Holy Posting Batman!

mmm... Oberon.

what? oh. Blog.

Speaking of Batman, >ahem<, just go and see it. trust me. Don't take your kids, go yourself and enjoy it. Fan-tastic, exciting, horrifying, pure entertainment. Give them your $9.50. In other, probably more 'real' or 'important' stuff, we managed a quick visit to the mitten two weekends ago to see Greg and Christina finally tie that knot off around Greg's neck. (wedding weekend pictures right over here) Splitting a room with the Bishops (Brian's take on the weekend can be found here) Liz and I enjoyed the big fat Armenian wedding, flush with some new dances, an incredibly ornate service and chapel and open bar with great aplomb. I won't lie, what with the extensive detail that had to be paid to everything, the amount of guests and all of the hullabaloo, i was expecting a train wreck of a weekend that was not going to be enjoyable at all.

BUT, i was very pleasantly surprised. The wedding was successful, (in that, they are indeed legally married, my only measure for a successful wedding) and i found pleased as punch to be able to stand up and represent Greg at that (giant) altar.


I took off from the wedding on Sunday afternoon, and liz stuck around the mitten for the remainder of the week, spending time with her side of the inlaws over at Hoffmaster State Park on Michigan's West Coast. A decent amount of pestering in the comments may help in getting her to enter her own thome on her time back home over at her site, or maybe i should just begin the initiative of pestering for her to simply start writing here. What say you, internets?

Getting home Thursday night, and then leaving on Friday afternoon, we accompanied our neighbors Matt & Anne on a trip up to the black hills in SD, a five hour drive Northward. Matt is an ex-coworker of mine from my LT days up at FE Warren, and he actually just got back last week from a 6 month stint in the Iraq. Matt actually used to live in Rapid City, which is one of the reasons we had decided to make the trip.

We managed to find the second to last camping spot on Sheridan Lake, just south of town and North of the monument. Friday night dinner (because what is more important than food details) was "hobo burgers", which was blue cheese ground beef with onions, peppers wrapped in tin foil and thrown into the fire for 12 minutes. Donning gloves, retrieve the sizzling goodness and pour into a hotdog bun. mmm.

The morning saw eggs and bacon, and then we were off to see Mt Rushmore. I had personally been there once before, during my first roadtrip across the country with my brother Matt. We rolled into the monument five years ago and balked at the cost to park and see the stupid thing. We did manage to discover the singular loophole of Rushmore, though: once you get to the window, the only way to get out of the monument is to drive through the whole thing, which they will let you do for free. You can also kind of see it from the drive. You can also send your little brother running up the pedestrian walkway, camera in hand, to snap a few pictures and then run back to your idling Buick and take off. Eat it, Washington!

So, this plan was not what we went with this weekend, though. go figure. We did discover the one limiting factor of the place, though: there isn't much to do. I have to give the park service credit, they really did try and stretch the experience out as much as possible, with a decent sized museum, two movies to watch about the thing, and even a half mile trail to walk. That said, Rushmore is a 3 hour event all told, so we soon found ourselves in the Keystone city park having a picnic lunch.

From there we went into Rapid City to see the sites, Matt's old house, and Matt's old comic shop. (the most important stop of the weekend.) We also met another Civil Engineer that Matt had been deployed with who is stationed up at Ellsworth. We had dinner with him and a few other LTs, and made it back to the campsite for some requisite smores and bedtime.

Sunday saw some blueberry pamcakes, the packing up of camp, and setting southward to visit the Wind Cave National Park. We got the last four tour tickets for the next tour of the caves (sensing a theme for the weekend?) and spent the next hour and a half 200 foot below the earth's surface. The cave apparently holds more than %85 of all of the worlds Boxwork formations, which is a type of cave rock formation that shows up in very specific conditions instead of stalagtites. (not mites. tites. not that they had either.) We went a little more than a mile through narrow passageways and huge rooms, all dramatically lit for the best effect. I've never been spelunking before, and it was a really neat experience. I totally endorse checking out the Wind Cave if you're in the area.

Ok, so, i think that brings us back up to speed. right? no complaints? good. All the shots from South Dakoter are over here....

