National Park Roadtrip 2022

After 3 years since a 'proper' adventure, we were thrilled to be able to meet up with Edie and Gareth for a National Park Roadtrip, that served as Amy and Edie's 19th Annual Reunion.  Here is a summary of our trip:

Friday, July 22nd, 2022:

Our trip began with separate travel days. Edie and Gareth left Heathrow airport around 12:35pm, and landed in San Francisco around 3:35pm, where they stayed the night for an early bedtime. Amy and Logan left Orlando airport at 7:25pm, with a quick layover in Salt Lake City, and arrived in Bozeman, Montana just after midnight. 

After being stressed for weeks about the midnight closing time of Avis, we were pleased to see that they stayed open past midnight so we were able to get our rental car and drive to Treasure State Hostel in downtown Bozeman for the night. Although the hostel was certainly not the nicest we stayed in, it was conveniently located right downtown and passable for our quick sleep, a shower, and a free banana breakfast. 

Saturday, July 23rd, 2022:

Our Saturday, Amy and Logan woke early and prepared to get Going-to-the-Sun reservations when they were released at 8am. It was a surprisingly stressful process, as the website had to keep being refreshed due to high traffic, and each time it refreshed another hundred of the limited reservations were gone. Finally, we were able to get through and secure our 3-day reservation, but by 8:05 all 1,000 spots were gone. Disaster averted. 

We checked out of the hostel and had a walk around adorable downtown Bozeman, where we found endless coffee shops and outdoors outfitters, and we were lucky enough to hit the town’s ‘Big Summer Blowout’ sale. 

We picked up Edie and Gareth at Bozeman airport around 11:30am and began our 5(ish) hour drive to the Glacier Area. We stopped in Butte, Montana for lunch at Wendy’s, and were all pleasantly surprised by the options and quality of the meal, and decided we had not given Wendy’s enough credit in the past. 

We then stopped again at the Wal-Mart in Whitefish, Montana for a $300 haul that included our food for the week, toiletries, alcohol, and bear spray (all the essentials). 

We then drove our last 1/2 hour to the AirBnB in Whitefish, Montana, where we were greeted by the host, Scot, who was attempting to fix the internet. Scot spent ample time with us, sharing hiking tips, trail routes, crazy stories, and a dozen farm-fresh eggs from the chickens roaming the property. 

The AirBnB was conveniently located just a few minutes from the Whitefish city center, and had plenty of space with 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. We appreciated having a home-base for a few days, as well as the pretty views, chicken and deer watching, full kitchen, and grill. We even were challenged to be innovative when we found the one bathroom had neither a working latch, nor a lock, which we easily solved with the use of a large ‘rock lock’ to keep the door shut as we were in there. 

The evening ended with frozen pizza, tea, drinks, and working internet (thanks to Scot), with a early(ish) bedtime.

Sunday, July 24, 2022: The Day with Two Hikes:

We woke up early on Sunday, eager to get an early start and officially begin our vacation. For breakfast, we made a dent in the (now 2-dozen) eggs with scrambled egg wraps, then drove the half-hour into Glacier National Park.

Our first hike was to Avalanche Lake via the Trail of Cedars, and it was a mostly easy, shady, flat 5.6 mile out-and-back to a beautiful lake, where we had our first snack-picnic of the trip.

We then stayed took the free park shuttle on the Going-to-the-Sun road, and were relieved to have a professional take us on our first trip up the high, winding, mountainside road. The views were breathtaking, and we arrived at Logan Pass within 20 minutes, where we set off on our second hike of the day: Hidden Lake.

This hike began just behind the visitor’s center, and was advertised as a ‘moderate’ 2.9 mile out-and-back hike along a boardwalk. We were quickly winded by steep boardwalk stairs, followed by a scramble through slippery snow-and-ice covered path up the side of a semi-steep mountain. On the way up, we were amazed to see families with young children, even babies in backpacks balancing on the same icy mountainside as us. At least we were able to see incredible 360-degree views, including many lazy mountain goats, as we trudged through the snow, and ended at the crowded overlook of Hidden Lake. 

