Day 16, Lewis and Clark Caverns SP

Entering the final days of our vacation, all the major hikes were now behind us. Today especially was a pretty easygoing day, what with only two relatively short stops to make. Our first stop of the day was a tour through the Lewis and Clark Caverns SP in Montana. We had assumed that this would be a site that wasn’t too popular, but after leaving the parks Visitor Center and heading up to the trailhead we quickly discovered that this would not be the case.

Our tour group through the caves consisted of about thirty or so people. Our tour guide first talked to us about local rattlesnakes and a couple of park rules before sending us up the trail and meet her at the entrance of the cave. Everyone walked at their own pace, but since we were the Howland family, we had to walk at a pace that was closer to running than a leisurely stroll in order to claim bragging rights the imaginary gold medal over the rest of our group.
Once the rest of our tour group had caught up, our guide went over a couple more rules such as NO TOUCHING ANYTHING, no flash photography around bats and all that good stuff.

The hike through the caves was so cool. There were several large rooms that we walked through, all with stalactites and stalagmites that took on the form of figurines (for which our guide had plenty of stories and jokes). In some instances we had to duck really low, or even slide/waddle our way under the low ceilings as we moved from room to room. In most cases though we just walked down some stairs, taking pictures of all the interesting calcite formations and pillars. The 2 mile tour lasted about two hours and before we knew it, we found ourselves walking out of the cave and wishing we could do it again. Photo shows the Brown Waterfall formation.

Our second and last stop of the day was at the Missouri Headwaters State Park. At first we stopped by the riverside to take some pictures of the water and adjacent windblown fields. Then we hopped back in our car and drove over to Fort Rock, a trail that lead us up on top of this massive rock formation and alongside the upper ridge of the park which looked out over the Madison, Jefferson, and Gallatin rivers. The trail was only about a mile long, at most, and being the only ones walking through the rocks made the atmosphere extremely tranquil as we experienced some good family time.

The last stop of in the park and of the day was at the exact headwaters of the Missouri, where the three rivers came together. While we only spent a couple minutes here, taking a couple pictures and walking through the prairie grass by the side of the river, it was defiantly the main part of the park and the reason we came. We left the park soon afterwards and took the long drive to our hotel, having enjoyed another excellent day of our vacation.