Helena, MT

We are in Helena now - next stop is Great Falls where we have an appointment to get our levelers fixed. Poor Roger has been doing it the old fashioned way with wood blocks! But, hey, it works!

We are staying in another beautiful BLM park on the Missouri River called "Devils Elbow."

We took a boat tour up the river today through a canyon in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Lewis and Clark named this stretch of the river "Gates of the Mountains." Beautiful limestone cliffs hug the river. We saw eagle and osprey nests but no big horn sheep. There is a campground that is accessible only by boat but the picnic area was flooded by snow melt - the tables are now under 10 feet of gravel!

Some of the forest was destroyed by a huge fire in 2007 and many trees are being killed by a small beetle that gets under the bark. Sad to see the decimated forests.

We also went by "Mann Gulch" where 13 smoke jumpers were killed in 1949 by a fire that suddenly leaped from one side of the gulch to the other. Three firemen survived - 2 rookies who were physically fit enough to run up a 70 degree slope and find cover on the other side and the leader who started a backfire that cleared an area where he laid down and let the original fire pass over him! He could not convince the others not to try to outrun the fire. Scary stuff - couldn't pay me enough to do that job!!