We left Cabela’s with the intention of stopping for a hike at lunchtime, then getting to Helena, then finding someplace close to camp for the night which seemed like it would be easy since the entire area is National Forest. Tom wanted to get settled earlier rather than later because he had more work to do for his Belize client, so this seemed like a good plan. Around lunchtime, I looked at All Trails for a nice place to take a hike, and found a perfect 4 mile loop around Skidway Campground, just before Townsend. We pulled off at the campground sign, and drove around the campground looking for the trail head. We found the trail head, but we also found a perfect beautiful spot where we really wanted to spend the night, so we decided to check in, eat lunch, and go for a hike. The hike was lovely, winding along a creek, through a pine forest, and then up a hill though a meadow strewn with all colors of wildflowers to a majestic 360 degree view of the mountains at just above 6,000 feet. We took longer than planned on the hike because we spent a lot of time gawking at the views, but since we had decided not to move, Tom had time to get his work done.
In the morning, we did the hike in reverse before setting off for Helena. Tom had determined that his project was going to take longer than anticipated, and he needed good reliable internet, so we contacted our friend Lisa in Missoula who we had planned to visit anyway and asked if we could camp in her back alley for a few days until Tom finished the project. Lisa said it was fine, so we shopped and did a few errands in Helena before visiting the Capitol, which isn’t the biggest or the fanciest or the most beautiful, but which is set in the middle of the small city and definitely holds its own as far as stateliness goes.
We walked around the city, and then started the drive to Missoula. We took the back roads rather than the highway so we could see more of the scenery, and this turned out to be a great decision since we got in the middle of a serious hailstorm. On the county road, we had no trouble pulling over, along with a lot of other people, until the storm passed. If we had been on the interstate, we would have had to have kept driving, and kept up our speed, just to be safe. That would have been miserable, and probably not very safe for us either way, so we were glad we had decided to back road it. The weather holdup was only a short time, so we still made it into Missoula in time to go to an indoor picnic - because of the weather - with Lisa and some of her friends.