Friday Comic of the week: Quick Shot

Believe it or not, this week's winner involves the puffing up of my little engineer ego:

Thanks xkcd! You're the greatest!

So, there is plenty to post about regarding the last ten days of life, including the weekend spent in Detroit watching Christina and Greg (finally) get hitched, some crazy armenian dancing, being a bachelor while liz stayed in the mitten and went camping, and tales of Rotary Park Bouldering. BUT, they will have to wait, as i wasn't able to get any of the pictures from these tales, and also because we are leaving this afternoon to camp in the Black Hills for the weekend with our friends Matt & Anne. I am sure there will be at least one picture with someone attempting to pick George Washington's nose. Cheers!

-db-

A day of 14ers: Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln and Bross

Our friend Cherisse, who is interning at Timberline Old Town this summer on loan from her college in Pennsylvania has a need to bag a 14er. She tells a small group of us this fact a few weeks ago, and the planning for a Saturday of peak walking develops - and eventually lands us (8 of us) at the base of Mt Democrat, at the Kite Lake Campground on Friday night.

Kite Lake's camping sites make up the highest actual campground in the entire country at 12,000', and we make it to our site late on Friday night. There is a requisite visit for dinner in Fairplay to Dinky's Dairy for burgers and shakes, and we get to the campground as dusk passes to actual darkness. We're all staying in a pair of borrowed 6 man tents, which offer more space than i think i've ever seen in a tent before in my life.


I always enjoy getting to a spot in the night and waking up to see what it is exactly that you are camping next to. Turns out our spot was literally 6' off of Kite Lake itself, with Mt Democrat looming menacingly over us. Breakfast is oatmeal, and we eventually rouse the entire crew and get onto the trail by 7:45. The order of the day involves hitting all four 14ers in the half-circle: Democrat, then Cameron, Lincoln and Bross.


It certainly sounds and looks more impressive than the hike turns out to be - i don't believe a better hike could even be designed! The hike to Democrat is first, and takes you up 2,148 feet to in just under 2 miles via a relatively straightforward climb to the saddle, and then some meaner switchbacks up the hill's massive scree fields. We get 7 of us up to the top, as we had already lost Landis before we even began to his road rash. (he was suffering from an unfortunate bike-pavement incident, from which he was having trouble walking uphill for the sake of stretching out his wounded thigh. ouch.) Our enjoyment of the summit was slightly stifled by the Youth Group of people also on top with us, who did not appear to have any understanding of mountain top ettiquite. (It's really quite simple, hence the fact that you won't really find it written down in any publication: SHUT UP AND ENJOY THE VIEW.)

The clock and some interesting clouds motivate us to head back down the scree, and we are forced to make a decision back at the saddle between Democrat and Cameron. It was already after 11 a.m., the wind seemed to be picking up slightly, and while the clouds that had been moving in were still fluffy and white, clouds at that elevation in any form make me nervous. We end up losing three more of the troupe due to some tiredness and apprehension to the prospect of having to pick up our pace on the next 1100' uphill to Cameron in front of us, which leaves myself, Liz, and our friends Brandon and Steve to face the remaining three peaks.

The ridge line up to Cameron is pretty steep but we make good progress and get to the top around noon. Enjoying the view, and also the vast flat acreage between Cameron (14,238') and Lincoln (14,286'), we quickly move over to the top of Lincoln and then take a snack break. And some awkward pictures.


From here, it's 2 miles along the ridge to the top of Bross, and we continue our pace over and summit Bross around 2 p.m. We pass signs on the way up and the way down telling us the land is completely private, and access to Bross is closed, and do our best to ignore them. (it's not hard - we can see a dozen other people ahead of us who ignored them as well.)

The way down is pretty vertical, and filled with scree. It's more like surfing than walking, and as much as a fall hurts (and a downhill roll even more so) i can't help but enjoy myself, even though common sense tells me it should be more nerve wracking, and not fun. We do eventually get back to the lake slightly after 3, and have logged about 3500 vertical feet over 7 miles on the day - but as i said earlier, it doesn't feel like it at all. The combination of sleeping one night at elevation, and the way that the trail metered the tough vertical climbs heavy in the beginning and less so by the end made it the best day of 14ers that we have ever had. The tally for Liz is now set at 5, and it's 8 big guys for me. We're planning on getting at least one more (maybe two?) in August, before the short 14er season completely wraps up on us.

