The relatively flat land finally surrendered its hold as foothills and the Rockies started to dominate what I was to see today. The only time I had previously seen the Rockies was from 30,000 feet up flying to California or Arizona. I know where I made my crossing wasn't the highest portion of the Rockies, but the views were still outstanding. I decided to leave Billings, at 8500 feet again and my first close up views of massive amounts of rock were the Crazy Mountains. The Crazies passed off my right wing and I think the perspective to the size is amazing. Crazy Peak tops out at just over 11,000 feet and rises from the 4,000 foot elevation of the plains which finally disappeared behind me. The flight path of day three was not what I planned originally. The plan was to follow I-90 west to Bozeman and Missoula, but as I approached Livingston, Montana I looked at my sectional chart and decided to make a turn to the north and check out Canyon Ferry Lake and over-fly the capital of Montana, Helena. Helena sits in a large, flat, open valley surrounded by peaks except to the southeast which is where I came in from. From Helena I headed west towards Drummond and Missoula. I rejoined US12 and I90 and wove my way across the Continental Divide, which is really rather indistinguishable in this area. Every direction I looked in this area were numerous peaks and valleys, as far as I could see. As I approached Missoula it's really rather hidden until to you round one last segment of peaks, and then it looks HUGE compared to all the other towns and settlements along my route. I turned north again to fly the valley that lead to Flathead Lake (which I'm told is the largest natural freshwater lake in the US west of the Mississippi - although I think the Red Lakes in MN might have it beat.) Flathead lake is something like 27 miles long and a pretty amazing sight. The peaks on either side can rise up over 9,000 feet in spots, which is only magnified further when the floor of the valley is only 3,000 feet and the mountains rise pretty steep to their summits. I flew along the east side of the valley wall, with only a couple hundred yards from my right wingtip to the wall of rock. This gave a great view of the whole lake, and allowed me to sneak a couple peeks at some hidden lakes that pepper the east mountains. Arriving in Kalispell, I had lunch with a fellow pilot who gave me the quick tour of Whitefish, and shared some tips on heading west to Idaho. While walking around the airport in Kalispell we went into one of the local "money" hangars where there were 2 Falcon jets, a T-6, and one of my favorite planes from WWII - an F4U Corsair - in perfect condition of course. After checking the weather - which was a worry for me this segment, but turned out to be great - I headed on to Coeur D'Alene. Of course, I didn't stick to my route. I over flew Ashley Lake which looks sort of like a hammerhead shark as viewed from above, Little Bitterroot Lake, McGregor Lake, and a neat little string of lakes called Thompson Lakes. As I neared the Cabinet range mountains I decided to fly the Clark Fork river to the north and Cabinet Gorge Reservoir. This was another steeply cut valley with the floor at about 2300 feet and the tops of the ridges on either side up over 6000 feet in spots. The valley is maybe 2 miles wide or so, and provides a really great view. I flew the valley to Lake Pend Orielle and circled in to Coeur D'Alene from the north. Another great day of flying with little turbulence and much better overall viewing than the two days before. Total flying time today: 4 hours 20 minutes.