Thursday July 10, 2025 Baker’s Hole Campground to Great Falls Montana (hotel!!)

The temperature dropped enough last night that the heater turned on. Thanks again to Mitch for fixing the heater (which I am embarrassed to say had nothing wrong with it other than lack of operator headspace!!)

Today we decided to shoot for Great Falls but if we don’t make it that’s fine.

We arrived at the West Yellowstone park entrance at around 7:30am and there was already a line. The nice park ranger took my “get into the park free” card and was disappointed we were just cutting through the top of the park. After that it was smooth sailing to the Mammoth Hot Springs entrance where Rt 89 continues north. At an intersection early on most folks turned right and went into the park and we turned left and had almost empty roads all the way to Gardiner.

This northwestern part of the park is gorgeous. Green meadows and bogs and green evergreens and crooked 2 lane roads all the way. We stopped at a couple of places to take in the Yellowstone beauty and then left the park in Gardiner. We stopped for coffee and breakfast sandwiches at Yellowstone Perk and chatted up the “J-1” youngsters working there from Slovakia and Thailand. What a great experience this would be at that age. They work for 3 months in the park and then get a month off to travel around the U.S.

The rest of the day was magical variations of landscape everything from wheat fields to the Yellowstone River to luscious green meadows to twisty mountain passes. This Rt 89 did not disappoint.

We got to Great Falls around 5:00 and checked into the hotel and it was a fight to see who got in the shower first.