All of the shots from the day can be found over here!

Move to Colorado, we're all better looking here

It's true, and i can prove it - with Science!!


The original article is over here. The question is, i suppose, if i still lived in Michigan, would i blog about this? hmmm...

Days 12 & 13 - Roadtrippin'

Days 12 & 13

It’s time to head towards home. We rise, eat cinnamon rolls, and manage to get headed southward by 10 am MDT. Lunch is cheese and crackers, and dinner is found at the Garage in Bozeman: pulled pork for Liz, a rack of ribs for me. It’s fantastic and the place comes highly recommended. We snake out of Bozeman just after some homemade ice cream, and just before I begin entertaining thoughts of living in this charming Montana town as a possible next home zip code.

We make camp on the southside of Columbus, MT, at the Itch-Kep-Pe city park, which has bathrooms, running water, and best of all: is free. I really like this state. I burn all of the laying deadwood I can find, and we sleep well, road weary.

The next day is a blur of Northern Wyoming roadway, and it feels really, really good to finally roll back into our own driveway, finally do some dishes, and sleep in our own bed. The trip is over, and it was fantastic, and I’m sure that for weeks from here on out I will be catching myself pondering the seen vistas and friendships that we saw and made. In the meantime, we have four heads of lettuce to make some distance on from the CSA this week, and it’s time for another salad. Mmm. Spinach.

Finally, you can see all of the pictures from the trip in the Flickr collection right here.

Day 11 - Climbing on the 4th of July

Day 11 -

Today is the day for climbing. Well, eventually. There is still coffee to be drunk, and we don’t move too quickly. Actually, that is a fib, for this morning around 7 am we hear the deepest, most imposing crack of thunder that either of us have ever heard in our entire lives. This is not hyperbole, as the title of this blog suggests, but simply the merits of the vastness of the Montana sky. We quickly move our gigantic borrowed condo tent into the garage, put the car windows up, and move a pair of bikes indoors as well.

The morning is then enjoyed with our warm breakfast beverages on the porch, watching the sky fall down all around us. Later in the morning we run to the local grocery to fetch the makings for some blue-cheese-with-scallops burgers, and a couple of Montana microbrews. A quick lunch back at the cabin, and we are finally off to explore the Stone Hill climbing area. Mike and Mike’s dad join us, and we get on down the road by 1 in the afternoon.


We start on a fun looking roof-filled line that our collective guidebooks tell us is a 5.7, called Block Dance. I scramble around to the top of the formation and set a toprope to rappel down, and Mike starts up. The route is incredibly diverse in its need to use liebacks, slabby open palm moves, half-mantles and hand jams all in about ’70. Mike makes it up, and liz follows in her pretty pink helmet. I make the third trip, and then move the rope over two routes left to a shorter hand crack line that the book calls a 5.9. The crux is the very first move of the route, and I make it past the first bolt simply by virtue of it being early in the afternoon and the pinch strength required of my outstretched right hand is enough to find a decent high left foot.

From there, I take the rope from the top over to another ’50 face a few dozen foot south on the formation for another odd 5.9 hand crack route. It has more than just a crack, though, which is good because the thing is strangely intermittent. Liz heads up the route without me being able to see (that is, I was getting lost attempting to scramble down while she was ascending) and when I get down, it is my turn to head up. Apparently I complete the thing (I think it may have been called Fear and Smear) with a whole different sequence, and am rewarded by its finalization by moving the rope again to a fun looking 100’ crack line that is supposed to rate about 5.7.


I can’t remember what it was called, and the Mountain Project databanks are less than stellar for the area, so you’ll just have to trust the pictorial evidence that it was a wonderful, consistent climb with bomber holds at just the right spots.


