Category Archives: Travel

RoadTrip 2019

Part 6: There are No Mountains in Jasper National Park

September 12, 2019 hannahviolin

Please check out the above blog posts if you are interested in our trip up until this point.

Day 16: Driving the Icefields Parkway north to Jasper National Park.

When I started planning the trip back last fall, I originally planned for Banff to be our northernmost point. Then I started reading about how the Icefields Parkway, the road from Banff NP to Jasper NP was supposedly one of the most beautiful drives in the world, and I figured, well, we oughta do it. So I booked two nights camping in Jasper, but then we had to get back. I would have loved to have more days, but this trip was already just over 3 weeks (I included weekends, so 3 weeks with both the weekends) and we have like, jobs, and stuff.

I also had the Gypsy Guide app for the Icefields Parkway. I’d used the app in Yellowstone, but I’ll say I thought the one for the Icefields Parkway was better and more informative. Lots of great information and stories.

So, we packed up our campsite in Banff and hit the road. The mountains were covered in fog for a bit, in fact, more than a bit.

Our first big stop along the road was Peyto Lake. We almost skipped this stop because it was raining and then we said, okay fine. I’m glad we did!

Though the mountains were quite covered, the Lake was a gorgeous color. The path was a bit annoying as it was paved yet quite steep, but I guess that makes it easier to maintain. For your information, the parking lot had some gigantic potholes and we were happy not to be in a Toyota Corolla.

Then we took the short hike down to Mitaya Canyon. Mitaya Canyon is a slot canyon formed by the river (as canyons are generally formed) and is a short hike from the parking lot.

At one point we saw a herd of bighorn sheep along the road. They like to lick the salt.

The road went by some of the most amazing scenery, even though parts were obscured by clouds or fog.

The big highlight of the day was the Athabasca Glacier at the Columbia Icefields. You can take a bus out to the glacier, but it was expensive and so busy when we arrived, that we decided to do the hike to the Toe of the Glacier instead. (Spoiler Alert: we decided to do the tour on our return). What we didn’t realize was that the hike doesn’t officially go to the toe (the edge of the glacier) so we had to duck under a barrier to get there. Everybody else was doing the same, and we didn’t want to get so close but not get there. One thing to note: the closer you get to the Icefields, the colder it gets. I was glad to have brought my coat along.

As you walk to the glacier, there are little signs telling you what years the glacier was at various points. It’s a long walk past the signs.

We didn’t see this guy, but I think we would have if he’d been around.

I’ve decided that khaki pants are just never a good idea. But nonetheless, I found this sign interesting because my family visited the Athabasca Glacier in 1991. So this was new territory of ground for me from this point forward.

I’ve finally figured out how to put selfies in my blog posts. Generally my computer makes them upside down but if I open them, “edit” them and save them again, they work.

So that’s us, standing on the Glacier. It really was that ugly brown color, but it was ice. Wear good shoes!

Our next stop was Sunwapta Falls. It was funny—the road wasn’t too busy, but at all the “recommended” stops the parking lots would be slammed. We didn’t do any long hikes along the road, just a mile here, two miles there, and we realized by the end of the day we had hiked nearly 12 miles.

And after Sunwapta Falls, we stopped at Athabasca Falls. I’m more of a lake person than a falls person, but the power of water is just so impressive!

It was getting to be close to 6 pm by the time we arrived at our campground, Wapiti Campground. We would have liked to cook dinner and make a fire, but it was raining off and on and we were only a few miles from the town of Jasper, so we decided to go out to dinner. First we set up our tent on site RR20, which was on a bluff above the Athabasca River. Then we headed to town, and after walking around briefly, decided to get dinner at Evil Dave’s. It was pretty good, and we were definitely hungry!

We got dessert as well.

Day 17: We woke up not terribly early and it was pretty foggy and rainy. We decided to forge ahead with our first plan for the day, the Valley of the Five Lakes Trail.

Now. We’d been really luck on our trip so far. We had managed to not let rain ruin many of our plans. Today would be different though. We did the hike. I suppose there might have been mountains, but we certainly didn’t see any. It was only raining lightly, off and on, and the Five Lakes were perfectly nice, but I imagine the mountains might make the hike nicer.

See! Pretty lakes, no mountains.

We were cold and damp after that hike, so we decided to head back to Jasper town to see about a brunch/lunch something. We ended up at a diner called Smithy’s which was totally fine, and then walked around a bit. We kept hoping the weather would clear up, as it was possibly forecasted to, but it didn’t. We went to the “Museum of Wildlife” which was a creepy taxidermy place and that was worth the visit–even though I think taxidermy is awful and creepy I am also kind of fascinated by it. Louie finally got a pair of shoes, so that was a success! (At a store, not at the taxidermy museum.)

We thought we’d check out the fancy hotel in town so we drove over to the Fairmont Jasper Lodge. It was a nice place, with elk and golf, and a big lake.

It kept raining, so we were getting a little depressed. We went to nearby Lake Annette and started walking around it…and after about a mile, the mountains did start clearing up a bit! Not for good though, but we got a taste of things. We also went to see Lakes Pyramid and Raven after that.

I think Louie might be a better actor than me. Or I’m a better photographer than he is? Winking smile

We decided (because of the weather) to eat out again. We had a great dinner at a place called Raven. Afterwards, we went back to the camp, and decided to purchase a fire permit and have a fire. It had finally stopped raining enough to be outside, and we weren’t sure if this was our last chance for a fire…either way it was our last chance for a fire in the Canadian Rockies. The firepit was wet and actually full of water, so Louie had to work hard to get the fire started.

One funny thing was that on my way to the bathroom at one point I ran into a woman who realized we had been at the KOA in Glacier together! Every once in awhile you’d see people and think they looked familiar, and did they look familiar because they’d been at a previous park or campground with you? Who knows!

Day 18: Back through the Icefields Parkway. We got up and packed up our tent. It was still pretty poor visibility in the area, so we decided, well, we’ll have to return to Jasper someday and hope for better weather! Almost right away we saw a bunch of cars pulled over on the side of the road, and yep, it was a black bear! No great pictures though.

Things looked clearer as we went along though!

We didn’t plan to stop very much along our drive today, as we had two days to get to Theodore Roosevelt Park, and at least 16 hours to drive. We hoped to drive more than halfway, at least.

Well, as we got closer to the Columbia Icefields again, Louie started to worry he’d regret not doing the bus tour. I’d gone as a child, so it wasn’t something I needed to do…but I worried he’d regret it to. We decided to just go for it—it was only about 10:30 am when we arrived and though our tickets were for a later tour, we were able to squeeze into the next tour! (I will say that tickets were ridiculously expensive and had to include the sky walk, so we paid more than $100 Canadian per ticket. It was $16 for adults in 1991.)

I was pretty pumped though, because I remembered absolutely loving the tour.

