Montana: Mini Travel Itinerary

If there’s one thing we’ve already learned with being on the road full-time for a month now, it’s that things don’t always go according to plan. Montana is beautiful for sure, but this July’s fire season seems to be worse than normal as far as we can tell, so it’s been incredibly hot and smoky for our short time here. We had originally wanted to do almost a month here, but since it was hard to find campsites with enough service for me to work, on top of it being too hot and too smoky to even see most of the mountains, we decided to head out to find cooler, clearer weather after 2 weeks.

The first place we stayed at for 2 nights was this large city campground near Columbus. The campground was free, with a 14 day stay limit, and was right on the Yellowstone river, which was great for Sam to swim. There were lots of spaces available, with about half being large enough for big RVs and trailers and the other half for tent camping, and the park stayed relatively busy while we were there, but there were always a couple spots available.

Next, we began heading up North toward Glacier and stayed at a GORGEOUS free spot on top of a mountain. The road up to the top is dirt/gravel with plenty of potholes, but any size rig can make it up if you go slow, as long as you aren’t super low clearance. This spot had a really amazing view, but while we were there it was VERY smoky, and we actually had firefighters repeatedly coming up to use it as a lookout to try to find a possible new fire reported in the area. The spot is pretty windy and we did have a small lightning storm that night as well, but for a one-night stopover it was still really great and so worth it!

From there, we went up to a boondocking spot known as Goose Head Campground on Hungry Horse Reservoir. This is a really beautiful spot right on the water, but it’s down a 3 mile long washboard gravel road with absolutely zero service for any provider. Since there wasn’t service for me to be able to work, we only stayed for a few days, rather than a couple weeks like we were hoping. The location is really amazing though if you don’t need service, because the lake is absolutely gorgeous with warm, clear water, and it’s only 20 minutes away from West Glacier. We arrived on a Saturday and it was super busy all weekend, but we still managed to get the last spot right on the water. On Monday and Tuesday it quieted down a bit since all the rowdy weekenders had gone, but the area stayed pretty full the whole time, so definitely get there early in the day for the best chance to find a spot.

While we were here, we would have done Glacier National Park, but dogs are only allowed to do the Going to the Sun road drive, not hikes, and since it was so smoky we ended up skipping it since it would have been hard to see anything. Instead, we did the Stanton Lake Hike, which is very much like the Avalanche Lake trail in glacier. The hike is about 4 miles long, and ends at a really pretty glacial lake that you can swim in. The trail wasn’t too hard, but there are a LOT of bugs and the hike is in prime bear country, so go prepared with lots of bug and bear spray.

Our next spot turned out to be one of our favorites of the whole trip so far. Owl Creek Packer Camp is an awesome boondocking spot at a packer camp for the local outfitters. There are lots of different campsits, plenty large enough for a big rig, and there are even electric hookups at 3 sites completely for free. We were lucky enough to grab the very last site with electric, since the other two had what looked like long-term residents even though the max stay is 16 days. This spot is a 1 minute drive down to a BEAUTIFUL lake, called Holland Lake. The campground there along the shoreline is super pretty, but no sites have any hookups and all are paid, so I definitely recommend staying at the free packer camp instead.

We spent most of our time at this spot hanging out by the lake, which has crystal clear water and isn’t freezing cold.

One evening we did the hike to Holland falls, which is a relatively easy hike to an amazing large waterfall. This parking lot is always super busy, and the trail is extremely busy during the day and weekends, but since we went in the evening we actually had the falls all to ourselves for a few minutes.

The hike follows along the shoreline of the lake, which is how we learned about a GORGEOUS little spot out on a peninsula in a little lagoon. The next day we decided to spend the whole day just relaxing on the lake at this spot, and we had it all to ourselves. It really is the perfect swimming spot, and we’d love to come back one day.