By the time this climb is over, it is time to return to the cabin to get ready for the Fourth of July BBQ that a neighbor is throwing up the hill. Liz and I make our salad and prep the burgers, and also manage to pre-pack the car for the following morning’s exodus. We arrive on the party scene to find about a dozen neighbors and friends enjoying our host Don’s amazing view of the valley and the Canadian Rockies. We drink too much, eat too much, and then get to watch two grown men light fireworks precariously close to the viewing deck – one of the gentlemen being the town’s old fire chiefs. He lit most celebratory incendiaries with a camel in his mouth, if not directly with said camel. Gotta love mountain livin.


Shots from the day can be found here, while the entire trip is documented over here. Again, click on 'all sizes' for the larger versions of the pictures.

Day 10 - Lake Koocanusa

Day 10 – We’re told over breakfast that the Framptons have reserved a small pontoon boat for everyone to enjoy by floating on the nearby Lake Koocanusa. This, obviously, sounds like a wonderful way to spend an afternoon – but not until we sit on the porch sipping coffee and catching up on some of our reading, and then taking a drive around the Northern banks of the Koocanusa to sniff out some of the climbing routes in the area.


The Lake is what used to simply be the Kootnie river, til a dam about 45 miles of the Canadian border was constructed back in the 70s. Afterwards, the water level obviously rose, and the lake was named for its original river benefactor, and also the two countries that claim its Northern and Southern banks. Though fueled by running snow melt from the rockies, the lake is quite warm (in the high sixties, I believe) and we spend the better part of the afternoon trolling around, spotting a few bald eagles, taking dips in different coves, enjoying some huckleberry beer and playing in the mud.


Dinner that night is ordered out pizza from Eureka and some time organizing all of the pictures that we have taken so far on our journey. (there are quite a few) The day is the epitome of what a vacation should be, with a wonderful mix of sleeping in the sun, drinking tasty beverages in the middle of the day and sleeping deeply without a worry for the next day.

Shots from the trip are over here, while shots from the entire trip are collected over there. Again, if you click on the 'all sizes' button you can get the bigger version of the picture.

Day 9 - Bumming in Whitefish

Day 9 – As this Wednesday morning should, it serves as a markedly different and slower morning from the night before. Eating til we were full, drinking a wonderful shiraz and then proceeding to not do any of the dishes whatsoever really took it out of us, and we slept in til 9 and then had a fantastic breakfast of bacon and Grand Marnier French Toast.

By late morning we had packed up and thanked our hosts, and proceeded to spend the afternoon meandering around the quirky little town of Whitefish. It has its number of chotchky tourist shops, but also has a good number of café’s, coffee shops and a brewery, specifically the Great Northern Brewery. We sit at the bar and take a taster, making conversation with the bartender, Matt. As another employees leaves bike bound from the brewery, Matt asks if the young lass wants to split a pizza for lunch, but she seems relatively unhungry. We pipe up and gladly admit that we would help him with such a feat, and before you know it we are eating out of a pizza box on the bar enjoying almost all of the varietals that Great Northern has to offer.

Its things like that that make me think that I could get behind living in a town like Whitefish. Laid back, easy going, good food and drink and not too many people. Not a bad combination.

With another stop for pie and some huckleberry-related gifts, we headed North to the town of Rexford to find the Frampton family house. Mike works with me at Golder, and has an awesome log house cabin near Rexford, and was kind enough to invite us up to the area for the last few days of our trip. We arrive to find a brilliant and shining log cabin, a much larger tent for us to sleep in already set up and lined with air mattresses. Dinner is BBQ with a tasty Pinot, and we play a game of Mexican train with the Framptons, Mike’s visiting Sister and Brother-In-Law, and even Mike’s parents who are also up for the week. Even though the house is very full, we are immediately put at ease and treated like family, and sleep very well under the Montana stars.

Day 8 - Going to the Sun Road

Day 8 –

The rain comes down for the first time in the trip in the early morning, and liz and I awake to stare at the tent roof. The thunderheads are utterly majestic in their volume, and I don’t know how we could have slept if we wanted to. Eventually it ceases and we emerge to find a soggy world around us. I hang a wire along a few trees and we hang most everything that was in the rain while we make breakfast. We have Greg and Jen over from next door to help us obliterate the remaining breakfast items that we have yet to consume, and a good time is had by all.


