ACROSS THE DIVIDE
	Hippo's vacation: through the states of American Northwest, section Montana. Yellowstone, WY precedes, MT-ID-WA-OR-CA. follows.

... continued (from Yellowstone, WY).

	Eagle Park, MT: view from my camping place to the east.

	Eagle Park, MT: a rock plant.

Montana is the best place. A law says to use reasonable and prudent speed, thus I could finally drive my wagon up to its capabilities (i.e. typically 80 mph on winding roads and 95 mph straight). What would be normal for European circumstances, is (almost) unheard of in America. Speed limits in other U.S. states disappoint me deeply; it seems to be such a flaw on otherwise omnipresent practicality of the nation.

I advanced northwards on highway 89, rolling hills of grass passed by, interlaced with evergreen forests, snow covered mountain ranges in the distance. Uncounted signs flanked the route, emphasizing historical importance of every other river bend; Montana used to be the main thoroughfare for pioneer expeditions. White man civilization came this way west, so did the damnation of red man. I did not mention it yet, but since Nevada I was (as frequently reminded by those signs) following tracks of a famous exploration route of Colonels Lewis & Clark. My personal opinion is that they zigzagged the Northwest so confusingly one would have hard time not to travel on one of their routes.

	Peaceful landscape of Little Belt Mountains.

	20 miles around, there's not a soul in the forest.

I realized Montana was not densely populated -- in land like that it seems unwise to rely on credit and ATM cards for in small towns, they are less likely to own those appropriate gadgets to cash plastic. Hungry, I made a wrong turn right (instead of left). After driving over fresh tar for a while I did not feel like returning, so I continued to Little Belt Mountains instead of Big Belt Mountains. I stopped at a bank in White Sulphur Springs; they would not give me cash, sending me away to a ATM-equipped gas station, but they gave me advice where to eat well -- about 13 miles down the highway. Disbelieving my abilities to find such place, I went on into the mountains and towards the evening thinking, he who sleeps feels almost like having eaten. Despite the fact I made a right-angle turn, once my mile counter rolled over a virtual thirteen, a FOOD sign appeared left of the road, and a neon light said OPEN. I swear that place found me, not vice versa.

	Eagle Park, MT: Common Puffhead.

	Montana: 82 mph on a forest road.

Jim, owner of the club & restaurant, knew right away what I came for. He pulled out a map they use in winter when riding snowmobiles. I did not need to explain anything; he described the way to spots I would want to sleep and hike; he gave me the map. We had a nice chat, with him and several other guests, about living in Montana (and a little bit about Silicon Valley), I ate an excellent steak, got pleasantly surprised by yet another Montana specialty (no sales tax!), showed off with my GPS, and left for the hills.
It seemed close on the map, but driving 40 miles on a narrow, dusty, unpaved road at 40-60 mph is a sensation, my small personal rallye. Big clouds of dust were expanding behind me and I plunged into uninhabited area of the Lewis & Clark National Forest. The recommended spot is called Eagle Park and just the look of it gave me again better understanding of Western English: the word park is understood in these parts as a forest interlaced with natural clearings.

	Glacier National Park, MT.

	Glacier, MT: Going to the Sun Road.

Having listened to Zimmerman's Visionary, I slept like a log. Following day I hiked all over the mountains, about which there is not much to write, as my strong feelings of belonging (this is the place!) and 360 degree vista from a bald summit are ungraspable. I even found a hole that might have been a bear's den, abandoned now for summer -- even so, I did not hang around it even for a moment. I stopped at Jim's in the afternoon, to thank him once again for the good tip, then continued westward, to the Rocky Mountains.

Only now I was "paying" for the detour I took by mistake, as I already said. All bad things bring some good. Had I taken no detour, I would never have seen those wonderful Little Belt Mountains; north of them, in the Great Falls area, I got the sense of the flatness of central and eastern Montana -- out of there, quick. But neither highways, 200 and 83, winding through Rockies, were that scenic, despite their map marking. Or was I already being so spoilt? I spent the night at a motel (yes I need to take a shower sometimes), which usually costs about $30 in small, unknown towns. The odometer rolled over 3000 miles.

	A marmot and a mountain goat.

	Mount Jackson.

