Today was an exploring day. We had breakfast at home and then piled into the truck for some wandering around in Helena, capitol city of Montana. Downtown or old Helena is filled with all kinds of interesting buildings but they are pretty hard to get to if you are not a local because the streets are layed out in a chaotic, hellish, Byzantine arrangement. You may be able to see the place you seek but you may not be able to drive to them.
We started out by driving to a nifty cathedral in the older part of town. It is very spiffy with lots of stained glass windows, marble columns and a really great interior paint job. They even had piped-in Gregorian chanting for our listening pleasure. The stained glass window that would be behind the clergy when viewed from the pews was particularly colorful and Peggy snuck back there to get a picture. While we were sitting inside the church the wind was raging outside and I soon noted the massive, ornate chandeliers were swinging despite not being windy inside. We soon departed.
After driving a course that seemed to only have right turns, we ended up on the west or left side of town in the Mansion District. Back in the mid-1800s, gold was found in a portion of Helena called Last Chance Gulch and not too long after that, elaborate and gorgeous masonry apartment building sized house began to spring up west of the tortured downtown maze of buildings and streets. Some of the mansions are built on lots where they are the only house on the block. The architecture of these enormous structures is quite beautiful.
After quite a bit of aimless wandering and picture taking, we departed the land of the affluent and drove up to Mt. Helena Park which was a gravel parking lot with a great view of about one third of downtown Helena. Not overly impressed with the view from the parking lot, we chose to drive south down Grizzly Gulch to the neighborhood of Unionville where there is ample evidence there was mining in this area. You can see quite a few old mining mills, charcoal ovens (I think), sheds and shacks left over from the 19th century. It is a very pretty road as soon as you leave downtown Helena, transforming instantly into a tree-lined curvy highway through a steep-walled canyon.
Having made it to our destination, we turned around when the road turned to dirt and subjected ourselves to another confusing passage through old Helena to reach I-15. We went north on the interstate for about 25 miles to a place called Gates of the Mountains where there is a giant lake being fed by the Missouri River which seems to emanate from a giant slice through solid rock. Most all of the surrounding area is covered with green but the Gates (craggy bluffs on both sides of the river) are pure grey rock and very majestic. We wandered around this area and soon found an interpretive display consisting of a short loop path overlooking some gorgeous ranch acreage. It seems two families ran cattle and sheep on these ranches and descendants still run them today. The families were savvy enough to engage in conservation agreements with the BLM, a Montana Conservancy and the families to keep these places just like they are. The display indicated that the only difference between now and the time when Meriwether Lewis walked through here in 1806 was an increase in the numbers of conifers that have encroached on this prime prairie pasture land. Apparently, vigorous fire-suppression in more recent years have allowed the pines to get a foothold.
We read all the display’s signs and headed back south on I-15 until we turned east on Lincoln Road toward the tiny burg of York, about ten miles distant. We found a superb federal campground near Hauser Lake called Devil’s Elbow which we will mostly shut up about because we would like to stay there. They have big, no hookup spots right alongside the Missouri River as it passes through the area east of Helena. With our federal access pass, there is no park entry fee and camping costs $7.50 per night.
Past the campground, the road crosses a bridge over the Missouri and continues up a narrow, steep-sided crack between the rock cliffs with a beautiful stream crossing back and forth under the road until we reached York which is mostly an intersection with a big bar on the corner. We did a bit of exploring on the roads leading out of York. East is a nice, two-lane blacktop running through gorgeous country. After 5 or 10 miles on this road, we reversed course and drove back to York where we turned south to a place called York Gulch. Not far down this dirt road the surface conditions turned to a narrow strip with big mud holes so we chickened out and went back to York. We found our way back down the rocky canyon, over the Missouri, past the good campground and finally back to our beloved Barbarian Invader.
We did get some photos today and you can see some of ’em if you click here