Sacrificing our bath towels to wipe the dirt, rain, and pollen off of all of our hanging gear, it gets stowed and we set off for our last day in the park. We decide to trek all the way back around to the main entrance again and make our way up the Going to the Sun Road as far as they will allow us. The drive up along Lake McDonald and the swollen torrent of McDonald “creek” is a calm affair, until you begin to climb the first few hundred feet of the crags ahead. You soon find yourself along the side of an amazing canyon wall, looking across to thousands of feet of rock and air, punctuated by large, slow moving mists and large, fast moving streams falling down the cliff faces. It is easy to see why this roadway is the pinnacle of the park, and we’re sad to discover that the entire drive will be opened up in its entirety the next day – once we are gone. Later on we read that this was the latest road opening for the summer since 1943, and then it was due to a lack of labor force from troops being gone to fight in WW2.


The road stops at the Weeping wall, and we get out to munch sandwiches and watch a small pack of big horns move across the grass ahead of us. One little guy gets incredibly close to the pack of us silly humans, until a small child in a bright orange shirt dashes across the cliff line and convinces the ram to move away. This once again proves my theory: kids ruin everything.


We drive back down into the park and out the front gate bound for Whitefish, incredibly grateful for the time we’ve been able to spend in such breathtaking surroundings. We bounce into whitefish and find the lodge we’re staying at the for the night (the Hidden Moose Lodge) and take showers for the first time in 5 days. Dinner is enjoyed at Ciao Mambo’s downtown, and we sleep incredibly well in clean sheets stuffed, happy, and perfectly content to celebrate our 2 year anniversary in the Montana wilderness.

Shots from the day can be found over here, and the whole trip's pics are found here. Again, click on the 'all sizes' button to see larger sizes.

Day 7 - Cracker Lake Hike

Day 7 - For our last full day on a trail in the park, we landed upon going to see Cracker Lake, found at the end of a high canyon with a nearby trailhead. Our campsite neighbors of Greg and Jen, a couple who had flown in from North Carolina to see the park for their summer vacation agree to do the trail as well, but manage to get out the door before we do in the morning. (our a.m. timeliness is slowly slipping..) We manage to get past the trailhead around 10 a.m., though, and begin the 12 mile in and out.

The trail is very kind and shaded; following Lake Sherburne until a set of easy switchbacks through the forest get you to the North side of the canyon wall, looking down at Canyon Creek from above. We pass a few groups of people also heading in, and also a few going the opposite direction from staying the night before at the backcountry sites that are on the lake.


The creek eventually catches up with the trail, and we find that we have now caught up with our neighbors who had a 40 minute head start on us. We’re slightly embarrassed, apparently we are incredibly expedient 7 days into the trip and our fleet feet have taken us by surprise. We lose our shady tree cover over the last 2 miles of the trip, and eventually find ourselves on a small ridge overlooking Cracker Lake.


The pallor of the lake is completely unexpected, even though the guidebook told us to expect a stunning hue. Liz describes it as a lake full of blue PowerAde, to me it looks like the largest mini-golf water pond that I have ever seen. The trail continues a half mile along the lake to its campsites, where lunch is had and the color of this lake is taken in with a slack jaw. Glacier continues to one up itself. There is also a description of old mining equipment from a dilapidated mining operation from the turn of the century, but it doesn’t immediately appear from our viewpoints and our tired legs don’t care enough to explore.


Coming back down the trail, we take a break in the middle of the Canyon Creek to chill our water and take some attempts at long exposure water pictures. We eventually saddle back up and finish the hike, and celebrate in the lobby of the Many Glacier Hotel with cold apple juice. Once back to the campsite, dinner of sausage and rice is consumed and we congratulate ourselves once again with some huckleberry ice cream at the nearby general store.

Shots from the day's hike can be found here, and shots from the entire trip can be found over here. Again, if you want to make it bigger, just click on the 'all sizes' button above the pictures.

Day 6 - Two Med to Grinnell Lake Hike

Day 6 – Each day that we have a new destination we seem to wake up slightly more excited to see what the day holds for us. Pancakes stowed conveniently in our bellies, we simply shove the tent and all of its accouterments into the blue camping bin without properly stuff-sacking them with plans of soon removing them and replacing them on the ground.

