golfkat Travel Blog

Things you never knew about Montana. I certainly did not!

The coldest temperature ever recorded in the contiguous U.S. was at Rogers Pass at -70 degrees F., back in 1954.

Montana is the only state with a triple divide. Waters flows into the Pacific, Atlantic, and Hudson Bay. This phenomenon occurs at Triple Divide Peak, located in Glacier National Park.

Flathead Lake, near to where we are staying in Bigfork, covers 191 square miles. It is the largest fresh water lake west of the Mississippi River.

In Montana, there are 1.4 elk, 1.4 pronghorn, 3.3 deer and 896 fish per square mile.

If you are ever in the southeast corner of Montana, Alzada, you are closer to the Texas panhandle than you are to the northwest corner of the state.

Wolf season started Sunday, September 15. There is a five wolf limit, with 825 wolves, and 6000 permits issued. The wolves pose a danger to livestock and elk herds.

The largest snowflake ever recorded was 15 inches, back in 1887.

Just outside of Livingston (cute town we visited some years ago) is where Robert Redford filmed “The Horse Whisperer.”

There are 48,000 Native Americans living here, representing 11 tribes.

The longest river here is the Missouri, which flows 1,029 miles from Three Forks to the North Dakota border.

Makoshika is the state’s largest prairie, 11,400 square miles of layered rock formations, with lots of pine and junipers, and fossil remains of dinosaurs.

The buffalo burgers here are Fantastically good, and lower in fat than beef.

The Going-to-the-Sun Road was completed in 1932 and is a spectacular 50 mile, paved two-lane highway that bisects the park east and west. It spans the width of Glacier National Park, crossing the Continental Divide at 6,646-foot-high Logan Pass. It passes through almost every type of terrain in the park, from large glacial lakes and cedar forests in the lower valleys to windswept alpine tundra atop the pass. Scenic viewpoints and pullouts line the road, so motorists can stop for extended views and photo opportunities. The road is well worth traveling in either direction, as the view from one side of the road is much different from from the other. In 1983 Going-To-The-Sun Road was included in the National Register of Historic Places and in 1985 was made a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. (from nps.gov)