Colorado to Canada

By Eilene Lyon

After our visit to Rifle Falls State Park, we spent the next five days taking scenic routes from Colorado to Canada. We drove through Meeker (been there before) and stopped in Craig to fill our propane and get a Montana gazetteer (because detailed paper maps are the best!). Then we headed to the far northwest corner of Colorado, where it abuts Utah and Wyoming.

This remote, sheltered valley is known as Browns Park. The first whites to visit and overwinter were fur trappers in the 1830s. This was one of the last areas of Colorado to receive homesteaders, when the Utes were removed from the area to a reservation in Utah in 1881. It was a favorite hide-out for outlaws since they could quickly move between the three states. We stopped to view the Gates of Lodore, the entrance to a canyon of the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument.

From there, we made a stop on the Utah side of Browns Park to see the John Jarvie ranch. Jarvie was a Scottish immigrant to Rock Springs, Wyoming, where he kept a saloon. After his marriage, he and his wife settled along the Green River where they opened a trading post serving a radius of 75 miles.

Jarvie’s wife Nellie died at a young age of tuberculosis, so Jarvie taught his four sons mathematics, music, and many other subjects. His home was always open to travelers, but one day the wrong sort stopped by. Jarvie was murdered by thieves in 1909 and is buried in the Lodore Cemetery on the Colorado side of the park. You can read his story in my book, What Lies Beneath Colorado.

Leaving Jarvie’s place, we continued northwest, driving through Utah and the last 8 miles in Wyoming to US 191. This section of road was horrible washboard! I tried driving slow, but it was intolerable, so I sped up and “floated” our heavy van over the ridges, hoping not to wind up in a ditch.

Finding no good remote camp site along this stretch of US 191, we spent the night at the huge county fairgrounds campground in Rock Springs. When there are no events (as then), the place is practically deserted, and well away from the freeway noise. It had wonderful restrooms and full hook-ups for just $30 a night, a bargain.

The next day we drove the route over South Pass, which hardly rises above the surrounding terrain. This was where the Oregon and California Trail migrants crossed the Continental Divide. Though not terribly higher in altitude than where we live, it was quite chilly and windy up there.

Our route took us to Cody, east of Yellowstone (been there, done that), then we drove north on the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway (WY 296) and crossed a divide at Dead Indian Point and camped below at the Dead Indian Forest Service campground. The grim name is a reminder of the 1877 Nez Perce War and their flight away from the U.S. Army toward Canada. It’s believed the route Chief Joseph took with his people went east from where we camped. We did a gorgeous hike in the area the next morning.

View from Dead Indian Point in northwestern Wyoming.

On our hike we went to where we could peer into the canyon of the Clark Fork River

The next amazing scenic route was US 212, which includes a section that summits Beartooth Pass at 10,947 ft. Plenty of snow remained–and people to ski on it, too. There is even a chair lift running up there. Skiers park at the TOP of the lift and ski down. Some skiers simply hiked the area peaks. This highway drops down into Red Lodge, Montana. Certainly one of the more spectacular drives in the entire country.

We continued on to an RV park in Big Timber, Montana, and had a very nice breakfast at a local restaurant in the morning. We drove a short section of I-90, then took US 89 up to Great Falls.

Seeing the falls was on my must-do list. These falls on the Missouri River were a big obstacle to the Corps of Discovery on their route to the Pacific. It surprised me that they are not in the city named for them. In fact, it was quite a detour over a poorly paved road. We discovered that the real draw was an “island” just below the falls. The locals love picnicking there. Just upstream of the falls is the Ryan Dam.

Our final destination before driving up to Canada was East Glacier. Here we stayed in a very nice cabin at Traveler’s Rest and had dinner at Serrano’s Mexican restaurant. We stopped briefly at the beautiful Glacier Park Lodge with its tree trunk construction inside. We skipped the park, having also been there before.

From the lodge, we took a road you don’t see on the big U.S. Road Atlas, even on the Glacier National Park inset: MT 49. Though signs said “No vehicles over 21 feet,” we had no trouble in our 22-foot van with bike rack on the back. I think they really do not want bus-sized RVs or semis. Once we hit US 89 again, we crossed the border into Canada, with little fanfare.

Feature image: The Gates of Lodore on the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument.