Montana

Christiana has wanted to go to Montana ever since she was randomly assigned to do a project on it in the 5th grade.  I'm told there was a pretty sweet diorama of a mountain and a glacier but I digress.  It's a massive state (the 4th largest) but I think we hit some of the best parts.  I believe it lived up to the 20 years of hype created.

Missoula was a really fun place.  Big enough to have stuff going on, but still a relatively small town feel.  As you can see they have a carousel which was awesome in it's own right but also because as far as carousels go it hauled.  We also enjoyed Downtown Tonight which is a fair every Thursday in the summer with lots of local food and beer.

This is the ghost town of Garnet which we reached via an 11 mile dirt road.  It was a mining boomtown but completely dried up once the gold was gone.  It's one of the better preserved old mining ghost towns.   The old three story hotel is still preserved which was cool, but other than that it's mostly just small log buildings.

Bison art at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Great Falls.  The center gives a real nice overview of their journey.  In Great Falls they had to portage their boats 18 miles past five waterfalls.  It added about two weeks to their trip unexpectedly.

This monument signifies where Custer's last stand took place at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.  Of course this was the only major victory for Native Americans in the Sioux War.  The visitor center does a good job summarizing the events.

Of course probably the coolest part of Montana is Glacier National Park which we'll get to next.

Grand Teton

After the craze and vastness of Yellowstone, Grand Teton and it's relative smallness were a welcome respite. Plus, you can't  really beat the view. Interestingly,  Grand Teton is a recent  addition to the NPS, having only become one in the 1950's due to some philanthropic  and also perhaps underhanded land grabbing by the Rockefellers.

First order of business, float trip down the Snake river to take in the view

Walk around the glacial cold Lake Jackson. The Teton themselves, while impacted by glacial movements  over the past thousands of years, we're actually formed by what's called a common fault block. But it's actually not that common, only occurring elsewhere in Italy. It's the reason the mountains rise so dramatically,  as opposed to gradually in a range.

Hiking to Inspiration point on Jenny Lake

Hidden Falls 

Completing my Jr. Ranger Badge, I've lost count. 

And the wildlife highliht, this guy. We saw bears and goats and big horn sheep and wolves and pronghorn and bison and marmots and western Tangers, but couldn't manage to find a moose. On our way out of the park, after  complaining to a ranger that we couldn't  seem to find them ( and we went on several dusk hours long searches), she said to try one last area, Gros Venture. We almost didn't do it, feeling like we just didn't have the luck. Not even 100 feet down the road, there he was. Chomping away. Finally, our first North American Moose sighting.

Yellowstone highlights

Yellowstone is a massive park, bigger than Rhode Island plus Delaware. We spent 3 days exploring it, but surely it was not enough time. Luckily, the sun doesn't  set until after 10pm so you can put in 13 hour days exploring.

Here's  Jim at the Natural bridge off our campsite , Bridge Bay near Yellowstone Lake

As part of the ambitious Jr. Ranger program at Yellowstone, I was required to observe and measure scat. Here,you can see me measuring a nearly 9 inch buffalo chip.

Speaking of, check out this Buffalo relaxing in the Mud Volcano area of the park. As you likely know, what makes the unique features at Yellowstone, is the giant Caldera (a bowl like volcano). The proximity of all the molten magma and moving tectonic plates creates the unique geographic features. As our ranger reminded us, we were sleeping on  a giant volcano.

Watching Yellowstones's most famous feature,  Old Faithful.

Morning Glory pool

Travertines at Mammoth Hot Springs.  The second travertines we've seen after Pamukkale, Turkey.

Walking the trails around the Beaverponds

Pausing for a buffalo traffic jam

"The full Bean": LLBEAN shorts, long underwear, pullover, headlamp, etc...

Enjoying the view over Lake Yelowstone

A Colorado hodge podge, aka Tapping the Rockies

Went  to a Rockies game, not the best team in baseball, but a lovely park. Bleacher  seats for $15 included a $6 meal  and drink credit. Plus coupons for dollar hotdogs  and half price beer before first pitch. Check out the sunset view of the actual Rockies from the park. 

Sitting in the mile high purple row, 5280 ft above sea level

Casa Bonita, watch the South Park episode, you'll  understand

Jim's  bison obsession continues in Boulder 

Visiting Miller Coors, surprisingly,  the banquet beer is delightful

Yes, that's a young Mark Harmon, you're  welcome

Multi-billion dollar joint venture corporation still uses Microsoft Word art ca 1995

Rocky Mountain National Park, aka spying on animals. Here we spotted two downy immature great horned owls having a snuggle.

Big horn sheep. Did you know they have honeycomb  like skulls that absorb impact when they butt heads? No concussions.  Why isn't the NFL studying this for helmet technology? 

Me, on top of a big rock, in an even bigger field. This is the alluvial fan, a debris field from a massive flood a few years ago.

Last view of Colorado. Thanks for hosting us. I think of the state as being like ME, except instead of ocean, they have mountains. Delightful! 

Day 300

 We've been off the grid camping in Yellowstone and Grand Teton (and are going off again to Glacier tomorow) but it's day 300 of the trip so we wanted to shoot out an update.  Here are a few shots from Yellowstone (it's awesome) and we'll try to update some more soon.

I took 8 million photos of bison, but we saw black bears, wolves, yellow bellied marmots, elk, and more.

Road trip hiatus

We took a brief road trip hiatus to fly back to the east coast and celebrate the nuptials of Blair and Kevin. 

We didn't have any fun...

As you can clearly see!

Congrats to the newlyweds! 

Snow, after Memorial Day

We've been following  the Colorado itenerary my friend Peter gave us, and next up was a jaunt down to hike Maroon Bells (the most photographed peaks in the Rockies).

Here you can see the peaks above Maroon Lake, and the beautiful  clear sky

Mid  hike, looking back on Maroon  Lake

On the advice  of the forest ranger, we took the Crater Lake hike. By the time we got to Crater Lake, it was snowing, and still beautiful 

Ohh, and btw, there was still about a foot of snow on the trail. Really glad we bought those waterproof hikers.

Just beyond Maroon Bells, on the way to Independence Pass, we visited some ice caves recommended  to us by some fellow hikers at Crater Lake. These ice flow caves are beautiful,  and easy to reach, though hard to climb back out of. Both of us ended up using  the butt-sled-hope method to explore this little delight.

If you hold on to the rocks, sometimes you can stand up long enough to take a picture

Independence Pass had just opened 6 days before we traversed  it. You can see why. I wouldn't  want to be this plow driver, moving several feet of snow on mountain switchbacks  (we saw two avalanches being cleared while  traveling the pass). On the road, you drive higher than the tree line. Between the white clouds, snow, and lack of much else, it looks like you're  driving into the sky.

The high point on Independence  pass is the highest point where you can cross the continental  divide in a car. (Continental Divide, essentially the ridge back on the US, water flowing west off the mount reaches the Pacific, east, the Atlantic)