Many of the more choice locations in Montana’s western mountain valleys have become home to an increasing number of celebrities and other carpetbaggers. Few of them are found, however, in the 375-mile stretch of rough-and-tumble country traversed by U.S. 89 between Glacier and Yellowstone. This is the real West, populated mostly by folks scratching out a living raising barley, wheat, or cattle.

These aren’t dude ranches – they’re the real thing. The Big Sky opens up east of the Continental Divide where U.S. 89 carries us from the gateway towns of Glacier National Park to the gateway towns of Yellowstone National Park, some 364 miles away. In between is rolling prairie interrupted by mountain ranges. For the first third of U.S. 89’s journey south from Glacier, the Rocky Mountains loom on the western horizon, keeping us company nearly all the way to Great Falls. Farther south, the Little Belt, Crazy and Absoroka ranges, among others, break the prairie. At no point are travelers on the Montana stretch of U.S. 89 out of sight of one mountain range or another, even while traveling through seemingly endless stretches of rolling farms and ranchland.

This also is the land of Lewis and Clark, where a National Historic Trail commemorates 1,600 miles of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804-5 along the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. Considered by some the 19th century equivalent of the moon landing, the Lewis and Clark expedition helped opened the Pacific Northwest to settlement, even though it didn’t accomplish its goal of discovering an inland waterway to the Pacific Ocean. Much of U.S. 89 passes near or along the trails used by Lewis and Clark as they went first west to the mouth of the Columbia River and then returned east by separate routes.

Perhaps not as spectacularly scenic as other stretches of U.S. 89, the Montana portion is striking nonetheless as it takes the traveler through a region that is quintessentially Western. It passes through Western towns that haven’t been changed by commercial development or tourism – Choteau, Fairfield (the malting barley capital of America), White Sulpher Springs, Livingston and, at Yellowstone’s northern gate, Gardiner. It also passes through Great Falls, the largest town on U.S. 89 not along Utah’s Wasatch Front.

If this region is epitomized by anyone, and we’ve already agreed it wouldn’t be celebrity interlopers, it would be the turn-of-the- century cowboy artist Charles M. Russell (who we’ll discuss in detail in just a moment). This is serious grain and cowboy country as the highway rolls through the prairie, with the Rocky Mountains a constant companion to the west.

It’s worth a note of caution as we begin the Montana leg of the U.S. 89 trip: Montana is noted for the highest speed limits in the country, but it’s not necessarily because the roads are any safer. The stretch between Kiowa and Choteau, in particular, takes many turns and dips, yet the speed limit is 70 miles per hour. This is no place to set the cruise control at the speed limit and sit back. Montana also has the curious (for a state that at one time had no highway speed limits) and somewhat disconcerting practice of placing white crosses at the roadside of fatal accident scenes. That should be reminder enough that a little discretion is called for.

The transition from the Rocky Mountains of Glacier and Waterton to the high prairie is almost immediate as you drive southeast from Kiowa toward Great Falls. To the east, the plains roll on endlessly, usually planted in grain or alfalfa or used as rangeland for cattle. This is the region where a good share of the barley used to make American beer is grown. The growing season is short here, where both the elevation (typically between 4,000 and 5,000 feet above sea level) and the northern latitude mean winter stays late and returns early.

The first leg of the highway goes through the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. As you continue southeast, the Rockies stay at your west, gradually fading toward the horizon. All along the way is a series of wilderness areas in the Rockies, most notable of which is the Bob Marshall Wilderness, known locally and affectionately as “The Bob.” Outfitters take a variety of excursions into these areas, but they’re not for the faint of heart. This is serious mountain country that is many, many miles from any conveniences. For those who are up to it, though, the backcountry in northern Montana is breathtaking, from the Chinese Wall (a 1,000-foot escarpment that runs 12 miles along the Continental Divide) to various waterfalls and alpine lakes. Some of the periphery of the area is accessible by four-wheel drive, but it soon gives way to wilderness accessible only by foot or horseback.

Choteau is the most charming of the small towns on the drive to Great Falls, with tree-lined streets, a pleasant downtown and beautiful county courthouse at the southern end of town. Choteau also is home to the Old Trail Museum, which features pioneer and Native American artifacts, plus dinosaur bones found in a local site. Tours are available to the dig site during the summer. Choteau also has some nice lodging and dining options. Nearby is Freezeout Lake, which hosts millions of migrating waterfowl during spring and fall migrations.