You first get on a regular tour bus, then you go to an area right near the glacier and get transferred onto a special ice bus and you get driven right out onto the glacier. It was pretty cool. You pass by this giant rock man.

The tour driver was a young man from Scotland and he was very funny.

There were a ton of people out there, as you might imagine. The crowds in this area are truly insane. It’s so worth it anyway, though!

Some kind midwesterners took some pictures of us.

Those tires are pretty big!

After about 30 minutes we had to get back on the bus and head to our tour bus again.

Next stop was the Glacier Skywalk, a strange contraption that goes out over the edge of the mountain and has a clear plastic or whatever bottom on it. Not my cup of tea at all, but we had the tickets for it so we went. You can pick up a handheld tour guide gadget and that made everything go smoothly and you felt like you were learning!

After we were done at the skywalk, we boarded another tour bus and headed back to the Icefields Center. It was past time for lunch, so we decided to eat there—we knew we’d be leaving Canada soon, so we decided to get an order of poutine, and we got a veggie burger as well.

It was cool and windy but we couldn’t resist eating outside for the view!

Then we hit the road again. We decided we needed to drive at least to Medicine Hat, Alberta for the night.

Going back through Banff Louie got a good picture of one of the wildlife crossroads for the wildlife to cross the highway.

And that’s where I’ll leave you for today. Goodbye, Canadian Rockies. Hope to see you again!

RoadTrip 2019

Part 5: Banff, Black Bears, and Beyond

September 8, 2019 hannahviolin

When we left off, we had just arrived at our campground in Banff. We stayed at Tunnel Mountain Campground 1 and it was one of my favorite campgrounds of the trip. The guidebooks will tell you that it’s overly crowded, yada, yada, but honestly, you don’t notice that from the site. Are you alone? No, but it’s a campground, not wilderness camping. The sites are big, and we had a nice one near the edge of the loop so nobody was walking by our tent. And the bathrooms even had showers, no extra cost and not limited, and somehow they weren’t even that busy! Plus, you got unlimited firewood.

Day 13: We wanted to do the hike to the Lake Agnes Teahouse and the Plain of the Six Glaciers Teahouse at Lake Louise. I’d been to Lake Louise as a girl and remembered how beautiful it was (also, internet pictures), but Lake Louise was an hour drive from our campground, and word on the street was that the parking lot filled up early. Like, really early. So we decided to get up to get there by six am with the hopes it wouldn’t be an issue. We woke up at 4:45 am (horrors) and got on the road—we even made coffee the night before and put it in a thermos. We got to the parking lot just before 6 am and while the signs said “parking lot full” that wasn’t true, and we got a lovely spot. We took our time getting ready to hike, drank coffee/ate breakfast/bathroom and such, and then headed out. It was crowded right at the Lake, as it was just past sunrise but the mountains were covered in fog still—I guess people were waiting for the sun to rise over the mountains and tons of people were set up with serious photographic equipment. We started hiking instead.

We first hiked up to the Lake Agnes Teahouse, which was just over 2 miles. When we got there, the mountains were still covered by fog.

Anyway, we had a pot of teas, some scones and jam, and a bowl of veggie soup (random, I know but it looked good and came with bread).

The teahouse gets all its supplies by either helicopter or by foot. While we were there a helicopter arrived, which was kind of fun.

Do you see the helicopter? And the mountains are appearing!

At this point in the day it was still chilly outside, but by the time we left it was warming up. Our next step was to hike around Lake Agnes and up over the Big Beehive.

I had a few instances during that portion of the hike of being terrified of hikes, but I made it. At the top, Louie had a little issue and we hurried along and so didn’t get pictures up there. Off we went to the Plain of Six Glaciers!

The next part of the hike was less busy as I think more people choose one or the other hike, and as a result was my favorite part of the hike. Once we got to there part of the hike that was the more direct route to the Plain of Six Glaciers Teahouse it was more crowded, and the sun was high in the sky and it was a tough part of the hike!

But we made it! And ordered more tea and scones. Then we hiked back down, which was crowded, but beautiful. As we got closer to Lake Louise, the crowds were overwhelming, and the last hour or so of the hike we were just dodging people and ready to be DONE. The views were spectacular though—the lake is an unbelievable color and the mountains are just, well, words don’t do it justice. And neither do pictures!

That’s the Hotel Fairmont at Lake Louse—very fancy.

We thought this canoe with a Canadian Flag was just great.

Anyway, we finally made it back to the car, and we were exhausted

This was the hike as recorded on Louie’s Apple Watch. Just over 11 miles.

We got back to our campground around 4:30 and were exhausted! We showered and then made a campfire and relaxed all evening.

In Canada, they call it Kraft Dinner. We enjoyed this with a can of tuna and peas added.

Day 14: We decided today would be an easy day and we would just visit the town of Banff. We started with breakfast at Evelyn’s coffee—the cappuccinos were good but the breakfast muffins were “eh”. We walked along the Bow River then, and around the Fenland Loop, which was in the trees and super full of bugs.

The town of Banff is in the National Park, but is full of shops and restaurants and everything you might need…well, almost. Louie kept trying to find a new pair of shoes but everything he liked was sold out in his size.

We got lunch at a place called “Block”. We had our first poutine, and enjoyed a tofu bao and a delicious salad called the “Zen” salad.

After lunch, we walked the other direction along the Bow River, towards the Falls, and then up to the Fairmont Hotel Banff.

After visiting the hotel we headed back to our car, first making a stop at a grocery store for supplies for the next few days. I was worried about how long we’d been parked—we found a garage for 8 hours, which seemed like a long time when we’d parked there that morning, but then we didn’t remember exactly when we’d arrived! In any case, it was no problem.

Next we decided to drive the Lake Minnewanka Loop and follow a suggested tour in the guidebook I was using at the time. We stopped at a place called Lower Bankhead, which used to be a place where people lived and worked in a mine, and we were walking the loop when an animal trotted right past us, and we think it was a fox..or even a coyote?! Lower Bankhead was also full of mosquitoes.

Maybe it’s a kangaroo?

We next stopped at Lake Minnewanka and looked around for a few minutes.

You can buy tickets for various boat rides, as well as rent kayaks and such.

Then we continued along to Two Jack Lake, and then Johnson Lake. It kept looking like it was going to rain, so we kept moving along.

We saw some bighorn sheep around the lake, but it was too crowded with cars to take any pictures. As we were getting back to our campsite, we saw some elk.

Then we did the usual, fire and dinner, and just after dark, I was headed to brush my teeth and realized there were some elk walking nearby. I went back to get Louie’s attention, and we realized there was a whole herd of elk, dozens and dozens, walking by and through the campground, bugling, and grazing, and just passing through slowly. It was amazing! We didn’t get any pictures, as it was dark, but we just stood then in the dark (at one point moving further away) and enjoyed their presence. That’s one of the reasons we camp—you wouldn’t get an experience like that in a hotel as you wouldn’t be outside! It was one of my favorite moments of the trip, honestly. It was magical.