We then indulged in our second view-picnic and enjoyed our sandwiches on a rock overlooking the lake before heading back the same path. Luckily enough, someone ahead of us made a snow slide down the steepest bit of snow-covered path, so we were able to safely descend, plus our wet butts kept us cool for the rest of the hike.

 

Towards the end of this hike, Amy finally stopped to take the pebble out of her shoe, to find that the damage had already been done, and a blister was forming between her toes; a blister that would then haunt her for the rest of the trip. Lesson of the hike: don’t delay on shoe pebble removal.

We then took the shuttle back to our car at Logan Pass, and drove to Apgar village, where we stopped for Huckleberry ice cream and people-watching on the shoreline of Lake McDonald.

Our evening consisted of a fajita dinner, drinks, googling toe infections, and games before another Edie-inspired early bedtime. 

Monday, July 25, 2022: The Lazy Whitefish Day

On Monday, we took an ‘off-day’ and were able to sleep in a bit (7am), except for Edie who started the day extra-early with a morning sunrise tea on the front porch, where the door locked behind her and she used the hour she was locked outside to have a lovely phone call with her mum (plus a few bug-bites).

Then, after our many-egg breakfast, we did a quick and easy 2.6 mile Lion Mountain Loop in Whitefish, just to keep our ‘hiking legs’. While at the top of the mountain, we were greeted by a herd of golden retrievers while taking in the views of Whitefish. 

We then drove into downtown Whitefish and walked around looking for a Fika break, then settled on to-go Huckleberry pie, coffee, and tea from Loula’s cafe, which we ate on the side of the road while discussing future travel (and funeral) plans. 

Our next plan was to paddle board at Whitefish’s recommended City Beach, but upon arrival and changing into swimsuits, we weren’t impressed by the crowds of people and price for paddle boarding, so we decided to drive back into Glacier to paddle board at Apgar instead. About 10 minutes into our drive to Glacier, Amy realized she left her phone in the bathroom while changing, so we had to return to City Beach and retrieve the phone from the teenagers at the rental shop, who had not only attempted a password so many times that they locked the phone for 15 minutes, but also took a series of selfies which were later found on the camera roll (and, admittedly, added some amusement to the situation). 

We finally arrived back at Apgar and rented our paddle boards for $15 an hour. This was Edie and Gareth’s first paddle board adventure, and Amy and Logan found these paddle boards were much less sturdy than previous attempts, so there was some amusement at attempts to wobbly paddle while standing. Only one of us fell in (*ahem* Logan *ahem*) and we all enjoyed drifting out into the chilly lake, braving a dip, basking in the sun, and  rushing back within the hour time slot. 

We then did a few jumps off the dock and swam around the shore for a bit before indulging in more Huckleberry ice cream. 

The evening consisted of a ‘carb loading’ pasta dinner, sitting in front of the fan, counting Gareth’s mosquito bites, and… you guessed it… an Edie-inspired extra-early bedtime. 

Tuesday, July 26, 2022: The Hike that was Worth Surviving

On Tuesday, we woke up extra-early for a 2.5 hour drive all the way across Going-to-the-Sun road, out of Glacier on the East side, then back in to the Many Glacier region of the park. Upon re-entry into the park, we were immediately rewarded for our early-morning groggy trek with an unbelievable sighting of an adolescent Grizzly Bear just off the side of the road, adorably eating berries. 

We soon set off on our Grinnell Glacier Overlook hike, which was described by Logan as a ‘moderate hike because the hard part at the end is closed’. We spent over 4 hours hiking (or, in Amy’s case, hobbling) over 7 miles on a steep, hot, sunny path that seemed never-ending. The views along the way were incredible and kept us going, but our true reward was the view of the striking mountains over a bright blue glacial lake at the end, as we ate our hard-earned sandwiches near a melting snow pile that blocked the ‘hard part’ of the hike. 