The Rockies finally all but disappear in the distance as you approach Great Falls, though mountain ranges and buttes can be seen surrounding the town in virtually any direction. The falls here cost the Lewis and Clark expedition a month as they portaged around them with their boats and supplies. Merriwether Lewis described the site of the “Great Falls” of the Missouri as “this truly magnificent and sublimely grand object.” They no doubt were at one time, when the roar from the falls could be heard for many miles. It’s hard to say whether they’d be disappointed or delighted by what they would find today – the series of falls have been diverted for hydroelectric power and no longer run at full fury. In fact, they often don’t “fall” at all, as the water is diverted through the generating plants and down a side channel. No one’s complaining about the inexpensive electricity the dams provide, but the big falls of the Missouri were undoubtedly a stunning site at one time.

Great Falls is a great place to stay for lunch or to make it a night. Great Falls is about 160 miles from Glacier National Park and 260 miles from Yellowstone, so if you’re planning on seeing just those two parks Great Falls is centrally located. Besides offering all the amenities of any town of 55,000 people (a size that passes for a big city in this part of the country), there are a number of other attractions in the area worth a stop.

Even those just passing through should take the time to visit the new 22,500-square-foot Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center on the Missouri River between the two large dams and near Giant Springs State Park. If you hadn’t planned on learning more about Lewis and Clark before your trip, a couple of hours here might change your mind.

If there’s another must-see in Great Falls, it’s the C.M. Russell Museum complex, which is home to a large collection of the artist’s work and personal belongings. Russell spent much of his adult life in central Montana and featured the region and its people in his bronze works and paintings, which number nearly 4,000. The complex includes a 46,000-square-foot museum, the artist’s home and the log cabin that served as Russell’s studio. Also at the museum is a permanent collection of Browning firearms.

Ever had a hankering to see how prehistoric man found inventive ways to kill his prey? About 10 miles southwest of town just off of Interstate 15 is the Ulm Pishkun Buffalo Jump, believed to be the longest such jump in the country. (Kind of makes you wonder whether 23rd century tourists will be visiting 20th century slaughterhouses.)

In the spring of 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led a party of 28 men out of St. Louis to find an inland waterway to the Pacific, at the behest of President Thomas Jefferson. They wintered in 1804-05 in North Dakota before continuing their journey in the spring of 1805. They encountered many hardships as they traveled up the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers, crossed the Continental Divide near the present-day border of Idaho and Montana, and resumed their travels on water on Idaho’s Clearwater River, which emptied into the Snake and then the Columbia. The group finally spotted the Pacific Ocean on Nov. 7, 1805, where they wintered. On the return trip, the expedition’s co-leaders took separate routes through Montana before reuniting. They arrived back in St. Louis on Sept. 13, 1806, nearly two and a half years after departing.

While the expedition didn’t succeed in finding a navigable waterway to the Pacific, it did provide a vast amount of information about that previously uncharted territory and became national heroes for a time. They would no doubt be surprised to learn that almost all of the waterfalls that so impeded their progress have been diverted and converted into hydroelectric generating plants, including those that gave Great Falls, Montana its name.

The Lewis and Clark “trail” (since much of the journey was over water and most of the rest of it is inaccessible today, it’s pretty hard to retrace their footsteps) covers 1,600 miles in Montana over various rivers and land areas. It’s a safe bet that as we approach the bicentennial of the expedition there will be the inevitable re-enactments and other types of celebration. U.S. 89 travelers through Montana are in the heart of the area traveled by the expedition, most specifically along the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. If you have a mild interest in the expedition, the roadside information boards and the interpretive center in Great Falls provide enough information. If you want to delve deeper, the list of resources on the world wide web and at any local library is large and growing.

Before heading into the Montana hinterland on the way to Livingston, know this: There aren’t many places for food or lodging on this stretch of the road, so prepare accordingly. U.S. 89 takes you immediately back into rolling grain fields southeast of Great Falls. The 31 miles of U.S. 89 on either side of Great Falls is one of the few stretches of the highway not considered “scenic” by such authorities as Rand McNally, a fact that won’t please the Great Falls Chamber of Commerce but shouldn’t detract from this part of the drive.

The “scenic” designation returns as U.S. 89 separates from U.S. 87 at Armington and heads toward the Little Belt Mountains. The rolling hills become more significant as you approach the small mountain range, with peaks approaching 10,000 feet (Great Falls is only 3,300 feet above sea level). The 50 or so miles of highway meandering through the Little Belts is a pleasant and pretty drive as the grain fields give way to foothills, then mountains covered in pine and aspen trees. This is section of highway is designated the “Kings Hill-Little Belts Scenic Byway” by the state of Montana.

On the other side of the Little Belt Mountains the highway rolls into White Sulphur Springs, Montana, a hardscrabble town with a frontier feel, the pride of which is the Castle Museum. Built in 1892 out of local granite by a rancher and miner and perched on a hillside above town, the building now serves as the Meagher County Historical Museum housing carved woodwork and furniture from the frontier days.

