Yes! The Road Did Twist Between Rocks Bigger Than Houses!

….“ …. with twists and turns around every rock and fold in the mountains. All the traffic we were in has evidently headed north for Kalispell or Coeur D’Alene, for there’s hardly any now.“ (Cont.next)

On US-12 ~20 miles southwest of Lolo, MT. From The Town of LoLo, MT, the towns of => Kalispell, MT, and Coeur D’Alene, ID, are cities (respectively), 95 miles North on US-93 or 120 miles West-Northwest on I-90 (Old Rt 10.)
….This traffic the ZMM Narrator mentions, would have been traveling northeast on US- 93 toward Missoula, and opposite the travel of Chris and Narrator. ….And indeed I experienced heavy traffic on US-93; whereas, I had US-12 to myself.
….This heavy traffic pattern, is due to the more highly populated rich wide valleys of this end of Montana, with their wide straight roads. This is considerably contrasting with this narrower twisty more difficult US-12 road over the mountains to LoLo Pass, just to reach the difficult to penetrate, sparsely populated rugged wilderness West of here, into Mountainous Idaho. (This “Impenetrable Harsh Environment” was the topic of Local History Sign of previous photo.)
….For “high traffic” examples, the ZMMNarrator could have better mentioned Missoula, MT , or Bozeman, MT, in his story.
….Although Chris & The Narrator’s traffic would have been similar or greater as for Missoula, apparently the Narrator WANTED the “Additional Spike & Spice” of some new unfamiliar and exotic town names! He does this other places in ZMM !!

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(Photo = 109-1034c ...... ZMM Page = 242 ...... WayPt = 258w 3542ft)