Later that night there was a storm, and the rain continued into the early morning.

Day 15: We had thought we might get up early, but it was raining, so we waited until after 7 to get up. We decided to hike Johnston Canyon Falls and Ink Pots Trail. The trail was nice, but very crowded! Once you got past the Falls it wasn’t as bad, but yeah…Banff is a busy place.

Did I know my picture was being taken? Questionable. We had lunch in the Ink Pots area.

After the hike, we decided to drive the rest of the Bow Valley Parkway. We saw a bear, then another bear, and then after we turned back around, we saw a third bear that might have the same as the first bear! We did get told by a ranger not to stop alongside the bears and take pictures—they prefer not to have the bears get too comfortable with cars. It’s hard—you want to take pictures and see them, but you know that the bears live here and you want to respect that and help keep them safe. We ended up driving slowly by one of them, then doubling back and doing that again.

I think Louie got some good pictures here of that bear!!

After that, it was late in the day, so we headed back to the campsite for our last night there. We made a huge fire (using up all the wood we’d taken—you get a fire permit, and then you can use unlimited wood—except the wood needs to be chopped generally, and we bring a hatchet with us but not an axe so it was a real adventure) and just enjoyed the evening and the cool weather.

I should say, Banff wasn’t as cold as Yellowstone either, though the evenings were cool enough that the fire was definitely helpful. Oddly, we had internet service at the campsite, so while on the one hand we wanted to live in the moment and enjoy the solitude of the camping, on the other hand it had been two weeks of vacation and it was good to be in touch with the world and neither of us can really go that long without responding to emails and such. It’s also nice to be able to easily keep in touch with family and friends.

The next morning we would be packing up our tent and hitting the road again, but for the moment, we sat, enjoying a drink, perhaps some popcorn, and a fire. (We did do a jiffy pop one night!) It was nice to spend 4 nights somewhere, because it really started to feel like home! And we could have stayed longer because there was so much more to do in the area, but we had our itinerary, and next up was the Icefields Parkway and Jasper National Park.

RoadTrip 2019

Part 4a: A few pictures to keep your attention…pikas, marmots, bison, and more!

August 30, 2019 hannahviolin

It’s always tough transitioning from vacation back into real life, isn’t it? The beginning of the new school year brings a whole set of challenges, and I feel like I’ve spent the last week trying to precariously balance my college teaching schedule (which is still in progress) with my private teaching schedule with my desires and need for sleep and exercise and practice time. I’m getting there, but it means lots of emails, waiting for responses, and then realizing you forgot to email somebody else. I’ve also been trying to catch up on things I’d pushed off until “after vacation” and while, I do feel calmer and more under control than in previous years, the beginning of the fall semester is not an easy time to be alive.

It’s fine though, and things are going okay! I’d love to spend a few hours working on my Banff recap blog post, but I haven’t been doing that. I must admit, I’ve been reading a bit during my free time, so it’s not exactly that I don’t have time, but that I just haven’t felt like spending more time at the computer!

(If you are behind, feel free to catch up, especially so you know the context behind the following pictures!)

Louie shared all of his photos with me though, so I thought I’d share a few with you here. He has a really nice telephoto lens so he can get “up close” with animals more than I am able to with my camera and phone camera.

This was the first marmot we saw on the trip, on top of the Beartooth Highway.

Quite the view!

My favorite, bison.

This guy seemed to be chewing.

This was on the hike up to Mount Washburn (in Yellowstone).

The bison like to roll around in the dirt.

At the Brink of the Lower Falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

At Mammoth Hot Springs.

Our first stop along Lake McDonald in Glacier NP.

Some mountain goats hanging out above the Highline Trail. Later, these same goats (I think) ran by us.

A pika. The pika (pikas?) can only live in high elevations.

Boarding the boat on the Grinnell Glacier Hike.

At Grinnell Glacier. And the Lake formed by the melting glaciers.

Our view hiking back from Grinnell. This was a gorgeous hike.

Another view of the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton National Park.

Selfie with Waterton Townsite in the background.

Along the hike to Bertha Lake.

It’s hard to get good pictures of bears. These two I thought looked pretty good! This particular bear was simply along the road on our route to Banff.

I’ll incorporate some of his pictures into my next few posts, most likely. In any case, I wanted to pop in, share a bit, and now I must go off to work. I hope you have a wonderful Labor Day weekend…think of us musicians who are likely playing weddings, events, and other gigs while you have your three day weekend Winking smile

Camping, RoadTrip 2019

Part 4: Tons of Water in Waterton

August 24, 2019 hannahviolin 2 Comments

Okay, not the greatest title, but do you know how hard it is to be funny all the time? It’s not easy! This blog post should be a bit shorter as we only spent about 24 hours in Waterton National Park.

If you aren’t caught up, this is Part 4 of my blog recaps of Louie and my recent 3 week trip out west.

Day 11, continued: So we left Glacier National Park and headed to Canada. Originally I hadn’t planned to visit Waterton as I didn’t even really know about it, but after I looked into things further, I decided it was close enough we should spend a night there. Waterton and Glacier National Parks are called an International Peace Park—they share a boundary, across the mountains. You can even hike across (it’s a long way, I think) or take a boat ride and get off and hike into the US from Canada…except this summer that option wasn’t available for various reasons so we didn’t consider it. We had just been in the US and while it would be cool to hike across, it wasn’t necessary.

Another kind of downside to visiting Waterton is that they had recently (two summers ago) had some really terrible fires and were still recovering—several of the scenic roads that go to various areas of the park were closed when we visited, and as a result many of the hikes we might have liked to do were not accessible. Nonetheless, I figured for one night we would still have plenty to do!

It’s only about 1 hour drive from St Mary (the east side of Glacier park) to Waterton, and it’s a lovely and scenic drive. It also cuts back through Glacier Park after you leave—so many of us only visit tiny parts of these parks and then you’ll realize there are huge swaths you didn’t get to because they aren’t as popular! We passed dozens of bikers going up a road, and we were glad we were driving uphill instead. Anyway, it didn’t take long to get to customs via the Chief Mountain Highway. It was no big deal getting into Canada—we had our passports, they asked us a few questions, mostly about firearms, and we had to roll down the windows into the backseat so the customs agent could look, and BOOM we were in Canada!

We bought an annual pass for the Canadian National Parks and then they let us into Waterton Park. They may share a border with Glacier Park, but you have to pay separately. We bought an annual pass because if you are visiting parks for more than 7 days it’s cheaper—rather than charging by the park but giving you a week to visit like in the US, Canada charges by the day but you could visit more than one park during that day and it wouldn’t cost extra (this seems crazy, but remember that Banff and Jasper National Parks border each other as well as two other NP in that area!).

