It was supposed to be a routine trip back to Helena but it turned out to be a “white knuckler” all the way.
We decided to have lunch with the Tempest team on Friday to go over the current status of the Glacier Blu-ray project. I planned to leave East Glacier late Thursday night or Friday morning. By mid-afternoon it was clear that a big storm was rolling in. I thought I could beat the storm so I grabbed my gear and headed left for Helena at about 4:30 or 5:00 in the afternoon.
As I left Browning I wondered if I should head east to I-15 rather than taking the usual route through Choteau and Augusta. I called Matt and he checked a number of road cams along the way and said that everything looked ok. So I headed south on Highway 89.
The trip ended up taking almost seven hours and was one of the most stressful drives I have ever had in Montana. Ice slush was falling from the sky and it was pretty much blizzard conditions the whole way. The wipers froze up but there was no way I could stop because the roads were so slick. I finally had a chance around Dupuyer or Choteau to pull off the road for a bit.
At times I wondered if the Tempest Cobalt just wasn’t made for these kind of trips but the ruts in the slush that wandered from one side of the road to the other made me realize that other drivers were having the same fun.
I finally made it to Helena. Wow my nice little cabin in East Glacier never looked so good!