The road to Many is about an hour long along the further Eastern perimeter of the park, and once past the entrance the view over Lake Sherburne is car-stoppingly stunning. The mountains that hold these glaciers are incredibly stunning and dramatic, and it is immediately apparent why most everyone has recommended that we make some time to see this corner of the park.


Getting there before 11 allows us to pick a good campsite, and once it is set we get to picking out a hike for the afternoon. Grinnell Lake is the winner, as it is a succinct 7 mile in and out around lakes Swiftcurrent and Josephine on its way to the final canyon watering hole. We are turned around after only a mile, though, with opposite headed hikers warning of a mama bear with a pair of cubs shortly ahead. Luckily, this area is traversed enough to warrant trails on both sides of any lake nearby, and we are able to take another route.

This hike, like most in this park it seems, also goes by a tertiary waterfall, this time in the form of Hidden Falls. I attempt to hurt myself by slinking under the protective fence and grabbing some better pictures, and we continue onto our end destination of Grinnell Lake. As with most things, each new location seems to trump the one from the day before. The lake is situated under canyon walls that soar 1500 feet straight up on all sides, and massive amounts of water from the Grinnell Glacier above and surrounding snowpack are bounding down as quickly as they can muster. We take a walk through the freezing marsh water to a better viewpoint and meet a couple from Texas, the mister of which had been employed at the park 39 years prior and was making his first visit since. Nearly an hour is spent just enjoying the wind and the water of this view until a boatload (literally, they had taken a boat for the first 3 miles of the trail down the lakes instead of walking) showed up at the little beachhead and encouraged us to find solitude again.


Walking out and making it back to camp, I believe it was a night of rice, sausage and cheese over a pair of cribbage games. If my memory serves me, it was the first night of a liz-victory for the entirety of trip, as my cribbage prowess had been on overdrive until then, powering me to 5 straight victories from the previous number of days. I only mention this because it will most likely never happen again.

Shots for the day can be found here - while all of the shots from the trip are over here. Click 'all sizes' to see the larger versions of ones ya like!

Day 5 - Cobalt Lake Hike

Day 5 – The morning comes and we are excited to get our first day on the trail in Montana. There are a number of trailheads worth considering at Two Medicine, but we choose a recommended hike from our guidebook to go and see Cobalt Lake. The ranger on duty doesn’t deter us with any bear siting reports in the area, so we saddle up and are on the trail by 8:30 in the morning. (I can promise you that this early morning vitriol slowly lapses backward as the trip continues…)


The hike follows the lake and the one of its connecting streams of the Aster Creek until we jog up a quick spur to see Aster Falls on the way. It is a bouncing, quick moving falls that makes us happy to be in town when everything is melting. Getting back to the trail, we begin to follow up Paradise Creek now that in three miles time leads to Rockwell Falls. I’ll have to get a scan of the picture that the guide book uses to illustrate what to expect from this two-stage fall, but it was not even close to what we experienced. The calm, smattering streams that moved down the rock face in our little book did not even slightly resemble the monster that we came upon. It seemed like every single waterway in the state was late for a date and was busting its hump to get there.

From Rockwell the hike begins its vertical ascent into the canyon and the gentle switchbacks slowly become covered in snow. We encounter one gentleman in an Indiana Jones cap on his way down from an early (early) morning start who tells us to expect more of the white stuff at the top. The remaining few miles is completely covered in slick snow, and it seems that not many folk had been making the trip up to Cobalt of late, as we completely lost the trail of tracks that give you the easiest way up the drainages. Doing my best to make Dylan proud, we steam over multiple sets of hills offering false promises of leading us to our destination, and ensuring ridicule from liz with each passing bush and tree completely walked through on our way.


Eventually we find the most frozen over Cobalt, and enjoy the eerily green hue that the ice pond currently entertains. I grab a few pictures before we realize that there are simply too many flies swarming our faces to bother getting lunch out, and we head back down the hills. We pass a party or two of a handful of folks attempting to follow our byzantine tracks, of which we advise against and point them towards the most forgiving path. Peanut butter bagel lunch is had by the swollen creek bed half way down, and we even find a side path that we did not notice originally for the top of Rockwell falls.


