Jeff and Theo's 2005 vacation in Montana

These are photographs and narratives about Theo and Jeff South's June 2005 vacation to Montana.

We flew into Spokane and stayed our first couple of nights at the hotel seen below in Couer D'Alene, Idaho. Nice place, perhaps a bit overrated for the price.

Jeff played a very solid round of golf (78) at a terrific course (the one with the movable island par 3). Then Theo and Jeff hiked into the mountains of Farragut State Park, wherein we promptly got lost. With darkness falling and no idea where we were, we were lucky to stumble upon a house under construction at the edge of the park, with a family of builders living in the garage. They fed us and took us back to our car, which was only about a mile away. Later, we spent some time going through the art shops in the town - pretty neat stuff.

The next day, we drove into Montana to the town of Whitefish, where we stayed at the Kandahar Lodge on Big Mountain. We had pre-rented a kitchen loft, but there were none available when we arrived. So, the hotel manager put us, for the same price, in the owner's apartment. It had a kitchen, dining room, sunken living room, three bedrooms, two baths, laundry facilities and two entrances. Not a bad place to stay for a few days!

This is a view from just above the hotel. We took a quick hike up to the top of the mountain - not bad, but nothing spectacular.

We were invited to participate that evening in a lecture about grizzly bears, complete with lots of pictures. It was very descriptive and led to Theo's decision not to hike any interesting trails unless there were lots of other people on them. That lecture may have spoiled any future hiking we do in the Rockies!

Next day we drove an hour or so to Glacier National Park. After some research, we decided to take a hike out to Avalanche Lake and back. The trail follows a little stream and is mostly forested. There were lots of people on the hike (and therefore, no grizzly bears.)

These are pictures of the stream we followed.

Here are Theo and Jeff at Avalanche Lake. It was a beautiful day.

Here's Theo in the crowd on the trail on the way back.

After an evening back in Whitefish, we returned the next day to Glacier National and took the Going to the Sun Road all the way across the park. We then circled south of the park back to Whitefish. The road is carved along the mountain sides and took many years to complete. We had rented a convertible and the views were just stunning. You can see the road along the mountains in the background in the picture below.

The rest of these pictures are some of the scenery we saw in the park.

This vacation had as much beauty as any of our trips to the Alps. In general, the hiking was not as spectacular, and there wasn't the intriguing "foreign" aspect one gets in the Alps, but all in all, this was still a great trip.