Glacier and the Rocky Mountain Front in 4 Days

Start in Kalispell at the Conrad Mansion, the 1895 house of the man who laid out the town, which its voters turned down as a gift in 1974 before it came to them anyway. Take US-2 east through Columbia Falls and turn off at Hungry Horse for the Hungry Horse Dam, named for two freight horses that nearly starved in the snow, where the reservoir pours into one of the tallest morning-glory spillways in the world. Then enter the park at West Glacier and follow Going-to-the-Sun Road along Lake McDonald to Lake McDonald Lodge, a 1914 hunting lodge whose front door faces the water because its first guests came by boat. Sleep at the lodge or back in West Glacier.

Start early. At Avalanche Creek walk the Trail of the Cedars, a level boardwalk loop through redcedar and hemlock about five hundred years old, the inland edge of a Pacific forest. Above it the road climbs the Garden Wall to Logan Pass on the Continental Divide, where the road was dedicated in 1933; the lot fills by mid-morning and parking is limited to three hours. Drop down the east side to Sun Point on St. Mary Lake, where the railroad's chalets stood until 1948, and walk to Baring Falls. Leave the park at St. Mary, drive north on US-89 to Babb, and take the road west into Many Glacier. Sleep at the Many Glacier Hotel, on the lake under the peaks.

A long day along the edge of the mountains. Take US-89 south and MT-49 to Two Medicine for Running Eagle Falls, a short walk to a double waterfall named for the Blackfeet woman who led war parties. Come out at East Glacier and take US-2 to Browning and the Museum of the Plains Indian, with Victor Pepion's 1941 murals. Then follow US-89 south along the Front through Dupuyer and Choteau, with the mountains to the west and the grass running east, and US-287 to Augusta. Cut east on MT-21 and MT-200 past the Fort Shaw Indian School, whose girls' basketball team beat all comers at the 1904 World's Fair, and on to Great Falls for the night.

Begin at the C.M. Russell Museum, the cowboy artist's house and log studio, and the story of Nancy Russell, who turned his paintings into a business. Then go down to Giant Springs on the Missouri, which William Clark called the largest fountain he ever saw. Take US-87 north to Fort Benton, the old head of steamboat navigation, where Shep stands in bronze on the levee and the Museum of the Northern Great Plains keeps the six bison William Hornaday collected for the Smithsonian in 1886. About ten miles on, near Loma, is Decision Point, the rise above the fork where Lewis and Clark spent ten days in 1805 deciding which river was the Missouri. Return to Great Falls.