We make it back to the car around 4:30 and celebrate with Gatorade and apple juice at the general store. Dinner back at camp amid the mosquitoes and other hungry flying creatures consists of chicken, peas and rice, and we make the walk back to the general store for some soft serve huckleberry ice cream. Sleep comes easily and we are excited to get up to Many Glacier campground the next day.

Shots from the entire day can be found here - and shots from the entire trip are over here. And if you want to see the larger versions of the pictures, just click the 'all sizes' link above the image.

Day 4 - Yellowstone to Glacier

Day 4 –

One last morning in Yellowstone is fairly truncated, as warm oatmeal gets us on our way in relatively short order and camp is broken and stowed in the bowels of the car carrier. We have decided on a fairly nonchalant, but not quite meandering route up to Glacier National Park by way of state highways rather than the big freeways. Lunch is had out of the cooler at Seeley Lake, and we arrive at the park gates around 4:30.


Up until this point we have not exactly landed on which side of the park that we will commit to in spending our time. A conversation with a friendly ranger named Robin Robinson prods us to head east, so that is what we do. The only problem is that the only way to get to that side of the park is via the long, circumferencing road along the perimeter of the park, the as the bisecting Going to the Sun Road is still closed from snowpack. A little more than an hour later we find a decent looking campsite at two Medicine Lake, and make camp and dinner.

Shots from the entire day can be found here - and shots from the entire trip are over here . And if you want to see the larger versions of the pictures, just click the 'all sizes' link above the image.

Day 3 - Osprey Falls, Norris Geyser Basin

Day 3 –

Yawning and stretching, the first night in the tent serves us well. Today we have no driving to do, no cars to pack, only trail to hike. We feast on a breakfast of bacon & eggs (we are luxury eating car campers, and we make no excuses or apologies for it whatsoever.) we roll down the five miles to the Bunsen Peak trailhead where we depart for the secondary location of Osprey Falls. While we saw none of the destination’s namesake along the way, this was a relatively kind introduction into a week of hiking. The round trip was about 10 miles, with the middle three miles being a down then up task of about 800’.

Climbing down the walls of sheepeater cliffs, you don’t actually get to see the falls until you are nearly on top of them. Once you get there, though, you realize that the falls are actually on top of you. Before we were able to get within 100 feet of the base of the falls, liz and I were soaked head to toe on our fronts from the impressive misting that the falls was creating. And this is not just some playful description of getting a little water on our faces, we were quite literally swimming in our clothing with beads of mountain cold water running down our noses.



To sane people, this would be a bit of a drag, but for some reason it only enamored us to the falls more. The spring run-off is so late, and so strong this year that every river is swelling and every set of falls is moving at a brakeneck speed and capacity. We have already had to change our plans for both parks a number of times due to the fact that snow has still not melted (due to its enormous depth on the year) or the fact that an area is still an ankle high marsh with runoff and is not really passable.

Eschewing the guidebooks suggestion of having lunch at the bottom of the falls, we head back up and enjoy peanut butter bagels overlooking the whole of the Gardner River. We see only 4 other people on their way in when we hump out of the area, and relish in the fact that we are at one of the busiest parks in the country and managed to avoid most everyone there.


Since we made good time on the trip, I suggest that we take the rest of the afternoon to see the Norris Geyser Basin which we didn’t get to see the previous day. The basin is full of geothermal activity and impossibly green and blue lagoons that seem more at home on another planet. Running down enough ponds and springs makes you tired, and so we attempted to take a soak in the Boiling River, a section of the Gardner river that heads out of the North Side of the park that just so happens to intersect with a number of hotsprings at just the right mixture and provides a backcountry hot-tub just off the road.

Sadly, the late season conditions struck again, though, as the boiling river trail was closed due to extremely high levels and fast water, and we were stuck paying the mammoth hotel for shower tokens that night instead. (Word to the wise, if you just walk into the first floor of the mammoth hotel and go use the bathrooms in the hallways – just save your $3.25 and do it. Wish we would have known that.) Dinner that night was at Helen’s in nearby Gardiner, where we each ate a half pound buffalo burger somehow and also split a huckleberry shake. (that fruit is going to become a theme later on, just watch. At the time we thought it was a cute novelty to get a huckleberry shake…)

The evening fell and we got to see the whole heard (36!) of elk that we simply heard the night before, lounging outside the campground. We went to bed again to the sound of the bugling masses, with plans to wake up and make our to Montana the next day.