We got into the town of Waterton (it’s a town within the National Park, which didn’t surprise me as I’d been to Canada before, but was different for Louie!) and even though we were early (noonish?) we decided to pop over to our campground to see if we could check in early. Success! We got our space and got our tent set up. It’s always more relaxing AFTER you set up the tent.

We stayed in the Townsite Campground, which the guidebook I was using did not think much of. I’ll be honest, I always take guidebook campground reviews with a grain of salt, because I’m not sure they are really campers. I love a campground with good views and good water access. This one had lovely facilities (including hot showers, what?), easy access to water (for drinking and washing dishes) and while the sites WERE a bit close together and there weren’t many trees, which means not much privacy, the views were pretty spectacular. In the front part of the campground people had practically lake front property. We were more towards the side and were along a little creek, with lovely views of the mountain. Privacy in a campground can be nice, but it’s not my only concern. Plus, you get kind of used to being in the open and learn to just pretend nobody else is around..and there’s also good people watching (in a subtle manner, of course) which can be nice after spending 11 days with only one other person!

You can see the bathhouse there in the background. There were also small shelters in which you could cook—I imagine if the weather were bad that would be really nice!

Anyway, after we set up the tent, we decided to go on a hike that was nearby to Bertha Lake. It was alternately described as “moderate” or “easy” but had quite a bit of elevation change, and was about 6 miles round trip…I think I bit off more than I could chew, especially because it was a hot and sunny day!

We had a little trouble finding the start of the trail, and ended up “offroading” a little bit, but we made it. The trail was BUSY, maybe because so many other areas in the park were closed. The views were gorgeous—Waterton was perhaps the most beautiful place we visited. The water, the mountains, the wildflowers, and yes, the burned trees…it all made for the most gorgeous views.

Shortly after Bertha Falls, I decided to turn around and Louie went ahead without me. The trail started getting much steeper, my legs were just really dead, and the heat was getting to me. I hate feeling like I gave up, but I felt much better going downhill (ha!) and it was nice getting back to the campsite, showering, and relaxing and reading a book for awhile while Louie explored on his own. He probably got back two hours later or more, and said not only did he make it to Bertha Lake, then he walked around the lake which added several more miles! I myself finished my book (I had been reading the Pillars of the Earth for two weeks) and enjoyed sitting outside in my chair in the lovely weather (not as hot out of the sun!).

We decided to get dinner in town, and went to place called the Taco Bar. Though they didn’t make their own margaritas, they sold margaritas in a can, and I enjoyed a nice bowl with rice, beans, and spinach. Louie ordered six tacos, and I’d thought he was just really hungry from all the hiking, but it turns out they were mini tacos and then he ordered a few more afterwards!

After dinner we walked around the town a bit and took some pictures by the lake. Then we headed back to the campground, and saw a few deer visit our site. No campfires were allowed, and it was starting to rain lightly, so we made it an early night.

Day 12: We weren’t in a big hurry in the morning, so we didn’t get up too early… though I think we ended up being ready for breakfast before 8 am, so it’s possible my concept of what’s early and what’s not is a little skewed. We had decided to get breakfast in town and walk around a bit more, and decided to eat at a place called Zum’s. I had a veggie omelet, and the place was okay. It had a gift shop and I got stuck in a conversation with the owner about how awful the National Parks Service was and how they were ruining Waterton and wanted to turn it into Banff, which was an atrocity…and I wanted to say, really, you are going on about how you wish Waterton were more like it used to be and you don’t want the crowds…and you are selling trashy tourist kitsch junk? I did not say that, nor did I say we were headed to Banff next! And honestly, this all came out of a conversation about THE WEATHER.

We walked along the water some more, and maybe we should have taken a boat ride too, like I’ve said before, there were so many times we could have rented a boat or gotten a tour and didn’t, but the breeze was cool and it was a lovely foggy morning.

You can see the Prince of Wales Hotel up on the bluff in that photo.

We went back to pack up our campsite, and before we left town for good, we wanted to stop by the Prince of Wales hotel (Note, I pronounce wales and whales differently but Louie does not.)

This would be a better picture without the white van, but I’m not a photo shop expert.

Here is the view of Waterton from the hotel—the little town is on the right side, and the mountains are amazing.

We were sad to leave, but we might try to return someday in the future when the parkways are open and we can further explore the area. And maybe stay in the hotel, or get one of the campsites closer to the water!

Our next destination was Banff, which was about a 5 hour drive away. We’d been navigating using a combination of Apple Maps and an old Garmin device, and on this drive we had a little fiasco. Apple maps told us to turn onto a road which turned into a long gravel road, and then more gravel, and we realized it was going to be 30 miles of gravel roads! We decided to turn around instead, and found our way back to the route Garmin was giving us instead. I realized in that moment that the map of Alberta I had wasn’t as detailed as I wished, and we had a few moments of panic (well, I did) before we realized, well, we can always just turn around and that will be fine. We wanted to take a scenic route to Banff, but not that scenic!

We stopped for lunch in Longview at the Little New York Bistro, which was a place I found online that had great reviews. Against possible better judgment but based on reviews I had a seafood wrap, which had lots of tomatoes as well and was pressed in a grill. After a lovely lunch we drove through a variety of Provincial Parks and saw an insane amount of wildlife: more bighorn sheep than we could count (several different groups), then a black bear on the side of the road, and then we saw two bears cross the road in front of us, we assume a mom and child. It was a wonderfully scenic road!

Bighorn sheep. You might guess those are goats, but the mountain goats are whiter and shaggier. Evidently the sheep are drawn to the roads because of the salt along them.

Don’t worry, Mom, this was from the car! And I zoomed in on my camera.

This bear was paying us no attention at all and just getting some snacks.

It was an amazing drive, honestly, and we passed through some really cool looking places and probably some excellent hikes, but we were on our way to Banff. We finally got there around 6 pm or so and headed directly to our campground, Tunnel Mountain 1. We had to wait in line a bit for check in, and some rangers came by to talk about bear safely. We determined it was similar to Yellowstone except you could have water in the tent to drink, and that the ranger told us that while she’d heard bears in the States break into cars, those in Canada haven’t learned to do that yet! So we didn’t need to worry about stuff in our cars at all, which for us was a big relief. Our site looked great and was kind of on the edge of the loop with a meadow behind it—I remarked that there might be some good wildlife sightings if we were lucky. And interesting thing for the park: you pay for a fire permit, but you can pick up as much firewood from a pile as you want!

I’ll leave off there. We spent the next 4 nights in Banff, which was a long time yet only a drop in the bucket and we feel like we hardly saw anything at all.

Camping, Hiking, RoadTrip 2019

Part 3: There are still a few Glaciers left… for now

August 23, 2019 hannahviolin 1 Comment

It’s daunting, writing after the fact about a long trip. Maybe next time I should bring my computer and blog in real time. I do take a few notes, so I remember what I can, but it’s hard to come back, have loads of work to catch up on, and also want to blog about my trip. That being said, it’s worth it, and the good news about this fall is that I’m not quite as busy as I have been in the past. (I remind myself this truly is good news, not bad news. I have plenty of work, it’s just not overwhelming me and making it so that I don’t have any time at all.)

