 towards Helena.  That was so we could pick up MT-41 north, then MT-200 west, to our final highway, MT-83I hope you all got your Montana maps out and followed along. 

Now we are in the Lolo National Forest with conifer forests and high mountains.  Really beautiful scenery.  We passed several national forest campgrounds that we had researched, but we wanted to get closer to Glacier to shorten our drive tomorrow.  That’s why we drove so far and settled on Holland Lake campground in the Flathead National Forest, just north of the Lolo National Forest.  We were only 3 hours from our favorite Glacier campground, Two Medicine campground in the southeast corner of the park. 

We arrived at 05:30 after driving 437 miles.  We looked at the looked at the two loops that were a mile apart from each other.  We stayed in the second loop.  We were not on one of the lakeside sites, but that didn’t matter.  We were just staying one night and we weren’t even disconnecting.  We wanted an early start tomorrow to get to Two Medicine before they filled up and to get a good site.  Here's some pictures of our site and the Holland Lake.

 

Along MT-83, we saw signs telling us that fire danger was extremely high.  Not Low, Medium, or High.  Extremely High.  We were in a Level II fire alert in effect at midnight which means NO campfires.  This was for all over western Montana.  This was disappointing.  They even banned smoking outside.  Only allowed in car or camper.  No charcoal grills.  Propane OK.
 

We settled in with some cheese and crackers.  Harvarti, chedder, pepper jack, and Triscuts to be specific.  After the appetizers, we had hot dogs because it's simple and easy.

Took a walk around the campground and called it a day.