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RealImaginaryWest 2017 Lite Day 3 – Roasting in the Badlands & Relief in the Black Hills

After a very early start at Badlands National Park, we packed up camp and made a short hike at Saddle Pass, followed by hikes on the Notch, Window, and Door Trails. Before driving the Badlands Loop Road and heading to Wall Drug, we returned to Cedar Pass Campground to get showers. After lunch and a couple of hours perusing Wall Drug, we took I-90 to Rapid City and SD-79 & SD-36 into the Black Hills and Custer State Park. Finally we followed US-16A to Bismarck Lake Campground near Custer in Black Hills National Forest.

Well today had a pretty good start with a rather dry finish… I suppose another way of putting it would be, “The Great Plains strike again!” Let me start at the beginning…

Sunrise at Badlands National Park

It all started at about 4:30am for me. I didn’t quite sleep as long as I’d hoped, but I did feel OK. The eastern horizon was already alight with the impending sunrise and birds were up singing. And just like last night, except in reverse, the moon was close to setting in the west.

Since we got to bed fairly early the night before and the forecast high would likely surpass the century mark, I woke Becky. It wasn’t supposed to get truly hot until late morning or noon. If we got up now, we could do some hiking and beat the heat as well as the crowds. While Becky moseyed to the restroom and got herself ready for the day, I packed up the tent and everything inside. We might come back later to cook or take showers, but there was no need to leave the tent up since it was already bone dry. I’m proud to say I had our bedding and tent all packed up solo in 25 minutes.

Just as the sun began to peek through the clouds over the Badlands wall, I ran off and shot a panorama of the brilliant sunrise! There were some reds but mostly oranges and violets. I would have shot the moonset too, but clouds on the western horizon totally obscured it.

Saddle Pass Trail

We were on the road before 6am and drove the short distance to the Saddle Pass Trailhead. The temperature was comfortable for now, around 70 degrees and low humidity. The Saddle Pass Trail is short at only 1/3 mile, but it’s a steep 216-foot climb up to the top of the Badlands wall.

We started up the trail around 6am. It starts out exceptionally steep and has loose gravel footing. We were nearly halfway up when Becky decided she couldn’t go any further. It was just too much for her first thing in the morning. All the literature promised 360-degree views, so I decided to continue up to the top. The view did not disappoint!

Looking south from Saddle Pass in Badlands National Park. — Looking south from Saddle Pass. The tiny black thing in the parking lot near the tree is our car!

After shooting a few photos, one of the car from all the way up on top, I headed back down. There’s a trail that runs along the top of the Badlands wall, but I didn’t check it out because I wanted to make sure Becky was OK. I was off the trail and back at the car just 45 minutes after we arrived. Becky was starting to feel better and suggested that she probably just needed something to eat to get her energy up. While I’d guess our bodies were still on our usual Eastern Time Zone schedule, it was probably just too quick of a start to the day for her.

Up to the Door/Window/Notch Trailhead

A bighorn sheep rests in morning shade north of Cedar Pass along the Badlands Loop Road in Badlands National Park. — A bighorn sheep rests in morning shade along the Badlands Loop Road on our way to the Door/Window/Notch Trailhead.

When we visited Badlands back in 2015, our only real hike here was the Door Trail. The same trailhead actually has two other trails, the super short Window Trail, and the more challenging Notch Trail. None of the three trails are particularly long, so we had plenty of time to do all three if we wanted to. The sky was crystal clear with bright sunshine now, but the temperature was still comfortable.

We made it to the parking lot around 7am, still well ahead of the crowds. We started with the Notch Trail, which is only 1.5 miles round trip. It winds through a small canyon for about 1/3 mile or so, and then there’s a ladder that takes you up to the rim so you can continue through a slightly larger canyon. We somehow missed the ladder, and realized it when the trail suddenly ended at an impasse. We could hear people just above us, so we retraced our steps. Turns out we followed a wash and went right past the ladder. It’s pretty easy to get disoriented and lose trails here! Almost all of them, including Notch, are actually marked with stakes at regular intervals so you can tell you’re going the right way.

Becky awaits my return as I hike the section of the Notch Trail above the ladder.

A Perilous Wrong Turn

Becky took a look at the ladder and gave it a nope. I’m afraid of heights and didn’t find it at all intimidating. The easy slope and the grip of my hiking boots made it easy to walk upright the entire way.

I then made my way around the rim and came across some signs that got me confused. One said “KEEP RIGHT”, and the other was an arrow pointing at what I thought was the way to go. I’d heard the Notch Trail could be challenging, but I was surprised it would go right up this steep wash. I forgot to even look for a marker stake. Before I knew it, the wash got too steep and too loose to safely go any further—obviously a dead end!