The highway now turns more or less due south through more Montana prairie with mountain ranges in the distance to the east and west. Most significant of these are the Crazy Mountains east of the highway beginning perhaps 20 miles south of White Sulphur Springs. The valley through which the highway runs rests at just above 4,000 feet above sea level, while the highest peaks in the Crazy Mountains exceed 11,000 feet, about the same elevation difference as that of the Grand Tetons rising above Jackson Hole. There’s a popular hike in the range, the Rock Creek North Trail, which runs a total of four miles one way past waterfalls and meadows and ending at Rock Lake at the tree line nearly 8,800 feet above sea level.

This section of U.S. 89 ends when it joins Interstate 90 about seven miles east of Livingston, which is the first sign of any significant civilization since leaving Great Falls some 170 miles back. To give an idea of the isolation of this region, the two counties that make up the majority of the drive between Great Falls and Livingston have a combined population of about 4,000.

Bozeman is only 25 miles away on Interstate 90, offering all types of lodging and dining and other amenities. Among other things, Bozeman is home to Montana State University.

Livingston is an unusual combination of a national park gateway town catering to tourists, an authentic western cowboy town, and a frontier railroad town. Livingston is a more authentic Western experience than Jackson, Wyoming or even West Yellowstone, Montana, but it still has a good selection of comfortable lodging and good restaurants.

Livingston was founded by the coming of the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1882. A branch line carried tourists south to Yellowstone and helped make it possible for ranchers to get their cattle and crops to market. William Clark came through here on his way back from the Pacific before he met up with Merriwether Lewis.

Today, the town’s central landmark is the former train station that has been transformed into the Depot Center museum in downtown Livingston. Livingston has no fewer than a dozen art galleries, a surprising number and variety for a town of 7,000 souls. Among the favorites is the Chatham Gallery, featuring lithographs of landscape paintings by local artist Russell Chatham. The Danforth gallery features the work of landscape painter Parke Goodman, who specializes in a 19th century style. Livingston also is home to three museums – the International Fly Fishing Center, the Yellowstone Gateway Museum and the Livingston Depot Center. Many museums and galleries are closed in the winter, but in summer you can spend a day or two just touring galleries and museums in Livingston. The town also has a number of well preserved historic districts dating back a hundred years.

For a real Western experience, time your visit for the Fourth of July to see the Livingston Roundup Rodeo, a tradition going back to the Twenties. Two other gateway towns, Red Lodge, Montana and Cody, Wyoming, conduct rodeos at the same time and cowboys will arrange their schedules to compete in all three.

From here, U.S. 89 continues south into the Yellowstone country along the Yellowstone River, which exits the park running north at Gardiner. Shortly after leaving Livingston the highway enters Paradise Valley formed by the Absoroka Range on the east and the Gallatin Range on the west. This is among the world’s best fly fishing country (along with much of southwestern Montana, eastern Idaho and western Wyoming). It’s a beautiful drive, gradually gaining altitude as the valley approaches Yellowstone National Park.

There is hiking, camping, hunting and fishing all along they way. Of particular note for hikers is the Pine Creek Trail, a five-mile route in the Gallatin National Forest in the Absorokas east of the highway. The trail passes Pine Creek Falls a mile into the hike.

Just down the road is Chico Hot Springs, a resort featuring two natural hot springs. This is a full-service resort, including a mile-long private landing strip, shuttles to Yellowstone, restaurants, back-country trips and even a full-service spa. If you want lodging that pampers (something you won’t find inside Yellowstone), Chico Hot Springs might be the ticket. It’s less than 30 minutes from the park.

Paradise Valley also is home to the Church Universal and Triumphant, which has been the source of no end of controversy in the 1990s. Led by a woman who claimed the end of the world was coming, the church grew substantially for a number of years and stashed food and other supplies, having one run-in after another with various parts of local, state and federal government. The group began splintering in the latter part of the decade, but the story has not fully played out.

Just south of Corwin Springs to the west of the highway is Devil’s Slide, brightly red colored layers of sedimentary rock at the base of Cinnabar Mountain, estimated to be 200 million years old.

At last, you arrive at Gardiner, only steps from the entrance to Yellowstone National Park, the only entrance open to automobiles year round. This entrance is marked by the Roosevelt Arch, which was dedicated by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903.

Gardiner is a scruffy Western town at an elevation of 4,600 feet perched above the Yellowstone River as it exits the Black Canyon of the Yellowstone. The town offers the typical gateway amenities of motels, restaurants, galleries, small museums and gift shops. Mammoth Hot Springs, headquarters of Yellowstone National Park, is a 15-minute drive away across the Wyoming border. From there, the adventure of a lifetime awaits.