It begun to be remarkable, and very much so, at Glacier National Park, my next planned reference point. They built a road here, cutting across the park from west to east, through Logan Pass, 6646 feet, and named it Going to the Sun Road. It is 53 miles long and so breathtaking that I went up and down three times! West-east direction is by a touch better than otherwise. Its beauty kept intensifying as new vistas of steep valleys crowned by glaciers on mountaintops opened before me. Waterfalls and rock overhangs channeled omnipresent water to rain on my car, while driving through the clouds in slanted, contrastful sunlight remembered me of Norway and Trollstigen in Romsdal Mountain Range.

One can take advantage of a multitude of trails and walk out into the surrounding landscape a little at Logan Pass. I managed to see and take pictures of a marmot who was phlegmatically chewing on a pole supporting a tourist walkway; a mountain goat, crazy looking white furry mess of an animal, less purely white than I expected, one that I had always wished to glimpse, knowing it only from travel magazines. A fresh wind was blowing and I found myself engulfed by fog/cloud from time to time. I may really be a madman, since I appeared as such to other hikers who were cuddled in their winter jackets and sweatpants, for they kept asking me if I was all right: I wore just a T-shirt and shorts for the mountain breeze was well compensated by a blazing sun. Well, they may have been skinnier than I am, but I was not cold.

	Black bear, brown variety.

	Glacier, MT: Keeps on melting.

I truly cannot say I was there alone. Fame of the pretty sight must be a great tourist magnet and the roads and parking lots were packed full accordingly. Fortunately, at 6500 feet the great outdoors feel a trifle more rough than, let us say, Yellowstone, so those spoiled city dudes never left their cars.

Bears are known to be the menace of national parks of the Northwest, both smaller black bears and giant grizzlies. Black bears do not like eating man much, just when they take your food, you must not try to grab it back. I did not have much food with me and no bear came to claim it. Articles in a newspaper I received at the park gate suggest in a silly, illogical way, that the best thing to do when you encounter a bear is to avoid encountering it at all. Grizzly bears fame as much more evil, they eat people, as they did with a lone hiker not long ago somewhere in the southern corner of the Park. He was eventually identified by comparing the few remains with dental records. My friend Mark, who passed me this information, tried at the same time to discourage me from going to the woods there alone. But what should I do when nobody wants to come along?

	Largest of the mushrooms.

	Smallest of the mushrooms.

So I saw one bear eventually, although I am almost ashamed how it happened. No trip to a gloomy wilderness, no careful waiting. A stall on the road, people running around in all directions, encumbered with image recording technology, traffic breakdown. I shot the picture shown here through the window of my wagon praying not to hit the car in front of me while I was zooming, and not to run over some eager video-witch. Before I could ditch the wagon, the bear, according to some self-appointed specialists who hung around, a brown version of a black bear, let go of something that had interested him on the edge of a cliff, and receded into a shade out of the reach of our objectives. Many latecomers saw the bear only on the display of my apparatus.

I recalled the man-eating grizzly again only when I found myself looking for a place to sleep at the eastern side of the park, where it turns into Indian reservation and a national forest. A nice spot appeared to be near Marias Pass on highway 2. I found no bears, but a whole family of king mushrooms instead. Not having any way to use them, it sufficed that I took their pictures - there were 12 of them, the smallest the size of a champagne cork, the largest two the size of food plates. Yellow square on each picture is a 3.5" floppy, for scale.

	Glacier.

	Chief Mountain in background.

I woke up refreshed, so I took the sun road for the second time. This turn it was sunnier and more tourist-infested, well, it was Saturday. I had to choose. Return through the same breathtaking pass or continue on north to Canada. At an information center, Alberta had a neat tourist-luring house, but the ladies dwelling therein were less than certain whether a Czech citizen may enter Canada sans neckbreaking bureaucracy, or not. I would like to use this opportunity to thank our fellow Gipsy Czechs and their newsmedia insinuators, who are the reason for my borderline trouble and insecurity.

From my professional experience I know Canada to be a proud to distinguish itself from its southern neighbor and for example its banking clerks indulge in their different approach, compared to United Stately ones. In other words, I had a very good chance to be unable to exchange currency until first opening Monday (late) morning. Having also spoken with Canadians who just arrived (don't get me wrong, I hold nothing against individual Canadians, who are very nice and pleasant people), I was told it had rained in Calgary for last three days. I gave them some new hope letting them know it rained in Montana only during nights, while days were sun-baked, and I decided to stay in the U.S.

continuing (MT-ID-WA-OR-CA) ...