Polebridge

Well, the weather has once again taken a turn and we woke up to this on our day off. So we’re not going hiking, we’re not going biking; instead, we took a scenic drive to… Polebridge! We’ve seen it on the map, about 25 miles away from Apgar Visitor Center (which is one of the stores where I work). Located in the North Fork of GNP, Polebridge is actually a little hamlet with a few homes, a few businesses, and access to some additional trails and waterways, particularly the North Fork of the Flathead River. There’s basically one road in, the last 15 miles of which is unpaved, and it’s about 22 more miles to the Canadian border. But we’d heard the bakery there is amazing, and it just opened this week. So naturally, we had to go check it out!

Now, one of the beautiful things about living in the mountains is that it can be snowy and cold by you, but just over the next hill the weather can change significantly! Once we got about 15-20 miles into the drive, the sky opened up and the temperature rose a few degrees… enough to make our tour much more enjoyable.

With a population of 14, you can probably anticipate that there’s not a ton of stuff in Polebridge. There’s a mercantile store, a hardware store, a saloon, a fire truck, a gas station of sorts, and, of course, the public library! There is not, however, a pole bridge: the last one was washed away in a storm a few years back. And the modern bridge that replaced it is not even worth a photo.

The bakery is actually part of the mercantile store, and they bake fresh delicacies daily: scones, sticky buns, Danish, and of course, bear claws. They also have a hiker/biker special, where if you hike or bike at least 5 miles to get there, they will give you a free fritter. Something to consider once the weather improves, because the road from our trailer is not too mountainous and I’m sure we’d work up a decent appetite over the 28 miles.

After a sticky bun, scone, huckleberry bear claw, and some coffee, we were ready to explore the North Fork! The ranger we spoke with at the outpost suggested we check out Bowman Lake: a six-mile drive up a winding dirt road that follows the creek of the same name.

Unfortunately, almost immediately after we got out of the car and headed to the lake, it began to snow. I guess the weather we left behind finally caught up with us! They tell you to be prepared for sudden storms, but nothing really prepares you for them on a brilliantly blue day in mid-May. So we got back in the car and headed for the nearest lunch stop.

Home Ranch Bottoms began in the late 1800’s as a stop-over for early homesteaders to hay and water their horses on their way to or from Polebridge, a few miles away. It’s been a tavern since the early 2000’s, and the current owners have held it since 2021, serving salads, burgers, homemade lemonade, and of course beer and cocktails, as well as live music two or three nights a week during the summer months. It’s a cozy little place, filled with local artifacts and some plaques documenting local history.

This particular one documents a tragic episode in 2021, where a local grizzly family had to be euthanized after becoming food-conditioned thanks to human negligence. You may recall in my earlier post that once bears become conditioned to easy-access, tasty human food, their hunger overpowers their natural fear of humans and they can become quite aggressive in pursuing opportunities to obtain it, whether by breaking into trailers or garbage cans, or by harassing the potential source–us! Sadly, this story ended with Bear #418 and her yearling cubs losing their lives. A postscript to the plaque informs the concerned reader that as a result of this incident, the North Fork Preservation Association now provides bear safety training for all seasonal employees staying in the area, educational pamphlets for visitors, as well as bear-proof kodiak garbage cans. This is serious, life-or-death business out here!

On a more humorous note, we found this AMC Eagle parked out in front, apparently still rolling 45 years later! There are tons of old cars out here still on the road, because the low humidity means that nothing ever rusts! As a funny postscript to this, we had to get a brake job on our way home at the end of last season, after spending the whole summer driving through the mountains. So we brought the truck to Brakes Plus in Fort Collins, CO, where Rob witnessed the young guy doing the work call his manager over because he didn’t understand what the horrible foreign substance was on our brake pads. “Son, that’s rust,” the manager growled. Poor guy had no experience with this whatsoever!

As you can see, by the time we were through at Home Ranch Bottoms, the weather had improved enough for us to do a little more exploring in the park. We’ll leave our stories of Lake McDonald and the Lake McDonald Lodge for another rainy/snowy day!