After almost a month in the Denver area (Arvada, Westminster, Black Hawk, and Boulder to be exact) and a 1 week jet back to San Diego for some soccer, work, golf, and poker for me (Matt) it was time to hit the road for points north. BTW people – Denver is HOT in the Summer, who knew?

We were excited to get out of the heat, gain some elevation, and see some of the amazing National Parks on our meandering route to our next “destination” (Kalispell, MT). We’ve hit 3 so far and as soon as I’m done writing this we are heading out of the Starbucks where we currently sit in Helena, MT and are heading up to explore our 4th, Glacier NP.

The first park we hit driving out of Denver and through Boulder was Rocky Mountain NP. I’d seen this road in a book that goes through the park and it looked ridiculously high (above the tree line) and basically awesome. After many switchbacks and a few lookout stops

we entered the alpine tundra at 11,500ft and continued to climb. The road (and the views) did not dissapoint.

During our drive I mentioned to Bree that they should rename the place No Guard Rails on Sketchy Skinny High Ass Mountain Roads National Park.

The pictures really don’t do it justice, but it was sweet. The road ended up climbing to 12,183ft. at it’s high point. We decided to hang-out in a pullout near said elevation and have some lunch and enjoy the view.

After stopping in Rawlins, WY for Bree’s long awaited reunion with the hospital of her birth we headed on to NP #2 Grand Teton NP. This place was also stunningly beautiful with the jagged mountain peaks towering over the river basin. Really cool spot.

We ended up rolling in after dark and not wanting to mess around with finding an actual campsite so we pulled into the employee lot of the National Park Headquarters and squeezed into a spot to hopefully spend the night and go un-noticed or at least un-bothered by the rangers. Success!

The next day I said to Bree we should just take a short hike to get outside and enjoy some of the scenery. She took a look at the map and said “The loop around Jenny Lake looks like a nice short little walk”. Evidently this estimation of distance was deduced because the lake on the map didn’t take up the entire page. Our hoped-for 2 mile walk ended up being close to a 9 mile hike when Jenny Lake had been circumnavigated and we’d took the detour at the base of some of the Tetons to check out Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point. Note to Bree: 1 inch lake on map doesn’t necessarily = short hike.

Next stop was Yellowstone NP. Neither of us had ever been there but we’d just overheard people talking about how recently there was ANOTHER hiker that had been attacked/eaten/mauled/treated poorly by a bear. So Bree had some Bear-a-phobia while we were there to say the least. The first night in our campground I was walking to take our trash to the bearproof trashcan and a guy comes sprinting past me. On his way back (with the camera he’d grabbed) he let’s me know in his German accent that I should be careful with the trash I was carrying as people just spotted a bear and 3 cubs in the campsite 100 yards ahead. Another guy was telling the park host as she was hurriedly texting this info to the rangers I imagined. I thanked him for the update/warning and immediately wondered if the bears would be able to drum up any saurkraut to have with their Deutsch Photographerschnitzel.

We never saw the bears (or heard any death screams) so I imagine everything turned out OK for all involved. Yellowstone was beautiful. Old Faithful was cool but a ridiculous zoo of people so not the most ideal setting.

Everything else was awesome. There were stunning pools/geysers/springs/water hole thingies that were really pretty.

In our time in the parks we saw Moose, Bison, Deer, Mule Deer, Squirrel like things that we think were not squirrels, possibly a large cat prowling through a field (it was far and we didn’t stop but it looked intriguing and lots of people were stopped taking pictures), and dogs. The dogs weren’t wild, they were in our campsite. We also saw our dogs, and mosquitos, and… nevermind.

So that’s kinda our NP update. Looking forward to driving through Glacier NP tomorrow. The route we’re taking (road-to-the-sun) is supposedly one of the most scenic drives in the U.S. I’m sure we’ll have some pictures to post upcoming.

Tally ho…

Thinking of blue skies and pic-a-nic baskets,
Matt