Hey Everyone,
It's been quite a while since we last wrote. We left you in St. Paul MN and headed to Sioux Falls for a night. After Sioux Falls we started our way to The Badlands and Black Hills. Although we were only in the Badlands for a brief moment, it was pretty amazing. It reminded us a lot of Death Valley, except the grass grew right to the edge of the desert rock formations. It looked like a mixture of Death Valley and Bryce Canyon.
After taking some pictures, we went on driving to the Black Hills National Forest. We had heard that the weekend we would be arriving was also the week of Sturgis, an annual biker convention where 500,000 bikers from all over the country ride to the Black Hills. I have never seen so many bikers on one freeway. We decided that our first priority would be to find a campsite so for the first few hours after we got to the Black Hills we drove around the park and landed on a beautiful campsite right on the Deerfield Lake. By the time we got set up, it was already mid-day and we figured Mt. Rushmore would be too packed to handle. We headed to the Crazy Horse Monument which is supposed to be even bigger than Mt.Rushmore. I had read a while ago that the monument was never actually fully finished but I figured it was still well worth it to see. Unfortunately, our national park pass did not get us into the monument so we had to pay $20. When we got up the hill, we could see the face carved into the mountain in the distance. We put on our boots thinking we were just gonna walk up to it. Sadly, we found out it was another $8 to ride a bus to look at it closer so we decided it wasn't worth it. It was cool to see but we were so tired we just took a few pictures from down the mountain and went to our campsite for dinner. We woke up early the next morning, packed up and headed to Mt. Rushmore. We couldn't have timed it better. There were probably two other families and us. It was really cool to see in person because I had seen pictures of Mt.Rushmore my whole life. The faces are much more detailed than I thought, you could even see the outline of Teddy Roosevelt's eye glass. It was still super early when we got back to the car so we started our long awaited journey to Wyoming.
THE GRAND TETONS
The drive to Riverton, Wy (where we stayed our first night) was beautiful. It made us even more excited to reach the Tetons and Yellowstone. We got up early again the next morning because were hoping to get a campspot at Jenny Lake in the Tetons. As we drove into the park, the mountains were almost overwhelming. Beautiful and scattered with snow, our eagerness to start hiking and exploring exploded. We got to Jenny Lake, and of course were 30 minutes too late as the campground had just filled up. We weren't too disappointed because we knew anywhere we stayed would be great. As we drove to Gros Venture Campground, we were held up because a family of bison decided they needed to cross the rode. I had never seen a bison in real life before and was taken back by their size. They are HUGE. One of my new favorite animals. Throughout the next week, we will have seen close to 100. We set up camp and then headed back to Jenny Lake to hike around the lake, up to Hidden Falls and to Inspiration Point. The hike around the lake was beautiful, as Jenny Lake is supposed to be one of the most beautiful lakes in the country. With it's clear blue water and reflection of the mountains, it's a hard statement to deny. We reached the Hidden Falls and Conner instantly went crazy with the camera. They were awesome and truly hidden in the midst of the trees. We stayed there for a little while and then started up to Inspiration Point. If you are afraid of heights, it's probably not the most reassuring walk, as two way traffic travels around a a small trail on a rock cliff, but it's a pretty amazing view on the top overlooking the lake and the valley. We hiked back down to the lake and took the free boat back to the trailhead.
The next morning we headed out to our first big hike in the Tetons. We found out about this hike in one of our trusted guide books. It told us for a 12 mile, 7.5 hour hike, you can get up to the beautiful Marion Lake, and for a less strenuous, more spectacular hike back (the original hike is to just hike back from Marion Lake the way you came for a 17.5 mile hike) you can latch onto another trail that takes you to a tram you can ride into the Teton Village. This sounded perfect for a day hike. We headed out, our bear mace strapped to our chests, and started up to Marion Lake. The first 4 or so, we hiked along and around a creek, making the scenery beautiful and green. About 3 miles into the hike, we bumped into 3 bull moose! They were huge, and intimidating and beautiful. we stood there for a few minutes and then got the sense that one of them had had enough of the audience so we continued on only to run into a female about a mile later. Eventually, we reached some meadows covered in wild flowers with views so beautiful it felt almost fake. We kept going, still feeling really good, hiked through some snow and then ran into a few people who had come from the tram and were heading to the lake as well. We hiked up a steep meadow and finally made it to the lake. The stretch up to the lake was gorgeous, with green meadows and mountains stopped with snow all in one. We ate some lunch at the lake and rested for a while. This was a perfect, beautiful 9 mile hike so far. We finally headed out and started for the tram. The first stretch was all up hill through snow but we made it to the flat top and figured it would all be down hill from there. We were already a bit confused, as we had just hiked 9 miles and the tram was still 6.5 miles away (that does not add up to 12 miles) but the first 9 had been so great we weren't too worried. As we started to descend into the valley, we ran into a guy who told us that the trek to the tram was only 6 miles away but it might as well be 16. We figured he didn't know what he was talking about, partly because we didn't want to believe him. We kept going through these awesome meadows and finally reached the forest again. The guy had told us about switch backs that seemed never ending, so we figured we had reached them. We started hiking up...and up and up. Two miles later, we stopped, tired from walking straight up for 2 miles and Conner turned around and said, I think we just got to the switchback. Ahh. At that point it was like 3.5 miles to the tram. I kept telling myself that its only 3.5 miles, it can't be that bad. Mind you, this isn't our first big hike, we have been hiking a lot the past couple months, so I want to say we are in pretty good shape. This was the hardest, longest 3.5 miles I have ever experienced. The switchbacks were so incredibly steep I felt like my legs were going to fall off. I few miles back, I had stepped into a snow hole and did something to my knee when I fell in. This started to wear on me and I am ashamed to say it, but a few tears were shed come mile 14. Moment of weakness! After what seemed like 200 miles of switchbacks we finally made it above treeline, where we were told we would see the trail up to the tram. We were a little confused when all we could see was another mountain peak. We followed the trail, still trying to figure out where this tram was because it definitely was not on top of this other mountain. Wrong again. Our home stretch was an entirely new mountain we had to hike up. By this time, we were just joking about food and how tired we were. I told Conner that at least this was beautiful because if it weren't so amazing I would be pretty over it. It really was though, even though we were so tired, it still didn't take away from the fact that the landscape was stunning. FINALLY, we saw the tram. Best feeling in the world. We hiked 5000 feet and felt very accomplished. On our way down the tram, we knew we did have a problem. Because our book told us it was only 12 miles, we decided that leaving our car at the trailhead was fine because we could just was the couple miles back from Teton Village. When we got down to the village this seemed pretty impossible. We asked a gas station if there was any sort of transportation and the guy stuck out his thumb and said hitch-hiking is our best bet. We figured if you are going to hitch hike (something neither of us have even done) doing it in a national park is probably the safest you can get. A half mile down the road a nice older man and his wife picked us up and brought us back to our car. We were so beat and hungry, we headed into Jackson and gorged at the Snake River Brewery.
