Why US National Parks?
With the COVID-19 pandemic and international travel restricted, my 2nd eclipse trip to Chile was cancelled. So, I decided to make my big trip this year domestically. With my other hobby in aviation, I was finishing up an advanced rating in late September, so early October seemed to be the earliest I could go. I knew this would be fringe season from my failed attempt to see Lake Moraine in Banff. My friend and I decided on a 10 day road trip from Salt Lake City, UT through Jackson Hole, WY, and up through Yellowstone and Glacier National Park before making a long drive back to Salt Lake City.
Grand Teton
I had specifically reserved a Jeep Wrangler with the car rental place, because I thought it would be picturesque in the National Parks, but when we arrived, they only had another small SUV. I was disappointed, but not motivated enough to pay extra, so my friend and I piled into our trusty Outlander. First stop – Wendy’s because we were starving. Little did we know, crappy food would be a staple of our trip! We drove the boring road up to Grand Teton. I thought we had taken the scenic road, but I think it was dark by the time we got to the scenic part. The moon was full and peaking brightly around the mountains for our final stretch into Jackson. Along the way, we stopped to take photos of the “Welcome to Wyoming” and “Welcome to Utah” sign, which had bullet holes in it. Once we arrived to Jackson, we weren’t sure where to eat, but got a quick pizza and a beer.
The next day, we ate a chilly breakfast at a hipster bakery/coffee shop in Jackson, then drove into the park, and walked around Jenny Lake. It was a bit hazy from the smoke of many fires on the west coast, but still gorgeous with the golden hues of fall. We walked up to Inspiration Point for a view of Jenny lake. We went down to Taggart Lake, a smaller lake and walked around there with beautiful yellow Aspen trees. We left around sunset and stopped at a lookout for dimming views along the rugged Mountains, and then sought out the much-photographed T.A. Moulton barn around Mormon Row right during the golden hour. It was beautiful.
Back in town, we walked around for dinner, not quite feeling comfortable to eat in close proximity to people with the pandemic raging. So, we walked to a few places before settling on a brewery that had outdoor seating well-spaced. After our walk around town and then waiting a long time for a table, I was starving. We shared a Caesar salad and mac and cheese, but it was the worst salad and worst mac and cheese we had ever had. How do you mess up those things so badly??
We chose to get up before dawn to try and see sunrise over the Tetons, and chose the Schwabacher Landing as our spot. We got breakfast from the Starbucks and bundled up for the cold sunrise. We arrived to a row full of photographers, and competed for a spot along the river. After the blues turned to pinks on the mountain, with the moon glowing above, we decided to race back to the barn for a few sunrise photos to see if they would be better. With the sunset, the mountain range was backlit, just a row of dark shadows. And I was hoping for a well-lit mountain range behind the barn. It was good, but the pale morning light just wasn’t as impressive as the golds from the evening before. We saw a lone Moose, hanging around Mormon Row, before heading up to Jackson Lake, passing road signs that said “Moose on the Loose” Oh no! We had just left this fugitive moose! We stopped by another sunrise spot, Oxbow Turnout. The gorgeous fall colors would have been wonderful, but unfortunately the smoke was setting in for the day and we could barely make out the Tetons in the distance.
We went for a drive around Jackson Lake and up to Signal Mountain for some views. There, we saw a Ptarmigan (only identified to me after a future Alaska trip). We drove along Jackson Lake and stopped in Colter Bay. Things seemed to be quite dead. I’m not sure if it was due to being end of the season, or just the pandemic shutting everything down. Luckily, we bought a loaf of bread and peanut butter and jelly, so we never had to find somewhere open for lunch, we always had a cheap lunch on hand in the back of our car. We went on a walk around the Colter Bay peninsula and saw a wild fox, which we were actually able to get fairly close to! It was amazing and one of the highlights of our entire trip.
From there, we drove up to Yellowstone and decided to get the big hoorah over-with on our first day – Old Faithful. We had apparently just missed it, because there was another 45 min before the next expected eruption. Though, it can really happen any minute, so we sat on pins and needles waiting for the big moment. She blew right on cue and the big crowd of people gasped with excitement. After, we walked around the area with many pools and less-predictable geysers. I was shocked how diverse the landscape was and how neat the geothermic activity was. I had expected Grand Teton to be my favorite of the three National Parks, but it was actually Yellowstone with so much gurgling and churning. Many geographical features are built over thousands of years – Mountains, Canyons and Gorges, etc. But, here in Yellowstone, you could see the action happening right before your eyes! We drove to West Yellowstone, in Montana for the evening, but first had to deal with a traffic jam of Bison. We also learned that the term buffalo is incorrect, though Americans use the terms interchangeably, they are actually Bison. We also saw an Elk!
In West Yellowstone, we felt a little uncomfortable with how lax people were with masks, so we decided to get food to go, but when we went to pick it up, we were shocked how busy the bar/restaurant was, with crowds and no one wearing masks. We both felt uncomfortable even standing around for 20 min waiting for our food (which wasn’t good, btw). The next several nights, we opted instead to go to the grocery store and buy frozen meals to cook in our hotel room microwaves. We discovered that Marie Callendar’s Chicken Pot Pie was better than any meal we were going to eat out, and felt a lot safer this way.
