Our trip to the West wasn’t just about driving. But it’s the West, after all. Driving was the keystone of the trip, and sometimes the icing on the cake.

North from Helena, Montana on US 287 & US 89

Helena, Montana, and its surprising charms fade pretty quickly into scrubby, arid high hills north of town on I-15. That day, August 22, was bright as summer, but not blazing hot. That Interstate will take you to the Montana towns of Great Falls and Shelby, and on to one of those border posts with Canada that closes for the night after 10 pm.

We weren’t going there. Destination: a campground just outside the east entrance of Glacier National Park. So soon we left the Interstate for US 287, a main road through Lewis and Clark County and then Teton County, and which passed through the most golden brown territory I’ve ever seen.

Many signs were up in Montana and Wyoming warning one and all about the extreme dryness and the high risk of wild fire, and I believed them. Still, no roads were closed, so we went on. We drove past a lot dry grasslands, much of which was probably for grass crops, just a cigarette flicked out of a pickup away from a dangerous inferno. But a what a great color.

That the photos barely capture.

US 287 ends at the Teton county seat, Choteau, from which you take US 89 north. The dry grasslands continued, looking less like cropland, so dry even cattle are scarce.

A steppe, yes?

Yes. But with mountains growing larger, off to the west, the further north we went. Off in that direction, that is, west – was the beginning of the Mountain West, the foothills and low ranges marking the beginning of the Rockies. By the time we got to St. Mary’s, an entrance on the east side of Glacier NP, the mountains were lording over the flatlands, just off in the distance, and getting closer all the time.

All in all, a fairly low stress, high scenic value road. At times we were the only car, and only humans, within sight, though that’s something of an illusion. There are people around, just not that many.