Since getting home, I’ve been doing all the pampering things. I got my hair done today, and the other day I got a pedicure. There’s something about camp showering that just doesn’t make you feel as clean, and then, as the trip went on, showering happened less often—sometimes because the showers weren’t available, other times because, well, you get used to being a little dirty! At first we felt like we were too clean—showering every night at Canyon? Staying a cabin and having a shower available? I mean, and seriously, an air mattress topped with a foam pad? Were we even technically roughing it? But after three weeks of travel and living out of a car, I can say, yes, we were.

So we left off at the Roosevelt Arch.

Day 7, continued: We drove towards Bozeman, Montana, where we had located a Walmart to purchase the foam pad, and where we hoped to have lunch. We’d always heard Bozeman was a cute outdoors-y town, and my hiking shoes were made by a company founded there, so we wanted to stop by. We found a great place to eat called “Jam.” (insert this is my jam joke). It was a little bit of a wait, but well worth it! I had a beet and root vegetable hash with toast and homemade strawberry balsamic jam and it was downright delicious.

Super hipster, super delicious. I had an avocado on top even!

After our brunch, we hit the road for Glacier National Park. We had been on the interstate for some of the trip (speed limit 80 in places) but after a bit we were on more back roads, and the whole drive was quite beautiful (spoiler alert, nothing like future drives on the trip, but still beautiful).

We planned to enter the park on the west side, through West Glacier, as we were staying one night near the west side at Lake McDonald. We got to the park just before 6 pm as the visitor’s center was still open for a few minutes. Then we drove towards our lodging, and stopped to take a few pictures along the lake.

I’d booked us one night in Snyder Hall near Lake McDonald Lodge, which was a “dormitory” with a shared bathroom. It ended up being quite nice, as we didn’t even have to go outside to use the bathroom, haha!

We decided to eat dinner at the hotel’s dining room, which was called Russell’s Fireside Dining Room. There was a bit of a wait, but we were able to get drinks and walk around outside while we waited. The sun was starting to go down and it was very lovely to be lounging around in front of a grand hotel in the “parkitecture” (Park Architecture, this is an actual thing) style.

There was a boat dock from which one could buy sightseeing tour tickets or rent various boats.

The Lake McDonald Lodge from the boat dock.

Dinner was very nice, though perhaps not as good as the night before. I had a tofu dish, and we shared a vegan caesar salad. It was a nice salad, but didn’t taste like a caesar salad! The inside of the dining room was of a certain style, lots of wood, animal heads, etc.

This was the lobby, but the style was similar throughout.

After dinner, we walked around a bit as we headed back to our lodging.

We made plans to get up quite early and try to beat the crowds. I didn’t sleep terribly well as our room was near the entrance to the Hall and people kept coming and going all night long and into the morning and each time they did the door slammed shut. Oh well. When we woke up, we decided to make a mad dash for Logan Pass to try to do a hike there. Logan Pass is the Visitor’s Center at the top of the Going to the Sun Road, which is a terrifying and beautiful drive through the heart of Glacier NP. The parking lot notoriously fills up early (they say between 8 and 8:30, but it was earlier the day we got there) and it caused me a lot of stress to think about trying to beat crowds and such. There were other ways to get there involving shuttles, but then you have to wait quite a lot, and as Americans, we love being near our car.

We rushed the drive up to Logan Pass, which meant we didn’t really appreciate the Going to the Sun Road on the West Side of the Park, but we found a spot in the lot! (I nearly had a heart attack when the sign said full, but we got one.) We had arrived around 7:45 am, and by the time we got out of our car around 8 am (we made lunch, had breakfast, etc) there were cars circling the lot.

We did a hike called Hidden Lake Viewpoint, which was about 3 miles round trip. I was feeling quite tired and had some trouble with the hike—the beginning had just tons of wooden stairs and was kind of a pain, but the views were very beautiful. I think that morning I was just feeling run down and groggy and in retrospect I wonder if we should have just rented a canoe and relaxed around the Lake for a bit instead. But nonetheless we had a good time!

It was a bit cooler that morning!

Louie wanted to continue to the lake itself, but I just didn’t have it in me that morning. I don’t know why I was dragging so much, but I was.

We saw a bunch of these squirrels. Wildlife always leads to people chatting, and we have learned over the years to never volunteer information because it’s either wrong or will be rudely corrected even if it’s right. We just smile and nod, and keep things to ourselves.

Then we decided to hike part of the Highline Trail. Some people do the Trail as a one way and take a shuttle back, but we thought we’d go about 2 miles to a certain point and then double back.

Almost right away we saw a few Mountain Goats! They were sitting up high on a cliff over the trail.

The views were amazing, and really expansive, and I started feeling very scared. The trail was narrow, not super narrow, but narrow enough that I started feeling weird, and then we got to a place where you held on with a chain, and it was a little windy, and I started freaking out. I got to the end of that part, and we took a break, and I thought I was okay, and then I just wasn’t. Louie was nice and we turned around and I made it back past the horrible chain part.

After that, before we finished the trail, we sat down on a few rocks to collect ourselves. We were enjoying the “cheeps” of the chipmunks and other small animals, when suddenly there was a loud galloping sound, and the two mountain goats ran past us on the trail. I think I screamed! I also think they were as startled to see us as we were to see them! We didn’t get a picture, but they ran RIGHT past us and then kept going on, probably to get away from us. It was a very neat experience! When we got to the trailhead, only a short distance away, we talked with a couple who saw the whole thing from a distance, and they were saying they tried to get our attention to warn us, ha!

Anyway, after that, we decided to continue down the road, and make stops along the way. We were staying at a KOA Campground in St Mary that night (and for 3 nights total) so we needed to be on the East Side of the Park by evening, so we needed to finish driving the Going to the Sun Road.

We made several more stops along the way. Some stops were too busy to find parking, but we managed to stop at Jackson Glacier to see it, and then parked and hiked to Sunrift Gorge, Sun Point and Bering Falls, a beautiful but easy hike.

We got a lot of compliments on the car, and saw a lot of other Subarus around. What else would one do with a new Subaru other than drive to see a bunch of National Parks??!

Anyway, we finally made it to the end of the road and found our KOA and checked in. I had decided to reserve at the KOA because many of the best campgrounds in the park were first-come, first-serve and we didn’t want that stress. We would likely stay in the park next time, but I wanted a place to do laundry before we left and it was nice to have shower access. We also didn’t have to stress quite as much about bears (we got more comfortable worrying about bears as the trip went on, especially in Canada where we were told the bears don’t break into cars like they do in the States) and we got to have hot water to wash our dishes and our hands! The last reason we stayed at the KOA is because it was actually a little closer to the Many Glacier area of the park where we were going the next day.