Shots from the entire day can be found here - and shots from the entire trip are over here. And if you want to see the larger versions of the pictures, just click the 'all sizes' link above the image.

Day 2 - GTNP to YNP

Day 2 –

Bright eyed and bushy tailed, the actual realization that we were on vacation set upon us as we crawled off our top bunk perch and out of our sleeping bags. One warm shower and cup of oatmeal later (not at the same time, mind you) we were bouncing North up the inside teton road bound for Yellowstone. The Tetons were just as intimidating as I remembered them being since my last road trip through 5 (!) years ago with my little brother Matt. It was difficult to keep the car on the road pointed in the right direction with such a vista over my left shoulder.

We eventually found ourselves in a mini car jam of people waiting to get into the park. All along the south side of the park you drive through hill upon hill of new growth pines, sprouting from the (literal) ashes of the massive fire that took place here in 1988. It has its own kind of twisted beauty, and also allows for the easier viewing of peaks and passes in the distance without a large pasture of 40’ trees in the way.

We stop on the way to our campsite to take in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, it’s upper and lower falls, and also the mud volcano. I could go into how wacky a place that this park is, but I can pretty much sum it up in a single sentence: the place is downright weird. Boiling mud, geysers, sulfur smell, white calcium landscapes, bison and elk everywhere. We eventually roll into the Mammoth Hot Springs campground hot and sticky, and ready to pitch the tent and walk more than drive. After camp has been made, we did wander up to the aforementioned and aptly named Mammoth Hot Springs for the walk around it’s ridiculous amount of mineral springs and moonscapes. Again, this park is weird. The hot springs feel like walking through one of Salvador Dali’s narcotic fueled nightmares.

The night is soon upon us, and after feasting on beef fajitas we snuggle up and fall asleep to the sound of a nearby herd of elk bugling away.

All of the shots from the day can be seen here, while the whole collection from the trip is over here.

Day 1 - Fort Collins to Grand Teton National Park

Day 1 –

I spent the morning awaking nervously to all of the things that we had yet to pack. I think for the most part we were about set, due to the fact that the last three days of life had revolved mostly around getting ready for this trip.

I do spend half a day at work on Tuesday morning, though, and manage to leave around noon with my mind and attitude ready to simply leave the moment I got back through the door.

We made it out around 2:30, though, which actually is not that bad. It took us about 7 and a half hours to get up to the Tetons through the winding and mostly uphill road through Wyoming, which meant it was roughly 10 when we realized that staying at our friend’s Lindsey & Brandons for the night was still an hour away… and we were pooped. A quick call to Mr. Adam Sanders, who is currently holed up at the climbers ranch that is actually in the National Park revealed a much closer, relatively cheap bunk that was much closer. The night ended with a shared hot chocolate and listening to the harrowing climbing tales that Adam and his new friends at the ranch were currently cataloguing through the summer. We like Adam a lot, and like climbing with Adam a lot too – but goodness me do I not believe we have the stuff to mountanier up into the Tetons. Unreal.

We eventually found our (shared) single bunk in a cabin already occupied by 4 others, only one of which who snored louder than I want to ever re-live. Guh.

Home Again, Home Again

Well, we finally made it back to our doorstep, started the laundry process and cleaned a lot of camping dishes. The garage is currently home to a million hanging items, and the car no longer has a box on top of it.

Look for some trip reports and pics starting tomorrow - and i promise to not even complain (too much) about liz beating me in fantasy baseball last week.

Soundings from the way up North

So, we are on the homestretch of our little journey, and the house we are currently staying at does indeed have the luxury of wifi - so i have begun the process of uploading all of the shots worth seeing into the que over on our flickr page. I've also begun writing up some daily trip reports, so look for those to be posted with some shots sometime this weekend or the beginning of next week.

I'll be organizing the flickr shots by day, in a giant trip collection - you can see the whole collection here. Be home soon! Cheers!