Along the way, we saw many brave chipmunks, who assaulted us as we broke into our granola bars halfway up.

 


By the time we made it back to the car, we were all tired and eager for our (at this point, daily) Huckleberry ice cream, so we did one last Going-to-the-Sun drive back across the park and found our spots on the shores of Lake McDonald, overlooking the striking mountains one last time. 

Dinner that night was steak on the grill and leftover pasta, and we did laundry and packed up our belongings to prepare for another early departure the next day. 

Wednesday, July 27, 2022: To Yellowstone

Our Wednesday morning started like many others, with a very early start and impressively finishing up the rest of our 2-dozen eggs. 

We said goodbye to Scot’s AirBnB and drove over 7 hours to the West entrance of Yellowstone, arriving to the park around 3pm. 
We started on the southern loop, stopping at the Fountain Paint Pot trail, a quick hike up to the Grand Prismatic Spring overlook, and arriving to Old Faithful right as it erupted behind the trees as we looked for a parking spot.

 

Luckily, we had planned a relaxing evening at Old Faithful, and made our way in as the large group of the last group of tourists made their way out. We settled in to the cafeteria, getting dinner, and keeping an eye on the geyser as Amy logged into her weekly class online. We were able to enjoy our meals and make our way out to the deck of the cafeteria and wait another 15 minutes or so in scenic rocking chairs away from the crowd, until the geyser finally erupted just after 7pm. 

We then took a leisurely walk around the boardwalk in the area, enjoying the lack of tourists and evening air, before getting back in the car and driving the last hour Yellowstone Lake.

Along the way, we saw a beautiful sunset over the lake.

When we arrived at Lake Yellowstone Hotel, we found that our reservation was in the system for the next night (oops), but thankfully they were able to re-book us for that night. Disaster averted. Unthankfully, the hotel did not have any WiFi or cell phone signal.

We drove to our small, basic cabin (at $350 a night), to drop our bags, then walked back to the main hotel for a few drinks at the bar. 

Before returning to the cabin around 11pm, Amy asked if the hotel had a business center so she could email some important paperwork to work. Amy and Logan then spent the next hour and a half fighting with 0.3mbps hardwired internet, while Edie and Gareth attempted to return to the cabin, but found their key didn’t work. Edie and Gareth enjoyed the beautiful stars for awhile before walking back to the hotel to trade keys, and eventually (after realizing it was a user-error), were able to get into the cabin and get to bed.

Amy and Logan finally got back to the cabin around 1am after a dark, star-filled walk from the hotel. The night was short, hot, and restless for most of us. 

Thursday, July 28, 2022: At Least We Saw Wildlife 

We began Thursday morning begrudgingly early as we were eager to get to Hayden Valley to get a glimpse of the animals early in the day. As we arrived at the valley, we were quickly met with a thick layer of fog masking everything, so we attempted to kill time and let the fog clear while we walked up to Mud Volcano. 

When we returned to our car after our half-hour hike, the fog lingered over the valley, but we decided to drive on anyways. After half a mile or so, the fog lightened enough so that we could happily see our first lone bison hidden across the valley.

 

As we continued driving, the fog quickly cleared and the valley appeared, filled with herds of bison as far as the eye could see. We enjoyed parking and walking up a hill to an overlook, parking and seeing the bison up close next to the road, and even getting caught in multiple ‘bison-jams’ as driving. 

After Hayden Valley, we stopped at Canyon Village to get Fika and sandwiches for our later lunch, then carried on to the impressive ‘Grand Canyon of Yellowstone’ section of the park, where we viewed the upper and lower falls through different drive-up overlooks and one ‘squiggly’ steep hike to the brink of lower falls.