Over the next couple days, we drove around Yellowstone, seeing lots of other geothermic pools and geyers, etc. My favorite was the Grand Prismatic with rainbow colors, and one particularly steamy place with boardwalks and bubbling mudpots! We also went on a hike to Upper and Tower Falls, along the Canyon. I think I was just shocked how diverse everything was and how large Yellowstone was. Yellowstone Lake felt like an ocean! We walked along a trail near there with a forest of tall trees and it felt almost like we were on the California coast. My friend and I made sure to talk loudly and watch out for bears in these more isolated locations.
One morning, we woke up at dawn for our best chance to see Wolves in the Lamar Valley, but after driving around and finally seeing a crowd of people, we realized the wolf pack was too far even for my telephoto lens. They just looked like black dots on the horizon. I’m glad they aren’t surrounded by people, as the Bison were, but I think we were both a little disappointed to not be able to see them up close. We were happy to have our PB&J sandwiches, because most of the small towns were closed up for the season/CoVID.
We drove up north through Mammoth, Wy, which is known for large white travertine terraces looming over a small town that seems more overrun with Elk than people! We stayed a few nights in Gardiner, MT to be closer to the north end of the park, and by the time we were there, we didn’t even try to eat at any restaurants. It started to be a joke what frozen meal we would get each night, sometimes venturing out to try other things, but always coming back to our trusty Chicken Pot Pie.
After a few days in Yellowstone, and feeling like we had seen most of the sites, we took a day trip and drove up to Bozeman. We quite liked Bozeman, as a college town with a street filled with unique hipster boutiques and shops. We ate outside at a beer garden and walked up and down the street, treating ourselves to ice cream before returning to Gardiner.
The next day, we hit the road again to make the long drive up to Glacier National Park. We stopped for lunch in Missoula, which wasn’t as quaint as Bozeman. We arrived in West Glacier as the sun was setting and settled into a cabin, which is usually hundreds per night during the summer months, but because we were end of the season, we got it for pretty cheap. We knew some of the park was closed due to CoVID – namely all of the Native American land, but we figured we would be able to see enough of the park to get a glimpse of its majesty.
The next morning, we woke up before dawn to hit the Highline Trail. My friend wanted to park at one end, then hitchhike to the other. I was pretty skeptical that this would work, especially before sunrise and people wouldn’t want us in their car during a pandemic, but after we parked, the third car stopped for us! We wore masks the whole time in the car, of course. It was quite chilly when we started the trail in the morning, but warmed up as the sun came out and I actually didn’t have a jacket for most of it, even though it was quite cold out. It’s an 11.6 mile trail, along the side of the mountains, overlooking the large glacier-carved valleys. It was indeed gorgeous scenery around each curve on the path. We climbed into clouds and back out of them, saw many trickling streams coming down the hillside, and even saw a black bear in the distance! Quite amazing. After we paused for lunch, there was another short hike (2 mi roundtrip) up a hillside to overlook the Grinnell Glacier. I almost didn’t do it, and almost quit several times because it was soo steep, but we took it slow and crested the top to see the brilliant blue glacial lake below. The winds were howling at the top, so strong they could almost push you over in some areas. We climbed back down and then it was downhill to our car from there, the last 3.8 miles. At this point, my feet were done. I was not a happy camper, but there was nothing to do except to keep going! My friend left me pretty much alone as I got crankier and crankier. By the time I made it to the parking lot, I was in tears. Worth it! Afterwards, we drove the Going to the Sun Road all the way to the end, before heading back to our cabin, where I took a hot bath to help calm my hurting feet.
The next day, half the park closed due to weather/end of the season, so I’m glad we drove the Going to the Sun Road when we did. We drove out to Bowman Lake, and stopped for lunch in the small town of Polebridge. Then, we did a very short hike to Hidden Lake, though it was misting and getting dark with a storm coming in.
We got back to our cabin for our last night, with the plan to drive back to Salt Lake City on our last day, a long 8 hour drive. But as we were trying to check into our flights around 8pm, we discovered that the airline had moved our flight up and there would be no way for us to make it with a drive the next day. So, with 30 min notice, we packed up and decided to drive halfway that evening and the rest of the way the next morning. We drove for about 4 or 5 hours, and stopped in Butte, Mt at a crappy hotel at around 1am. This is probably the 3rd worst hotel I’ve ever stayed in, but it gave us a good 5-6 hours of sleep.
At some point in the final days of the trip, one of our rental car’s tires started slowly leaking. All the way in Montana, there weren’t any other rental car places that we could swap the car at, so we just kept our eye on it and made sure to fill it up a few times at gas stations along our journey.
We hit the road bright and early to make it back to Salt Lake City. We even had time to stop at a Welcome to Idaho state sign (and ran across the highway for it!). And, we decided to hit up one more National Historic Park – the Golden Spike! When they built the railroad across the country, they built from both coasts and met in the middle, driving a golden spike into the final railroad tie at a big ceremony. We built up this museum in our heads, and ended up being quite the disappointment. I looked all over the museum only to find a small golden railroad spike encased with a note that said it was the replica! The real one was in a museum on Stanford University campus! So, for my whole life, I had lived just 1-2 hours away from the real thing and never knew! Sheesh. We got back to Salt Lake City and boarded our plane. We hoped all of our frozen meals and precautions kept us from getting CoVID, but the guy sitting behind us (a Dentist) was coughing for most of the flight, only sometimes masked. My friend and I curled into a ball, tense the whole flight, and even asked him to keep his mask over his nose at one point! Luckily, we did not get sick, but I vowed not to travel during the pandemic again.