Montana

The window of our ‘Super 8’ motel room in Butte, Montana is fogged up this morning, a sure sign that it’s still winter where we are. 

We did not only take our chances by staying in Black Diamond another night, but were promptly rewarded for it, too: when we left at 7:30 yesterday morning it had just started to snow. This was no northern Alberta prairie snow either, but the real thing: big flakes so close to each other that they seemed to be just one white mass. Hardly anybody was on the road that early on a Sunday morning, which was fortunate since with every oncoming vehicle a white cloud swirled around us and made it impossible to see more than a few meters ahead. The wind had plastered snow against the traffic signs, and it was quite difficult to read directions that way, so we made one involuntary detour soon after we had left already. This could be an interesting day! 

Once we turned onto Highway 2 south we expected the situation to improve: at least we wouldn’t have to deal with that particular problem on a four-lane highway, and surely the snowplows would be out in force. We had looked at the radar screen, too, and knew the storm system was most intense right around Calgary. Lethbridge would be hit later in the day, with winds gusting up to 80 km/h – not a good situation for highway travel. We needed to make sure that we were gone from the area when it did. For the first hour and a half it was treacherous: snowplows had not gone through yet, it was slippery, and visibility was very poor. Then, suddenly, the snowcover got less and less, roads improved, we could differentiate between sky and earth again, and see to the left and right. Here, about 100 km north of Lethbridge, cows and geese were grazing peacefully side by side in a stubble field. 

By the time we reached the US border at Sweetgrass, MT at noon there was hardly any snow left in the ditches. The wide sweeping prairie stretched out ahead, the sky was almost blue, and soon we could see the Rockies again in the distance. 

Big Sky Country

 

 

 

Since there was a winter storm warning for northwestern Montana, we decided not to spend the night in Great Falls as originally planned, but drive on to Butte where it was supposed to be better. We did stop in Dutton, however, a tiny place in the middle of nowhere about 50 km north of Great Falls. Here, Johann had spent half a year on a farm 40 years ago, and we had visited his former boss on our first trip to Montana in 1994. By now, he had passed away, but his widow still lives in Dutton. 

Driving up main street it felt as if time had stood still here. Houses looked the same as they did when we were here last, and then they had looked the same as they did twenty years earlier. Nobody was out and about on a Sunday afternoon in March: the whole place looked deserted. How many of these small towns may be scattered throughout the farming areas of the west? Towns that must have been lively, if not booming at some time, hubs of social life for the surrounding farm families. Now, they are dying out, one by one, the population is aging, young people are moving away. Yet there is still a hint of what was: the stout brick catholic church, the newer Lutheran church at the end of town, not far from the elevator, front porches with rocking chairs and flower pots – maybe Dutton is only waiting for spring, as everybody else.

Soon after Great Falls the road climbed higher and higher, and just north of Helena we stopped for a beautiful view of the Missouri far below. The wind was still very strong, however, and the temperature just above freezing, which soon drove us back to the car. We had stopped here in the summer of 2004 as well, and I was pleased to recognize the spot.

The next leg of the journey was a pleasant drive, roads clear, though there was still solid snow on the hillsides right and left. Just north of Butte we crossed the Continental Divide at about 1900m, and shortly after that the roads were suddenly icy again: the wind had driven newly-fallen snow across, and we now were certainly back in winter. 

The sun was shining on Butte when we descended the last hill, and ‘Our Lady of the Mountains’, a  27m high statue erected high on a hilltop above the city honouring the women who had helped to open up this country to white settlers, glowed white against the deep blue sky.