Into the big sky

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No bears in camp last night.
I set off at 8am hoping to aviod the days rush of new tourists.
For the first half of the trip out of the park as was reasonably quiet but this soon changed and soon became an almost constant stream of traffic into the park.
Luckilly I was going the other way.
I had a brief stop at the first town out of the park (now in Montana) for a coffee that I felt that I needed.
As usual around the parks the gas prices were suitably inflated so the car had to wait for its drink.
Montana, like Yellowstone I had great hopes for it, having never been there but seeing alot about it on TV and being told about its great scenery, wildlife and the lack of people I was worried that it would be like Yellowstone.
Although there is nothing really wrong with Yellowstone I think that in some ways it is a victum of itself.
It is hyped and promoted so much I feel that it ends up for other people a bit as it did for me, not as good as I expected.
However Montana is different, it is very unpretentious and is everything I had hoped for, beautiful scenery, quiet roads.
It seems that everybody heads for yellowstone and hardly a soul went any further to Montana, which has the wildlife and even better scenery.
I saw more cycle tourists on the road today than in the wole rest of the trip so far.
Wish I could join them on their bikes.
I made my way up Highway 25 and turned off to have a look at Virginia city
What a cool little town.
It looks almost as if nothing has changed since the 1800's.
Most of the buildings appear mostly origional, some are being used as shops, some are improvised museams and others are just origional and empty.
One or two of them are also getting propped up to stop them falling over.
The origional (looking) wooden foot path is also in place.
I didn't manage to stay long as I was only there to look and I got chased away by a storm.
Would love to go back and stay sometime.
From there I made my way back up highway 287 and made my way to Helena where I stopped for some supplies (food etc)
I didn't have time to stop and have a proper look at the city, but I headed north up I15 from there through some very nice gorges before cutting off again onto Highway 287 and into the tiny town of Augusta.
I went to stop in at the ranger station for some info on the local area and camping.
The station which shuts at 5 was firmly locked at 4.
So I just headed out of town for the Gibson resivour which according to my map has a camping ground at it.
The road for most of the way is unsealed, only the first and last bits are sealed.
There is 2 camp grounds here once you get into the mountains, the first looks as if it is little used and is very overgrown.
A few miles further up through an impressive gorge and over a pass is the main campground which is maintained.
It is in a nice wooded area which appraently has a healthy bear population.
A bear had been spotted in the camp the previous day .
So being as brave as I am, I placed my tent between the camp managers caravan and a group of other campers for protection.
Hope it works.

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Photos

Flooded valley
Lake formed by slip caused by an earthquake.

Virginia City
The real deal, now where are my spurs..

Just as it was
And hardly a tourist to be seen.

Heading for the camp
Up the first valley, left at the third bear....

Near the camp
And hardly a person to be found.