 

We then drove to the Tower area of the park. Unfortunately, much of the northern part of the park was still closed from the floods, so we weren’t able to do Lamar Valley, but we were able to park near the (closed) Roosevelt Lodge and hike 1 mile through a sunny wildflower fueled to Lost Lake, where we settled in to what little shade we could for our picnic, while waiting patiently for the moose-sighting we so coveted. 

It was at this moose-less lake that we discussed how ‘whelmed’ we were with Yellowstone, how we could probably complete the park that day, and didn’t necessarily feel the need to come back the next day. We also discussed our disappointment in losing out on the Grand Tetons part of our trip, which we traded for  Glacier after the floods closed much of Yellowstone in June. 

It was here that Edie came up with the crazy idea of spending the next day driving down to the Tetons instead of doing another day of Yellowstone, which we all considered and agreed to research further. We were then fueled to complete Yellowstone that day, hiked back to the car, and drove up to the Mammoth Hot Springs portion of the park. On the way, we saw our second baby grizzly bear from afar, running around the shrubs in a valley.  Although we were excited to see another bear, we were disappointed that we had not seen the Elk or the Moose we were so hoping for. 

Once we got to the Mammoth Hot Springs Village, we were amused to see a herd of female elk wandering around the town center, grazing the lawn next to ‘Do Not Approach Elk’ signs, and basking in the shade of the buildings. 

We parked and did a quick (hot) hike around the terraces, which were described as pretty and ‘weird’, then finished the north loop on a 1.5 hour, mostly woodsy and uneventful (besides Grizzly #3 sighting off the side of the road) trip back to West Yellowstone.

We then checked into our adorable accommodations for the night, a cabin at Hibernation Station in West Yellowstone, which had wifi, air conditioner, coffee/tea, AND a shared hot tub. After dumping our stuff and doing a quick laze, we set off for our ‘big night out’, starting with dinner at Firehole BBQ, which was surprisingly delicious, even for vegetarian Edie and her quart of Mac and cheese. 

We then headed over to the West Yellowstone Rodeo, a small family-run rodeo just outside of town, which was a fun first rodeo for all four of us. We were especially pleased when we realized it was BYOB, and quickly ran back to the car to grab our warm cans of beer and box of wine left over from Whitefish. 

The rodeo was amusing, and we saw Bronco- and Bull-riding, barrel racing, calf roping, and an amusing time-killer that involved all of the kids in the stands racing after a calf to grab a ribbon from its tail in order to win a free ride on the mechanical bull.

We left the rodeo a bit early in order to make it back to the cabin in time for a soak in the cabin’s suspicious hot tub, where we met another couple that was (surprisingly) from Orlando before we called it a night.

Friday, July 29, 2022: Spontaneous Teton Trip

On Friday morning, we once again woke up with the sun to hit the road for our 2 hour drive to the Grand Tetons. The drive was through Yellowstone, so we got the benefit of getting a bit more of Yellowstone in, and even snuck in another female elk sighting from the side of the road. 

We arrived at the Tetons just before 9, and mostly enjoyed the view from the car with a view lookout points until we got to Jennie Lake. 

Jennie Lake is where all the action was, so we had to park far away from the visitor’s center and walk an extra 10 minutes to the lake, but once we got there we were able to find a quiet spot on the lake away from the crowds to enjoy our daily scenic picnic, this time accompanied by Grand Teton cider. 

We put our name on the waitlist for kayaks/canoes, but since the wait was so long, we decided to do a quick 2 mile out-and-back hike to Moose Pond for one last desperate attempt at seeing a moose. About 5 minutes into the hike, we were thrilled to hear an outgoing hiker say there was a big Bull Moose waiting for us in the pond, which made the hike the quickest and most motivating one yet. Along the way, we saw another baby Grizzly bear off in the parking lot, and it ran off into the lake before we passed. 

When we made it to the lake, we saw the most perfect moose we could have imagined: a big boy with huge antlers wading in Moose Pond with a peaks of the Tetons in the background. He spent his time burning his face under water to indulging in whatever food was at the bottom of the pond, and gave us plenty of time to get all the pictures and looks we wanted, even as close as 2 bus-lengths away. 

