Our Montana Road Trip: Part 1
I have to begin this post with a public apology to the citizens of Montana. All of the locals that we met asked us not to share how amazing this place is. Yet, here I am. Committing the cardinal sin. For those of you that are close with us, I'm sure you're all aware that Steven and I just to took the trip of a lifetime. We loaded up the Jeep, threw our two dogs in the back, and drove 2,220+ miles to explore the beautiful state of Montana. After driving for what felt like an eternity, camping in bear country, and taking hikes that took our breath away - you're in for quite the story! Such a story, that I have decided to divide it into two parts. The stories below take place at our first campsite, so you'll have to come back next week to get the rest!
"Our Lake" in Lewis and Clark National Forest
Hmmm...how to start this story...I guess I'll just dive right in and start from the day we left. Friday the 10th rolled around and it was finally time for us to leave. Our Jeep was packed to the brim with camping equipment that we had accumulated from amazon and close friends, so our excitement finally started to set in. Once we double checked the house and loaded the dogs up, we were off to our first destination - Jasper, TN. Since Steven and I both had to work on Friday, we decided to get a little head start by driving up and staying with his parents that night, so that we would be a few hours closer to Montana when we started our long trek the next morning. On the way to Tennessee we got this wild idea, "Why don't we just drive straight through the night tomorrow? We'll take turns driving and we'll make it to Montana earlier. It's a great plan!". We were wrong friends - this was not a great plan - but I'll get into that a little later. Once we finally arrived in Tennessee, we spent some time with the family, let the dogs play, then got some sleep before our pilgrimage began.
The next morning rolled around and our trip had officially begun. Our route took us through Nashville, St. Louis, Kansas City, Sioux Falls, and more. Let me preface my next comments with this: on this blog I promise to always be honest with you. I will tell you what I like, don't like, and everything in between. With that being said....once we passed through Kansas City, there wasn't anything remotely interesting to look at until we hit our first destination in Montana. South Dakota had a few pockets of rolling hills that were nice, but other than that, it was kind of awful. After multiple stops for filling up the tank, letting the dogs stretch, and scavenging for food, the night finally began to roll in. Steven does better with waking up early, and I do better staying up late, so we decided that he would drive until midnight-ish and I would pick up from there to drive until 4 or 5 AM. And thus began the longest night of my life. Here's the thing about Jeep Wranglers, they are made for so many awesome things, but comfort isn't one of them. Our whole plan of "taking shifts" worked fine during the day, but at night it was impossible to sleep. It's not a smooth ride, and our backseat was packed with camping gear and dogs, so we didn't even have the capability to lean our seats back. This may be shocking, but sleeping straight up is a skill that neither of us have perfected. It was 3:30 AM when I decided that I needed to pull off of the road before I killed us all. At this point we were on the shoulder of the interstate, in the middle of nowhere, and just trying to get some morsel of rest. We sat there for about an hour. Steven had his eyes closed, trying his best to fall asleep, while I was watching cars go by because I was so incredibly uncomfortable that there was no point in even trying. After deciding that sleep wasn't happening for either of us, we got back on the road and just prayed that the sun will be rising soon.
After another full day of driving, on Sunday night we finally see a glimpse of the Sawtooth Mountains - we had reached our first campsite. Thankfully, there was still enough daylight to set up camp and realize what an incredible spot we had stumbled upon. When we researched campsites in Lewis and Clark National Forest, there were dozens to choose from, and out of those dozens, none of them had pictures to show what you would be getting into. Going with our gut - we chose Cave Mountain Campground. This place was exactly what we were hoping for. Our little campsite had a nice spot for our tent, a picnic table, fire-pit, and amazing views in every direction. We were surrounded by mountains on every side, and roughly 50 yards from our tent was the Teton River, which flowed with stunning crystal clear water. Every morning we would make our coffee (shout-out to you, AeroPress), grab a snack, and go sit by the river. Everything was right in the world.
