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The Indian Trail fire boils up from Helena National Forest a few miles east of U . S . Route 287 .
ran right through and disappeared . My food was locked inside sturdy Jesse bags , but it still felt a little dicey to sleep in a nylon tent that night .
Riding out the east side of Glacier the next morning , I leaned into a terrific side wind all the way down through the reservation . The Rocky Mountain Front rose abruptly from the golden plains of central Montana like a dream , a mirage , a neon-lit casino from the sands of the desert .
Presently a distraction appeared southeast of my route : a smoke column rose against the blue sky and built into a plume . Since I work in fire management for the U . S . Forest Service , the growing wildfire worried me . If it was anywhere near my forest , I ’ d have to cut my trip short . But as I got closer , I saw that it was on the Helena , not the Lolo . Still , in a year that was notoriously devoid of fires , it was the biggest column I ’ d seen all summer .
I camped that night at a BLM campground called Red Mountain , just a few miles west