Helena, Montana - May 2nd to 3rd, 2022
Helena was a pleasant surprise for us. We had been there once before during Season One (Hot Springs and Ice Cream: Thermopolis, Wyoming - July 10, 2019), but did not have time to check out the town. This time we strolled around the city and still didn’t see everything.
As we started our drive on Monday from Garryowen to Helena in Montanna, we stopped back in to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. The day before, we had forgotten to buy a sticker. We are collecting stickers from locations that are run by the National Park Service, such as national parks, national monuments, national historical sites, and national seashores. The sink cabinet door in our Red Tail Lodge (our van) is already full of stickers and we’ve made a lot of progress on our refrigerator door.
Heading west, more snow-capped mountains came into view. We were passing just to the north of Yellowstone National Park, about 50 miles or so away. We want to go back to Yellowstone since our visit there last year was cut short (Yellowstone NP: Canyon Area, Wyoming - June 14th, 2021). However, not this season. Yellowstone will have to be added to a future trip.
Along the way to Helena, we stopped in Bozeman for lunch. Ann was there on a business trip about fifteen years ago. She remembers eating at a place called Burger Bob’s which had a lot of character. Ann also wanted to check out the downtown area because it was below zero when she was here before, so it was not comfortable to be walking around. Sure enough, Burger Bob’s was still in business, so we ate lunch there. The place has a fun atmosphere and a sense of humor. Oh, and the burgers were tasty as well. We walked a few blocks of the downtown area. Bozeman is a vibrant town with a nice mix of new and old in their downtown area. We’ve added it to our list of places to come back to and do it justice.
Our plan was to spend two nights in Black Sandy State Park campground, about half an hour outside of Helena. It was still their off-season, so all the sites were first come/first serve. The weather was beautiful by the time we reached Helena with sunny skies and warm temperatures. Instead of making sure we could get a campground site first, we decided to gamble and check out Helena. Our first stop was Park Avenue Bakery in the downtown area. It is a European style bakery with all sorts of goodies and breads. We both picked out a sweet treat and a cup of chai. Ann couldn’t resist the wonderful looking breads and picked up a French baguette to have with dinner.
For the next two hours, we wandered around the downtown area, checking out many of the historical buildings. The city has a wonderful variety of interesting and beautiful architecture, such as the state capitol building, the original governor’s mansion, the Masonic Temple, and the store fronts along the Walking Mall. Even after two hours, there was still more to see. We did not make it over to the cathedral. As we were driving out, Ann spotted Reeder’s Alley which looked interesting from the quick glance she caught of it. We made plans to come back the next day.
It was close to 6 pm by the time we reached the campground. Our gamble paid off. There were plenty of sites to choose from. We were only one of three sites taken the whole night. The price of the sites seemed a little high. For an out-of-state camper, the site was $30 per night which included electric hookups and the daily park entrance fee. It would have been nice to have an off-season rate since the flush bathrooms were closed and the water was turned off. There were vault toilets available which were clean, so we had everything we needed.
The camp sites are located on the shore of Hauser Lake, a damned reservoir of the Missouri River. After dinner, we sat in our camp chairs, staring at the lake and listening to the birds. The spring hormones must have been raging, because the Canadian geese were squawking incessantly most of the evening. In the twilight hours, we watched a loon on the lake diving for his dinner.
We could feel the humidity increasing in the air as a dark cloud producing virga passed overhead. For those of you not familiar with the dry climate phenomenon, virga is when rain falls from the clouds but evaporates before it reaches the ground. Just after we turned in for the night, the real rain started. Perfect timing.
Tuesday was cloudy and drizzling rain, so we headed into Helena to run some errands. It was time to shop for groceries and we needed to dump our gray water and fill our fresh water jugs. The AllStays app helped us find an RV dump in town, at a Cenex gas station. They also had potable water. Yay!
Nearby was an Ace Hardware store, so we stopped in for 12 inch vice grips wrench that will open to 2 1/2 inches. The passenger seat in our Red Tail Lodge was getting hard to swivel again and we didn’t have anything large enough to fit the large nut under the seat to loosen it. This time, loosening the nut didn’t fully fix the issue. Keith put a few drops of T-9 on the rollers. That seemed to help. We’ll see how long that will last.
After lunch, the rain stopped and the sun came out. While we were in town, we decided to visit the Park Avenue Bakery again for another pastry and chai. Just a block away was Reeder’s Alley, so we walked over there to check it out. It is a row of brick buildings that Louis Reeder, a brick and stone mason, built in the 1870’s for the miners to live in. They are so cute! Ann is so glad she spotted them the day before.
We returned to the campground in the early afternoon. There was a sign for an Overlook Trail, so we explored where it went. The trail was just under a mile and a half round trip with an elevation gain of only 289 feet. It went to the top of the neighboring hill. And yes, there is a nice overlook of the lake and the surrounding area from the top.
Ann wanted to get a few more miles in for the day, so she walked down the road to Hauser Dam. The dam is about a mile and a half from the campground, so just under three miles round trip and pretty flat. However, she would not recommend it. The road is gravel and narrow. She stayed alert the whole time to anticipate when vehicles were coming so she could make sure she was not caught in a narrow section when the vehicle passed her. There is a rock cliff rising up on one side of the road and a steep drop off (no guard rails) down to the lake on the other. At one of the sharp turns, there is a mirror so people can see around the corner for oncoming traffic. There are also two white crosses indicating that two people had perished at the curve.
The public is not allowed to drive across the dam, but you can walk across. There are National Forest Service trails on the other side. However, Ann did not cross over. It was time to start heading back.
Along the way she spotted the loon that we were watching on the lake the night before. He seemed to swim alongside her most of the way back to the campground.
She also spotted western grebes and black-necked grebes. She had never seen a black-necked or eared grebe before, that she can recall. It took a little googling to figure out what it was. Grebes are similar to ducks, but have lobed toes instead of webbed feet.
We are so glad we came back to Helena. Our impression of the city definitely changed this time around. The first time all we visited was the laundromat and McDonald’s, not the recommended way to check out a town. There was so many nice areas to see. If you are passing through Montana, it is definitely worth a stop and a stroll.
Check out our related video: Helena, Montana
(Ann)