The second day of our adventure, we were fortunate enough to meet an incredibly kind couple - Fred and Sarah. They allowed us to use their camper freezer to keep our food cold, and Fred also gave us a few recommendations for hiking spots. The trail we chose led us 3.5 miles up a mountain that brought us to a mountain lake, "Our Lake". Ya'll. This was one of the most stunning things I have ever seen. We're taking in our view from 7,000ft up, and then we turn to see this lake that has perfect turquoise water, and mountains framing it on each side. It felt like we had entered Narnia. Meeko (one of our dogs) swam in the crystal blue water, and we edged our way around to find a nice grassy spot to relax on the far side. Once we had gotten some rest, we started our journey back down the trail. Our dogs had been doing great all day, so we let them off the leash to have a little extra freedom. We were a mile from the car when a huge doe ran across the trail and Meeko took off. Penny is our older and more well-behaved dog, so when we called for them to stop, she actually stayed back. Meeko is 8 months old and is another story completely. He took off into the woods to catch this deer, not paying any mind to our screams. I immediately ran into the woods with Penny, so that she could track his scent while Steven stayed put on the trail so I would be able to find my way back. Here's the thing you have to realize about this situation: We were in the heart of bear country. Not the kind with curious black bears, but the kind that has us carrying bear spray in case we come across an aggressive grizzly. I had gone so far off trail that I could barely hear Steven screaming at the top of his lungs from behind me and my only thoughts were: "I am not going to lose my stupid dog in these mountains", and "A bear is going to kill me while I'm looking for my stupid dog". Finally, after 15 minutes of running and screaming through the woods, I found Meeko and - quite literally - dragged him back to the trail.
Once we got back to camp, we checked in with Fred and Sarah to thank them for the hiking recommendation. To our surprise, they decided to invite us over to their camp for a dinner of steak, vegetables, and elk. Considering the fact that we had planned on eating cheese-dogs, we jumped at this offer. The food was amazing, and we spent the rest of the night swapping stories about the beauty of Montana and the smothering humidity of Georgia. Eventually they mentioned how brave we were for sleeping in a tent in bear country. They go on to share stories about the bear encounters that have happened in the area, which aren't exactly pleasant. Eventually we head back to our camp, and neither one of us sharing with each other the fact that the stories have us a little shaken up. I remember thinking "I won't be able to sleep tonight now that I've heard about all these bear attacks", little did I know, Steven was thinking the exact same thing. Neither one of us were able to sleep well, and I even had a nightmare about a bear coming into our camp. Around 2 AM Steven grabbed my pant leg and starts shaking it violently, and I ask him what was going on. "There's something out there" he said - and as we got quiet, I could hear it too. Crunch...crunch...crunch. There were slow, heavy footsteps walking past our tent and towards our campfire. This was the exact same description that our friend Fred had given us when he shared his own bear encounter story. Steven is praying for an idea that will help us out of this situation, and the thought comes to his head to set off our car alarm to scare it away. We could still hear the bear rummaging around our camp while we're shuffling to find our keys in the tent. Finally, Steven had them in his hand, but before he set it off I grabbed my head lamp to look outside and see where the animal was. I slowly unzipped the mesh window and peeked outside. At first I couldn't see much, but then I saw something reflect in the light. One reflection went to two, and now I was looking straight into the eyes of a bear that was 20 feet away from me. It starts moving his head from left to right, trying to figure out what was going on, and then I violently whispered to Steven "Set the alarm! Set the alarm!". At 2 AM we set off our Jeep alarm, waking up everyone in the campsite, but the bear took off towards the river. We waited for a minute to see if the coast was clear then booked it to the Jeep. We sat in the car for about an hour when we heard something else behind the Jeep, but we couldn't see it. Paranoia had set in at this point so we set the alarm off for a third time. This caused one of our camp neighbors to come check on us to see what was going on. We told him our story, he heads back to his tent, but then immediately comes back to our camp. It turns out that our bear friend had visited his campsite first, because he had paw prints on his truck cover where it had tried to get into his food. Considering the fact that an hour or more had passed, and our Jeep is terribly uncomfortable, we actually got back into the tent and tried to get some rest. I said from the beginning of the trip that I wanted to see a bear, but that wasn't exactly what I had in mind. That was single-handedly the most terrifying experience of my life. Luckily, that was our last night at that location, and for the remainder of our trip we stayed with friends in their camper.
As you can see, that first half of our trip was a wild ride. Stay tuned for "Our Montana Road Trip: Part 2" to see what else we get into in this beautiful state! A story so nice, you'll have to read it twice. Enjoy the Part 1 video below!