Southwestern Montana is sure some beautiful country. Today we drove north out of eastern Idaho into West Yellowstone, Montana, a very small town which sits just outside the park's western boundary. The road, U.S. 20, is excellent and the scenery around Henry's Fork (of the Snake River) and Island Park is pleasant. I particularly enjoyed the drive between there and West Yellowstone, through second (or third) growth conifer forests that have been logged off, replanted, and will be ready to log again in 20-30 years.
Tomorrow we will drive around Yellowstone National Park, as we have done for several decades. We marvel at how it looks just as it did when we first saw it together in the early 1970s. The 1988 fire damage is healing; fire causes lodgepole pinecones to pop open and reseed the land. The regrowth trees are maybe 6 feet tall, quite an accomplishment when you realize the growing season at 8000 ft. elevation is about 45 days a year. Lots more than half of the park didn't burn, and looks exactly as it did when I first saw it with my parents, staring out the windows of an old Chevrolet sedan full of camping gear.