We finally said goodbye to Mr. Moose and happily skipped away back the 1-mile back to the beach, chatting and letting everyone we crossed know about what we had seen. It was as we were walking and chatting that Edie happened to look up and see a baby Grizzly bear standing right there on the hiking path in front of us, at which point she clapped and said (sang?) BEAR*BEAR*BEAR*BEAR*BEAR. We then reported our findings to the hikers behind us, backing up to make room for bear-spray carrying Logan (who might have been a little excited to get the opportunity to take the safety off the bear spray). We all started going the other direction back towards the moose, trying to remember all the bear safety rules (‘No running’ ‘Walk backwards!’ ‘Make noise!’). As we tried to figure out our next move while singing to make bear noise, Logan kept an eye on the bear and tried to warn hikers coming the other way. Finally, the cute little baby crossed the path and ran off into the woods by the lake, seemingly unperturbed by us. We carried on our way, happy to let a different bear-spray-carrying man lead the way. We met a ranger along the way who asked if we had seen the bear, and laughed and seemed unbothered when we mentioned it was on the path. He gave us some bear education, then we finished our walk to our secret beach (which others had found by then). Overall, it was agreed that that hike had been the best sights for the shortest distance, and was definitely better than the kayaks we didn’t rent.

We had a little bit of time left, so we bravely took a swim in the chilly Jennie Lake. The swim was refreshing and by far one of the most beautiful swims of our lives. 

Finally, around 2:15, we dragged ourselves out of the water, changed, and made our way back to the car to begin our long 3.5 hour drive to that night’s accommodations. We enjoyed a few more views and pictures before saying goodbye to Grand Teton National Park, and drove our way out of the park, through Jackson Hole, and up through a whole lot of potato fields in Idaho. 

By that time we had gone 2 days straight without ice cream and our bodies were going into shock, so we found an adorable diner in Ashton, Idaho where we had a bite to eat and some milk shakes before finishing the drive.

Our accommodation that night was a cabin at the Blue Moon Saloon in Cameron, Montana, which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere but was conveniently located right off the highway between Yellowstone and Bozeman. 

We were pleased to find a cute western-style restaurant and bar with our cabin in the back, and had even upgraded to a ‘2 room’ cabin which involved Edie and Gareth sleeping in twin beds on the enclosed porch. We had a drink and another bite to eat at the bar and watched  a beautiful mountain sunset behind a field of cows before settling in for the night. Overall, the cabin was spacious and clean with comfortable beds and was a great place to get our stuff together and re-pack for the next day’s journey. 

Saturday, July 30, 2022: The One with Goodbyes

On the last day of our trip, we actually got to sleep in until 7, as we planned to leave at 8. We had a nice relaxing start to the day, managed to finish the majority of our leftover food, and packed up the car. The drive to Bozeman Airport was an hour long, in which time we enjoyed a last look at the mountains, listed to our 2010’s playlist (we had already burned through the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and ‘00s), and introduced ‘Garrett’ to Brad Paisley music.  Edie and Gareth dropped Amy and Logan at Bozeman airport for their 11:30am flight, then got their opportunity to explore downtown Bozeman and have a cup of tea and snack in a cafe.  We said our yearly goodbyes, turned in our bear spray, and headed our different ways, Amy and Logan to the daughters they had been away from for far too long, and Edie and Gareth to Yosemite and Sequoia for more wildlife. 

Overall, the trip was wildly successful given the mess it had turned into with planning around natural disasters, as well as our history of unnatural disasters while traveling. Not everything went as planned, but in the end, we couldn’t have planned things any better than they had turned out. We managed 1,696 miles driving, 29 miles of hiking, 5 decades of music, 5 grizzlies, 1 moose, and countless laughs in 8 days, and we look forward to next year, wherever we end up.