The campsite was TINY though, and the firepit oddly located near some bushes. We had a nice amount of privacy however, and it was a nice wooded area, far from RV’s.

We made dinner and relaxed.

Day 9: Grinnell Glacier Hike. We had tickets for a guided ranger hike to Grinnell Glacier from the boat dock at the Many Glacier Hotel. We needed to meet the boat at 8:30 am, but it was about 30 minutes away, or more, so we left around 7 to 7:15 am. I had a little panic attack (Glacier NP was stressing me out a bit more than I expected, due to crowds, internet posts about how busy things were, and I think, general tired-ness from being on the road) about where to go, but we found a ranger station, I asked, and then we doubled back to the hotel where we had originally almost parked, and parked there. It was fine. We got to the hotel before 8, so plenty of time, and then Louie realized he needed something back in the car and he doubled back while I went ahead to find the boat dock and get our tickets. They weren’t even open yet, but after they opened it was easy enough, and then we had some time to chill. (It’s worth noting I also tend to get stressed out in advance of long hikes, and this one I was worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up and/or I’d be too scared of heights to deal with it…so this was all a bit more stressful than I actually wanted to be on vacation, but oh well.)

We boarded the boat with no problem—the hike was with a group, but we had two short boat rides ahead of us first, which would save about 2 miles of hiking each way. The weather was absolutely beautiful.

You can see the Many Glacier Hotel in the background.

Our Ranger was named Dave, and we were going to be hiking up to Grinnell Glacier, about 8 miles round trip. The group was probably about 20 to 25 people. He was very informative and interesting, and talked about geology, wildlife, wildflowers, etc. We stopped every once in awhile to let people catch up and also for him to talk, and I mostly managed to keep up with the group. After a few hours we stopped for lunch, and after that was the steepest part of the hike. There were a few scary parts including a part where you had to sort of walk through or by a waterfall, but I managed and didn’t have any real heights trouble. We saw a few mountain goats from a distance at one point, and bunches of chipmunks and squirrels and such.

Then we made it to the Glacier! The lake in front of it was just so blue. It’s from various minerals that make it that color. The water was very cold as it’s from a melting glacier.

It’s important to note that there were probably hundreds of people around at this point. Or at least many dozens. We chatted with people along the way and met two people, Eric and Carla, (from Minnesota) who were actually staying just a few campsites down from us. We relaxed for a bit at the Glacier, and then headed back down to try to catch our boat back—we were guaranteed a ride at 4:30, and could get a ride later but might have to wait, or walk the 2 miles.

On the way back, we ran into people that had seen a bear—through various telephoto lenses we were able to see a grizzly bear in the distance. Louie took a lot of pictures of it from the distance, but then we needed to keep moving and realized the trail went closer to the bear than we’d like. A bunch of us were hiking closer together and tried to make a lot of noise—I guess we succeeded as we never did see the bear again. In any case, we did eventually make it back to the boat dock around 4 pm and caught a boat shortly after——they ended up doing an extra run because there were more people than usual, I guess.

Another view of the Many Glacier Hotel.

Then we left the Many Glacier area. I didn’t mention earlier but should have: there is about a 15 mile road into the Many Glacier area, and it is terrible! It’s riddled with potholes, and requires careful driving. But along the way back, we saw cars stopped and lo and behold, another bear! This one a black bear.

We got asked to move along though, as in Glacier they don’t like cars stopping to take pictures of bears. It seems that every park deals with wild animals slightly differently, and especially with bears. In Yellowstone you just aren’t supposed to block traffic. In Glacier (and later in Banff) they don’t want cars too close to bears because the bears get too used to cars. It makes sense, but we love looking at them and it seems pretty safe from the car. (Not as much outside the car…and you are supposed to leave 100 yards but who even knows how far that is?)

After we moved along from the first bear…another mile or so down the road we saw ANOTHER black bear. Crazy! I guess they really like the area. The grass was a bit tall to see them too well.

When you leave the official park area, you continue on the Many Glacier road for awhile. There are a lot of large free range cows along the way. I wonder how the bears and the cows interact (I assume they don’t hurt the cows often or that would be an issue?)

Then back to the campsite to shower, have dinner and relax before bedtime.

Day 10: We decided to do something less stressful and head to the Two Medicine Lake area for a hike. It’s an area further south that they say gets less visitors so we thought it might be nice and quiet. We had to go through a construction area with a flagger to get there, so it was sort of annoying, but we enjoyed seeing a bunch of free range cows (you have to be careful as they are even in the road sometime) and the scenery was fantastic the whole way. We got to the Two Medicine area and the parking lot wasn’t even full and it was nearly 10 am!

You can see why the area is less popular, it obviously sucks.

We did a hike to Rockwell Falls which is about 6.6 miles round trip. Louie would (of course) have liked to go further to a lake, but I (again) didn’t have it in me, plus I wanted us to do laundry that night since we were leaving the next night. I was having a lot of trouble in Glacier being tired and a bit stressed out…we had a lot of conversations about vacation, and how relaxing it should be. This day in Two Medicine helped, and even though we didn’t hike as far as Louie wanted, I think it was a nice day.

People can rent boats and such here too. We never did, so maybe if we come back that will be part of the plan. We always end up hiking more and never renting boats!

Along the path we saw a female Moose! She was right on the path in front of Louie, so that was very exciting. I didn’t get a good picture of the moose. There was also a long wobbly bridge with a one person at a time limit. On the way back we ran into another group, and they said “That is the adventure we are looking for”.

If you look carefully you can see Louie on the top of the waterfall. He climbed up a “social trail” further than I dared, and he said there were even more waterfalls further up and back and it just kept going.

After a few hours, we made it back to the boat dock and the parking lot.

We stopped in a very nice gift shop that used to be the dining room for the chalets in the area. Two Medicine Valley was originally more popular and people stayed nearby in East Glacier, but then the Going to the Sun Road was built, and Two Medicine got less popular as everybody wanted to drive that road. I definitely recommend visiting the Two Medicine area as well, and the campground there wasn’t even full when we arrived at 10 am—we could have camped there if we weren’t set up in St Mary! Nonetheless, we had a little ice cream and then headed back, because we needed to do laundry. (I’d learned from past mistakes and really wanted to plan our laundry. This was sooner than half way through but I thought if we did this laundry, we could make it to the end, perhaps with a few hand washed items. It worked out!)

(The view while doing laundry…not too bad!)

We got back, showered, and did laundry, then dinner and hung out by the fire one more night. We made a really big fire to use up our firewood.

Day 11: We packed up our tent, but before we left Glacier, we wanted to do one more hike. We did one right near the East Entrance to the Park called Beaver Ponds. It was supposed to be around 3.5 miles, but we missed the turn and ended up hiking over 5 miles—easy miles due to not much elevation change, but still long! It was a nice hike, not many people around, and we saw a few deer by a pond.

