#8 of 9. June/July ~ The Continental Divide – Idaho/Montana

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Night 20 and 21 and 22

July 4 – July 6

We left Yellowstone the morning of the 4th through the west entrance. West Yellowstone is in Montana, but we passed quickly through a piece of Idaho and back into Montana.

Montana is our final state on the Continental Divide Trail! We’re making good progress even with our side trips.

Looks like more smooth gravel roads ahead
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This is the beginning of what we call the no trees zone……

Mountains as far as you can see in all directions have absolutely no trees! What did the early settlers use for firewood? Shrubs? Where did all of these fence posts come from?🤔

No trees but strange little flowering plants

The roads were rutted in some spots. This could be a problem area if it’s rainy.

A very few trees….
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Poor birds have no trees to roost in
Not a happy face.

It’s still the 4th of July! We’re going to need some fireworks. (Be careful what you wish for.)

Night #20

Dillon, Montana seemed like a patriotic little community. They must have something going on.

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Night #20

4th of July in Dillon, Montana

Yay!

We could see the fireworks from our little campsite. Nice! Nice until they went on for about 7 hours straight. No kidding. They started going off long before dusk, and really ramped up after dark and didn’t let up AT ALL till after 1 o’clock in the morning.

The nonstop noise really put our puppies to the test. Other than being annoyed, they didn’t seem to have any fear or anxiety. Whew. The humans were getting a little testy.

Dillon is home to a beautiful college,
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On the road again
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Beware of gps track 04

Just past Wise River, gps.Kevin tracks turn left up toward Mt. Fleecer. This at first was a nice easy trail past some private ranches.

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Not sure how this will affect us.
No Jeeps….

Several miles up the trail we encountered a sign “No Jeeps”. This prevented us from continuing on the 04 loop. The trail did look narrow, but it seems like a jeep could make it.

What the heck?? Hello? Go anyway? No……
I hope this makes sense. Be aware.

We’re not sure if jeepers will find the same “no Jeeps” sign if running the tracks from north to south.

We tried an alternate trail to go up and over Mt. Fleecer. It seemed like the road was well traveled. Our maps were saying it was a dead end. It was getting more difficult to find places to turn around so we gave up and back tracked.

This seemed like a good road. Maps said dead end.
Moose!! She thought she was camouflaged.

We just gave up, back tracked and took the EZ 04 tracks.

Big hole?

On to Butte.

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Love the old red brick and the murals
Much historical mining activity

Night #21. The Motel 6 in downtown Butte

Our view of the weather from the Motel.
Leaving Butte

More trouble on track 04

Right out of Butte, the tracks were a bit confusing as to how to access the I-15 frontage road. Once on the correct track, it was a cool ride on the old shelf road near the freeway.

There was a sign….. something about no through traffic…. We ignored it

Yep, road is definitely closed. It’s an old tunnel built in 1911 that has been condemned. It was pretty cool, but gated off for a reason. We had to turn around and go back to what we thought would be a difficult track. It was actually easy and beautiful.

Turn around, go back, pay attention to the signs next time. 🤪
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When we got around to the north end of the track there was also a sign that road was closed ahead. If coming from the north be aware.

Backtracking
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So much history in Montana. And so many mines!

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Still on the 04 tracks…..

Hard section, not today
We see very few motorcycles and that’s surprising
Quite a bit of logging in this area. We had to throw the car in reverse and hurry back up the steep hill so this guy wouldn’t loose his momentum on this grade. We got a thumbs up thank you for our efforts. Nice maneuver, David!
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Night #22

July 6th. Park Lake Campground

Trying to beat the rain. Sometimes you just have to hang out in the car…..
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One thought on “#8 of 9. June/July ~ The Continental Divide – Idaho/Montana”

  1. Looks like a great adventure, wish I was there with you. Excellent information on the closed areas! Your documentation is SPOT ON, as always. Thanks for taking the time to share that in detail.

    You’ve has some rain, if you were to do the Continental Divide again, would you go at the same time of year again?

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