The next morning we slept in and then headed out to Pacific Creek to do some fly fishing, my first time! We didn't catch anything, but it was really fun and Conner said I was getting better at casting so I figured it was a good day. At the end of a long day of fishing the best thing to do is eat. We put some tri-tip and potatoes over the fire and sauteed some veggies. Best camp meal we have had.
YELLOWSTONE
We arrived in Yellowstone around 8 am and again were too late for the campground we initially wanted, however, the campground we landed on actually turned out to be in a great location. The first thing we did was head to the Geysers. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. Not only only were the bubble, spouting geysers awesome, but what really caught my eye were the neon green, yellow and orange hot streams. They were so beautiful and strange. The pools were a blue I had never seen in natural waters before and so see thought it looked like there was a tropical islands under the water. Later that day we drove out to the Old Faithful Lodge to sit outside and watch Old Faithful erupt. I had no idea how cool it would be. It erupts every 90 minutes, give or take 10 minutes. We got there right after it had erupted to we sat for an hour and a half to watch it. Slowly the area started to get more and more packed with people. When it finally went off it was awesome. It went up about 100 feet and last about 1 minute. It was pretty amazing.
The next day we went to Tower Falls in Roosevelt Country. Unfortunately, the access point to the base of the falls was closed but we still hiked down to the river. At the base of the north end of the Yellowstone Grand Canyon, the river was so beautiful. We stayed down there for about an hour and relaxed on the beach. Then we headed to the Brink of the Lower Falls. I know I have said this before, but this was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. Being so close to this huge water was pretty powerful and looking out to the canyon with the river winding through it, it looks like a painting. We were just watching a documentary on national park and someone said that the Yellowstone Canyon is so deep that if you yell into at night you will be woken up the next morning by the echo. We went to various view points, the most intense being Uncle Tom's trail. This was 400 steep stairs down to the view point close to the falls. If that was the only thing we did all day it would have been a great work out. It was getting to be dinner time so we headed back to the site.
Day 3 we went to see some more geysers that from the road you could see the hot streams flow into the river. We walked around to see the different pools and then came to the most magnificent in the park. This was so unreal and beautiful it was hard to take your eyes off the bright blue, orange, yellow and green colors surrounding the large see through blue pool of water. We headed to Artist Point which is supposed to be the best view of the canyon and falls in the park. They weren't lying. We were told we couldn't miss the mud volcano so we made our way over. When we started up the hill there was a bull bison coming down. Us and a few other people got a little hesitant and headed in the opposite direction. When we went on his way we went up the path only to find the hillside covered with bison. It was so cool and a little bit uneasy. They were really close to all of us but they seemed to just be minding their own business. We watched them for a while and then walked a few feet further only to be greeted by a bull standing a food away from the trail. Conner took a few pictures while I immediately walked the other way to keep my distance. Which is not the story of the other visitors. Some people were absolutely crazy and treated these bison like we were in a zoo taking their little kids up to it and taking pictures with them. When this bison went on his way, again we kept going. When it showed up again getting in a fight with another bull, Conner and I got out of there. We were not about to get trampled by a bull fight. So on our way to the lake, tons of people were pulled over on the side of the rode. We got out and could see across the field about 700 yards there was a mama grizzly and two cubs. It was really cool and I was happy that this was where I encountered a grizz, not on a trail. It almost scary how naive some people are when it comes to wildlife. A family, a mom with her baby on her back walked out on the ridge to get a closer look and came about 100 yards away from this mom and cubs. They just don't realize that that bear could get to them in 30 seconds. A ranger had to run out and get them. After that we had tuna sandwiches at the lake and then headed down the river to do some fishing. Conner caught two fish so that was exciting. After 3 hours in the river, we headed back to camp for dinner. In the morning, it was raining and wasn't supposed to stop so we left the beautiful Yellowstone, knowing we did not have enough time there and headed to Bozeman, MT. That's where we are now and are making our way up to Glacier National Park!
I know this was a super long post but if you got through it, I hope you enjoyed it!!
Love,
Katie and Conner
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