Small Town Hiking

Rose Thun
Sep 13, 2020


After my last post with the wild red and white mountainous exterior of the car museum in LA, I got a request about 3 small town hiking spots. McCall Idaho, Grand Marais Minnesota, Gardiner Montana. When I say small, two have a population of about 1000 people and McCall is the big town of 3000. So of course, none are in the 382 places exactly, but all three are beautiful for hiking and are about 2 hours away from one of the 382 places. That is close enough for these big open sky rural areas.

Trip Advisor and Wikipedia gave me some insights into these small towns before I dive into the data I have about the nearby larger towns; the short summary:

Gardiner, MT is famous as being the entrance to Yellowstone National Park, the Roosevelt arch, and home of The Summit Lighthouse, which is part of an uncommon spiritual organization. It’s on the Yellowstone River and has lots of outdoor activities including rafting, angling, horse back riding, hot springs, and outdoor safaris. It is within an hour’s drive of Bozeman and about two hours from Billings, MT Metro Area, which is what we will use to compare.

Grand Marais, MN is a gorgeous lake town almost to the Canadian border. It also has a lighthouse, but for more typical use on Lake Superior and is a pretty looking walk to it. The town hosts many festivals and has a lot of public radio, offers Segway tours, amazing waterfalls, an Artists Point to walk out on and an Art Colony. It has local bluff hikes that I wish I could do today; I am just enamored as I glance through it all. The town has multiple independent bookstores, museums, canoeing, sailing, a distillery, brewery and winery, farmers market, golf, mansions, a taco joint, and a lot more than one would expect for such a small town.   It is closest to Duluth, MN-WI Metro Area which we will use to compare. If you’re digging into this area, there is a wonderful run down of attractions between Duluth, to Grand Marais and to Canada here https://northshorevisitor.com/attractions/mile-by-mile/

McCall, ID is also a resort lake town, on Payette Lake in the Payette National Forest, known for its Winter Carnival and outdoor activities. This is a place for those who like extended winter. It is where the movie Northwest Passage was filmed. You can ski here, fish, fly, ride horses, golf, bike, zipline, watch sled dogs, raft through Hells Canyon or go on a Lake Cruise. McCall has a scenic byway that leads along the river to Boise City, ID Metro Area, which we will use as the place to compare.  

So comparing the “bigger” towns 2 hours away: Billings, MT and Duluth, MN and Boise City, ID, we can see these three are alike even in very different areas of the US.
Thank you for the suggestions and questions! Grand Marais is my favorite of the three at first glance, but I now have more on my to-visit list!

 Keep exploring, the data may surprise you!.

Best wishes,

Rose Thun