Anyway, the hike was beautiful and a great farewell to Glacier National Park. It was pretty buggy, but we expected that by now. After we hiked we had a lunch in the car (sadly, I believe it was leftover PB sandwiches that we hadn’t eaten before, ha!)

That’s a good time to end this blog post—our next stop would be Waterton Park in Canada, and that’s where I’ll pick up next time!

Camping, Hiking, RoadTrip 2019

Part 2: This is my {Bison} Jam

August 22, 2019 hannahviolin

I spent way too much time on this post. Probably 2-3 hours over time, more than one day!

I sometimes ponder if blogging is a selfish or stupid activity. Probably both, but I have said many times before, I enjoy reading my own blog entries later, especially of vacations, and so…I certainly hope you enjoy reading them, but I know I will! Maybe that’s selfish, but as one of the characters said to another on OITNB in an episode I watched last night, do what you think is best! (That’s not a direct quote, but I spend tooooooo much time worrying about how other people will react to things that I do and I should just do what I want, because that’s generally what people think I do anyway.)

So! The first installment is Part 1 and you should read that first if you are here.

Part 1: What Happened to Scott?

We left off entering Yellowstone National Park. I’d been to Yellowstone two times before—once with Louie a few years before and once as a young teenager back in the early 90’s. Both times were great, and especially the more recent time with Louie. We were SOOOO excited to get back for a few more days—I’d booked three nights at Canyon Campground and one night in a cabin at Mammoth Hot Springs, so we would have plenty of time to delve into exploring and hiking. Of course, once you start looking at all the things one can do, 4 nights doesn’t seem like enough…no matter how much time one spends at these national parks, there can often be more time to spend!

We entered Yellowstone via the Northwest entrance through Silver Gate, and within a few minutes, we were in Lamar Valley, surrounded by bison.

This was my first bison photo.

I wanted to take a brush to this one to help shed its fur!

We were seriously in our happy zone. Louie and I hopped out of the car when we could, snapping pictures and just walking around with wonder and awe. Yellowstone is a place that really has it all: wildlife, gorgeous scenery, and of course, weird hot springs. Lamar Valley isn’t a hot springs area, but wildlife and mountains and water and open valleys and wildlife are plentiful. We slowly made our way forward, stopping over and over to take pictures, until I realized, my goodness, we’d better get a move on if we want to get our campsite set up by dark!

I brought this silly stuffed bison along, thinking I’d use it for a variety of funny photos. This was literally the only one I took.

We stopped at Tower Falls for a quick look at the Yellowstone River. We’d done all of the Yellowstone major stops before, but it’s been a few years! One thing I added for this year was I downloaded an app called “GYPsy Guide” which works with your GPS to tell you interesting information about various locations and makes suggestions on where and when to stop places. Yellowstone is HUGE and around every corner there are things to see and do, and it’s sometimes overwhelming.

(Personally I’m just happy watching and listening to the bison. They make these grunts and snorting sounds that are just so fun.)

Anyway, we slowly made our way to Canyon Campground, our home for the next three nights. Check-in went quite smoothly, except evidently I’d said only one adult instead of two, but it was no problem. We got the usual talk about bear safety, and our site had a bear box. They also said to leave food and such in your car if the bear box (a large metal box that bears can’t get into) wasn’t available.

Our site was great—far enough from other sites, yet quite close to the bathroom and water source. A little bit of trek from the dishwashing area (you are only allowed to wash dishes in a certain room because the scent of food and food scraps would attract the bears) but that’s only once or twice a day. The first two nights our campsite area was very quiet—the third night there were some different people and some were quite loud into the night which was annoying, but at least it was only one night. I’m a fan of quiet camping, where basically all the noise you make doesn’t travel past your own campsite. I shouldn’t hear your conversation and you shouldn’t hear mine. The reason to camp in a National Park is to enjoy nature, which means being quiet enough to do so. That’s my soapbox lecture!

New to us for camping this year was an inflatable air mattress. We’d been using thermarests which are a mixture of foam and air in a small portable mat. This year we bought a small full size air mattress that came with a rechargeable pump. We thought the air might get cold, but thought that the sleeping bag would help with that. Well…Yellowstone was pretty cold—we realized later that our first night there might have been a low of perhaps 38 degrees! The cold was coming from UNDERNEATH us, the air mattress, and there was little we could do…we were wearing numerous pairs of pants, tops, wool socks, etc, but it was pretty chilly the first night, and somewhat chilly the following two nights. Not to spoil, but after leaving Yellowstone we stopped at a Wal-Mart (ugh) and bought a foam mattress pad, kind of an egg crate type thing to put on top of the air mattress and WHEW it was amazing and kept us warm and comfortable. I don’t think it ever got as cold as that first night in Yellowstone again on the trip, but it was down into the 40’s several more times.

One view of our tent.

And another. I liked Canyon Campground. We also got two showers each day per campsite at the shower house. There are plenty of services nearby as well. Downside of the campground, only cold water (this is typical in US National Park campground). Upside, fairly clean facilities, good dishwashing area, lots of bear boxes, good fire pits.

On our first night, we were excited to make dinner and a fire. One thing Louie and I really enjoy is relaxing in front of a fire in the evening, so we always buy firewood.

Day 4: We decided to do a short sized hike which started from a trailhead at the Yellowstone Picnic Area for our first hike. It was about 3.7 miles and was supposed to have few nice views. We opted to do it as a loop rather than an out-and-back and I’m not sure I would do that again as the ending part was super annoying. But the trail was great—great views, and we saw several marmots and bighorn sheep. We only saw one other party hiking this trail while we were. By the way, we had a can of bear spray with us on every hike, and we always try to carry several liters of water each, snacks and/or lunch, rain gear, layers in case it gets cold, lights, first aid kit, extra socks, tissues, and a few other random things. Always hike prepared! (Oh, and a map!)

(As usual, most of the pictures of Louie are here on my camera, and most of the pictures of me are on Louie’s camera, and he hasn’t uploaded his pictures yet because his work schedule this week is insane.)

We had some lovely views of the Yellowstone River along the route.

Do you see the marmot?

How about now?

After the hike, since we were at a picnic area, we had a little picnic.

Then we headed to Trout Lake, which was a little ways down the road. We had to go back through Lamar Valley to get there, so there were more bison to look at. Trout Lake is a 1.2 mile loop hike. The start was very steep, but once you got to the lake it was easy, but there were tons of mosquitoes.

People said they saw foxes, but we didn’t. It was a beautiful little lake, one of those places in Yellowstone that should be busy but wasn’t too bad.

Then we headed back toward the middle loop of the park. We took a side trip up a little gravel road called Chittenden Road which overlooks the start of a trail to Mt. Washburn.

We drove through a bit of Hayden Valley to go visit the Mud Volcano area. We headed there to see some thermal features, but also because on our previous visit we’d always seen bison there and loved the look of the bison frolicking with steam and thermal features near them. We didn’t see any this time, but still enjoyed seeing the springs.

