We made the drive from Mount Rushmore to Glacier National Park (which was our next major destination) in two days. Almost all of that drive was in Montana and we saw some amazing scenery along the way. Montana was the first state on this trip that Charity and I had not been to before, so everything we saw along the way was new for the whole family. Some might think that driving across Montana (especially the east side) is long and boring, but I loved seeing the countryside and watching how it changed as we went farther west. We were technically in Wyoming for around 20 miles (long enough to get our picture with the sign), but really didn’t get to drive through or experience the state.
For about 75 miles through western South Dakota, the few miles we drove in the northeast corner of Wyoming, and the eastern end of Montana there were pronghorn antelope everywhere. All you had to do was look out the window and you would see them. Sometimes one or two and other times they seemed to be everywhere. That was a neat experience. The eastern Montana landscape is not flat, but rather rolling hills similar to North Dakota only a little rougher in appearance with more pronounced rocks and hills sticking up all around. Not mountainous though and you can see for what feels like forever. No wonder they call Montana ‘Big Sky Country’.
Our route took us right through the location of the Little Bighorn Battle (also known as Custer’s Last Stand) between General Custer’s army and the collection of Indian tribes. There is a memorial there that you can pay $20 to see, however, they were closed by the time we got there so we just looked from the road. Then we ended up in Billings, Montana for the night.
We also made a stop in Helena to tour the Montana state capitol building and spent about 2 hours there before driving north to Glacier. It was interesting because South Dakota had purchased the capitol building blueprints from Montana when they built theirs and so the South Dakota Capitol is very similar to Montana. The decor inside is different and some things have been renovated over time, but the basic floor plan and layout is the same and apparently Montana’s was the original.
Fun at the capitol grounds:
The drive from Helena to Glacier is really beautiful and one I would highly recommend. Most of it is not in the mountains but you have great views of the mountains on the west with the flatter prairie to the east. As you get close to Glacier NP you ascend into the mountains which are phenomenal and the last 15 miles includes free roaming cattle and horses which are literally all over the road as well as other places.
We had reserved 3 nights in the St Mary campground just inside the National Park on the east side of Glacier. They showed the max RV length to be 35 feet online. Ours is 38 feet plus bikes, but we decided to chance it. We arrived during daylight hours thankfully and it was indeed very tight. After some maneuvering however we were able to get it in and set up. There were some other sites that would have been no problem and some that we could not have fit in. While our site wasn’t as good as some, thankfully it was workable and we were in and setup before dark.
When we first left the Black Hills of South Dakota I got a chance to try out how we fared going down longer and steeper inclines. The first pass wasn’t so good and ended up with us on the side of the road half way down to let our brakes cool. I learned from that though and we didn’t have any further trouble. Some of the things I changed from the first major descent was to
- Avoid keeping the brake depressed for long periods of time but to instead alternate between braking and not braking
- Start the descent at a slow speed to begin with
- Downshift to a lower gear
- Avoid letting your speed get too fast before braking
Using these four things we successfully have navigated through the Black Hills of South Dakota, Glacier National Park in Montana, and the endless mountains including North Cascades National Park in Washington without any other episodes on the side of the road to let the brakes cool. The truck has performed like a champ too, pulling us up all kinds of mountains with no trouble whatsoever.