The Long Way Round to Highwood, Montana

Here we are, back at it again to write the second edition of Too Drunk to Cry. I'd like to thank everyone for checking out last week's story, I hope you all enjoyed the read and will continue letting me tell you stories. There's a couple of things to look after right off the bat here and the first is the title of this blog. Justin Rutledge is a great Canadian singer/songwriter and he has a song called 'Too Sober to Sleep'. I think its a great story song and I hope some of you might give it a listen if you haven't heard it before. The second thing I wanted to bring up is that over the last week while I was thinking about what I would write next, is the direction this blog is heading. When I first came up with the idea, I was sure that it would be about bars but I've realized that a big part of the adventure is getting there. At the root of it bars are pretty much the same all over, but how we get there, who we see or meet there and the memories we leave with are where the excitement is and where the stories become interesting. So this is turning into a travel blog I guess, a travel blog about going to dive bars haha.

Ok, now that the housekeeping is out of the way I can tell you about the Highwood Bar in Highwood, Montana. I'll get there eventually. Before I got together with my beautiful wife Jenn, most times I had days off from work I would head south to Montana just to get far enough away that I couldn't be called back in a rush. I'd usually stay in Great Falls and just spend a few days doing nothing so I think that a lot of these stories are going to come from that area, there's a bunch of really good little places around there. Anyway, I'd heard about the Highwood Bar a few times, it always sounded like a neat place because at one point a number of years ago, they had a food menu but the only thing you could order off of it was steak, and that was only certain days of the week. Kind of like that place that the Texas Rangers wind up at in the movie 'Hell or High Water'. Now it's a bit more accommodating to those who come on the wrong day, or maybe don't want a steak.

The first time I wound up there was kind of an accident, I was heading out US 89 maybe to Eddie's Corner or some place like that and wound up caught up in road construction at Highwood Junction just outside of Great Falls. I thought it was construction when I pulled up anyway but it didn't take long before I thought it might be something else. To start with, the road crew looked busy and well put together, high and tight haircuts, jeans bloused into the tops of their boots and clean orange vests on. Then the foreman came up to my window and said 'Pilot car just left, it should be back in about 90 minutes, you can wait, turn around or go north'. I did some quick math and said '90 minutes? You guys have 35 miles of roadwork happening all at once?', to which he replied 'turn around or go to Highwood, don't wait here'. I think now that there might have been something moving out of Malmstrom that day, but I didn't stick around to wait for the pilot car and carried on to Highwood like I'd been told.

I made it out to Highwood a few times after that first trip but one time really sticks in my memory. I was down in Great Falls in the winter of 2011 to do some Christmas shopping and I must have had some success at it because I found myself with a free day. The weather was clear and beautiful when I left the O'Haire so I decided I'd go for a drive over Neihart through the Little Belt Mountains to White Sulfur Springs and see what might happen from there. Now if you've made this drive, you'll know how beautiful it is, if you've done it in the summer you've seen something special. About 35 miles from Great Falls down the 89, you'll drive by Belt and the next thing you see is the Armington Junction, where you turn south on 87 and follow Belt Creek up towards it's head water and the pass through the mountains, about 8000' above sea level. You start climbing for real after you get to Monarch and once you get into the pass there isn't room on the valley floor for the creek and the highway so they trade sides a bunch. I think you cross Belt Creek nine times while you head up to the top. It's a windy and narrow drive all the way up past Showdown Ski area. Once you get past here things level out and you'll notice the country open up and you might see a sign that says 'Entering Castle Mountain Ranch'. If you're still paying attention 25 miles down the road you'll see the main Ranch Headquarters on the south side of the highway just before you roll in to White Sulfur Springs. It's a big outfit. Anyway, back to the story, by the time I made it to Neihart the blizzard had started and the temperature dropped to about 20 below. It made things interesting getting to White Sulfur Springs, but at least the snow had quit by the time I got there. I fueled up and then had a beer to see what the storm was going to do and by the time I was done things didn't look too bad but I didn't want to bother with the pass again. I decided I'd drive over to Harlowton and come up by Eddie's Corner to head back.

By the time I got around to Judith Gap things had really gone for shit, so to speak, the temperature had dropped to about 20 below and the wind was miserable. Visibility wasn't too bad until I headed west again at Eddie's corner. It was bad enough at one point, that an airforce helicopter dropped down to about 20' above the deck and followed the highway back to Great Falls. I guess he'd been caught by surprise as well. By this time I'd been a few hours on the road and the beer that I'd drank in WSS had worn off. My plan was to roll into Belt and have a few there to wind down, then it's just a short drive back. It was enough of a blizzard by now that I took the wrong exit in to Belt and wound up on the wrong street and through town before I realized that I'd missed the bar so I thought, what the hell, let's go to Highwood. It was a bad 15 miles to Highwood and I couldn't have been happier to see that little doweled log rectangle on pilings when I finally got there. I got inside and went to take my jacket off when I noticed that everyone else was bundled up so I just sat down at the bar. Now the Highwood Bar is pretty simple, it's just one room with a couple of tables lined up in rows and the chairs look like they probably say 'Property of Highwood Rotary Club' or something on the back. It's not very big, but it's a good atmosphere. Someone with some talent made the back bar, it's modern and fairly fancy, kind of out of place when you consider the rest of the joint. The barmaid came over and said 'Before I ask you what you'll have I need to fill you in. The drink well is frozen so if you want liquor it will have to be straight, the beer is coming out of the cooler real cold and don't even ask about using the bathroom because the plumbing is all froze up too'. I said 'That's fine, I'll have a High Life if it's not frozen'. A piece of skirting had blown off and allowed the cold in under the building and caused all kinds of problems I guess. That was a really cold beer but the company was good and it tasted great after that horrible drive. I didn't linger too long, my truck was way warmer than that barroom.

So that's my story about the long way round to Highwood. I drive through there with Jenn on our way from Belt up to Fort Benton and I'm pretty sure she's heard this story every time we drive by the joint. Funny thing though is that she's never once suggested that we stop in to see if they ever did get that drink well thawed out. Maybe one day I'll find out.

Well, here's mud in your eye,

CP

#HighwoodBar #divebar #Montanabar