Then we headed back to the campground to shower, make dinner, and rest.

Day 5: We got up early to hike Mt. Washburn. We left from the Dunraven Pass trailhead rather than the Chittenden Road one, and got there before 8 am to make sure of a parking spot and to get a good start on the hike. At first, there were only a few other groups hiking, but as the morning progressed it got quite busy. The whole hike was 6.2 miles and wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. The views along the way were absolutely spectacular, and it was full of wildflowers. We really enjoyed this hike. The downside was that the whole trip was doubletrack, an old road, and when we got to the top there were actually workers who had driven up the other trail to get to work, which makes you feel like, well, why did I hike if they drove? The top is a lookout/fire tower, and there is actually somebody who stays there all the time to watch for fires!

My photos don’t do the view justice, but in this one you can see the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The views were of the whole park, the Canyon, Lake Yellowstone, and you can see various thermal features in the distance with steam rising from them.

This was the tower, and the trucks that some workers drove up. To be fair, I wouldn’t have wanted to drive up the road either, so I guess it was better hiking! The tower had a room with some displays, bathrooms (of a sort), and a viewing platform. It also contained an apartment that you couldn’t go in. We had our lunch at the top.

Proof that we made it! We did a lot of “trading photos” with people, though we were always happy to just take photos without trading, but usually we took advantage and got the photo also.

We enjoy taking selfies too though!

Gorgeous views!

We saw a few bighorn sheep, and then we had a very close encounter with one (we did back up, but we didn’t want to run away, so we just tried to stay still and not frighten it), and then we saw a bunch!

Going down the hike was easier than up, but it was hotter on the way down. We made it though!

Next we headed back to Hayden Valley and wanted to do a short trail called the Storm Point Nature Trail. We had a tricky time at first because of construction through the area…there was a flagger with a one road way and we had to wait and then couldn’t find the trailhead…we drove further, saw some more amazing views and some viewpoints we’d never seen, had a somewhat harrowing experience of what I called “stealth peeing”, and then finally found what we thought was the trail and thoroughly enjoying it…even making it all the way through not being 100 percent sure we were on the right trail, meeting a woman with two kids asking if this was the trail, telling her, probably, but either way it was great! and then finally noticing the trail sign, which had fallen over and was laying facedown in the dirt.

A good old fashioned bison jam. Why yes, I took that picture out of the sunroof.

Lake Yellowstone, along our hike I believe.

After that, we headed back, showers, etc.

Day 6: We woke up early to head to see the Grand Canyon North Rim. On our last visit we’d done a really great hike on the South Rim so we thought we’d do a quick visit to the North Rim. We got to the parking lot quite early, before 8 am, and the crowds were minimal. We walked down a very steep trail to the bottom of the falls.

The canyon is really amazing. We were also able to see Uncle Tom’s Trail from our viewpoint, which is this terrifying trail with 328 steps on the south rim (closed for construction this year) which I never want to hike again.

We got back to the top and then wandered to a few more viewpoints. Louie decided to hike down another trail but I stayed above and just looked from there.

Finally we left to go pack up our tent.

Our next step would be the Norris Geyser Basin. We got there just before noon and as expected, it was crowded. We parked outside of the parking lot on the street and walked for 10 to 15 minutes to get there.

We’d been to Norris before as well, but Louie wanted to see it again because he remembered loving it so much. I was happy to oblige.

What I always find most interesting is how there will be an area where no plants grow, but then they do. Life continues, no matter how difficult it is!

Look at those grasses!

It just looks like a post-apocalyptic scene. Or a war zone. But it’s natural. (Remember, even natural things can be bad.)

After Norris, we headed north towards Mammoth. I’d booked a cabin (with no private bathroom) for us to stay our last night for two reasons: 1) It’s closer to the north exit thus saving us at least an hour drive in the morning as we head north to Glacier 2) We’d seen cabins before and Louie remarked that someday when we were older and richer we should come back and stay in one. We aren’t much richer, or much older, but they weren’t too expensive for one night!

Mammoth Hot Springs. This place is crazy too.

Here we had a bit of parking snafu, which involved getting what was actually an awesome parking space and then panicking. But it worked out, and we were also thrilled to realize at one point that we had good internet, plus, it looked like it was going to storm, so we spent a few minutes in our car catching up on emails and checking voicemails and such. Then we headed out to explore the “terraces.” Here the springs make these weird terraces. Some of the springs flow every year, and then they will abruptly stop, so you’ll see a lot of old springs which just look like ugly rocks now, that used to be live! There’s a whole loop road where only a few of the springs are still running and the rest are dormant, and it’s sort of funny to see.

Speaking of wastelands…

You can see how the boardwalks are being taken over by the hot springs. Soon the park service will have to rebuild!

I believe this was called Canary Spring and it is utterly gorgeous. I couldn’t take enough pictures of it, especially with the dark stormy skies as contrast.

Here’s one of the more dormant areas I was talking about above.

Do you see a face?

We checked into our cabin then, and it was super cute.

They had soap in the shape of bears. I thought we took this with us but I don’t know what happened to it.

Little ground squirrels digging holes or something. I took a fall off the steps later than night on my way to the bathroom (bathrooms were around the corner a bit, though the cabin had a sink so that was great)…I hit the floor completely and was shocked, but not hurt—luckily I fell into the grass.

We cleaned up and put on jeans and t-shirts rather than hiking gear, and then walked over to see a few more springs before deciding to eat dinner at the Mammoth Dining Room. This was our first dinner out in a few nights, so it was a welcome relief to not cook over the little stove! I enjoyed a nice piece of trout, and we had a lovely evening. After dinner we walked around a bit more and saw a ton of elk just hanging around the town.

I slept great in a real bed (yay!) and not being cold (remember, this was BEFORE the foam pad, so we were still pretty cold each night) and would highly recommend the cabins. The only downside is that Mammoth isn’t particularly convenient of a location to anything except Mammoth, so I wouldn’t stay there too many nights. I want to go back in the winter sometime though, as it’s a part of the park that is open in winter.

Day 7: We woke up and had breakfast at the Terrace Grill, which is a fast food place. Breakfast sandwiches, coffee, more elk (well, not to eat but to watch) and then we hit the road for Glacier. We went out the North Entrance (exit) and stopped to get pictures with the Roosevelt Arch on our way.

Goodbye Yellowstone! Next stop: Glacier National Park.

To be continued…

HANNAHVIOLIN

Category Archives: Travel

Part 6: There are No Mountains in Jasper National Park

Part 5: Banff, Black Bears, and Beyond

Part 4a: A few pictures to keep your attention…pikas, marmots, bison, and more!

Part 4: Tons of Water in Waterton

Part 3: There are still a few Glaciers left… for now

Part 2: This is my {Bison} Jam

thoughts about violin, teaching, running, life.

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thoughts about violin, teaching, running, life.