Continue reading RealImaginaryWest 2017 Lite Day 3 – Roasting in the Badlands & Relief in the Black Hills

RealImaginarySmokies Day 5 – Cades Cove & Abrams Falls

In spite of yesterday’s misadventures, we got an early start and headed to Cades Cove. We hiked to Abrams Falls at midday and returned to Elkmont for an early dinner and our biggest fire of the week.

Did We Catch It?

My very first thought this morning was, “Did we catch it?” Yesterday we discovered a mouse had moved into our car and probably intended to spend the winter there. Rather than enjoying a hike here in the Great Smoky Mountains, we spent most of the day rearranging and cleaning everything so we could protect our food and be able to tell if our little friend was still at large. Since he loved my hot dog buns, we used a piece to bait a sticky trap that I placed on the floor behind the driver seat.

I was up before dawn and decided to check the trap before I walked to the restroom. I opened the door AND…the trap was gone?!? What?!? I moved a few things around and found the trap lying behind the car jack under the seat…and the bait was completely gone. There were gnaw marks around the paper with a couple of turds inside, but no mouse. Argh! I tossed the trap and went back to the drawing board…

Our new and improved trap…bait in a bottle, with a sticky trap gauntlet around the neck (Photo by Becky)

Obviously this little guy was stronger and smarter than I realized! While I wanted him out of my car, I had to respect his resourcefulness. We had some empty 12-ounce bottles, so I stuck another chunk of the hot dog bun deep inside on of them, and stuck the opening into the sticky trap. Now he’ll have to get past the sticky trap twice, and he’ll have to risk getting stuck inside the bottle. I actually hope he does get stuck inside the bottle, because it’ll probably be easier to let him go. I wedged my new and improved trap underneath some stuff behind the seat and the waiting game began again…

Assessing Becky

As if battling a mouse living in our car wasn’t enough yesterday, Becky battled with a log she was cutting—and it drew blood. She was OK, but she got a cut inside her mouth when it whacked her teeth, and she had a small cut above her lip. When I saw it happen I thought it would be much worse—but it turned out that there were no teeth missing and no eyes put out. Before this and the ensuing hubbub occurred, we’d planned to get up before dawn this morning to beat the crowds to Cades Cove. This is our last full day here before we move on tomorrow to Cherokee National Forest.

Since we did get to bed early and Becky was doing OK last night, I checked to see if she thought she was still up to going now. She didn’t say much, because things still hurt quite a bit, but she was good to go. So we got on the road at about 7-7:30.

Cades Cove

From everything I’ve read, Cades Cove is the stuff at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I’ve seen a few pictures and read that there are animals and old farms to see, but I wasn’t sure I understood the draw of this part of the park thus far. I figured maybe I would after seeing it with my own eyes.

We pulled in not long after 8am and immediately began the Cades Cove Loop Road, which runs one-way for 11 miles around the area. It was pretty country, with forested hills to the north, mountains to the south, and lots of clearings in between. Some areas were pastured off for horses, and we stumbled across a few deer. Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos because I was driving. About a mile or two in, my curiosity took us down a road that turned out to be a cutoff to the other end of the loop…which led us back to where we started by Cades Cove Campground…whoops!

Breakfast at Cades Cove Campground & Picnic Area

At the time I was fine with this, because we could take this opportunity to restock the ice in our cooler and eat some breakfast. While the prices are higher, concession operations at Cades Cove Campground are much more extensive than at Elkmont. The store here is big enough that you can actually walk into it, there’s a small eatery with ice cream and $5 hamburgers, and they offer bicycle rentals. I grabbed a bag of ice and drove us over to the nearby picnic area where we could dump the cooler.

Once the cooler was taken care of, I put together a turkey sandwich while Becky made a protein shake. I’m sure glad she brought her protein powder, because her mouth still hurt too much to chew anything. Her lip was pretty swollen, and her cut would bleed a little, but it was starting to heal up. After our peaceful little break, we got back on the road at close to 10am.

Gridlock, Thy Name Is Cades Cove

By now, however, hoards of people had arrived to bask in the splendor—and the gridlock—of Cades Cove. The speed limit on the hilly winding loop is 20 miles per hour, which seemed totally realistic an hour or so ago. Now things had slowed down to a 5 mile per hour crawl. Copious signs indicate that slow-moving and stopped traffic must pull off to let others pass, but few actually do. Most people looked over the age of 55, and drove like they had all the time in the world.

We did see more than brake lights and full-sized cars though. Besides spotting a few more deer, we saw a bear that had been tranquilized by park rangers. Alas, Becky was not yet up to driving, so I was unable to get any photos.

The traffic really killed the experience for me though. Most people drove like aimless wanderers, starting and stopping and slowing down for no apparent reason, not paying attention to the road, and completely oblivious to everyone else. I know I could have moved faster on a bicycle, but that too would have been terrifying because of all the absent-minded motorists. I really feel like the driving sucked any joy I might have felt over Cades Cove completely out of me. Some people may hate me for saying this, but I really hope that one day soon, Cades Cove will be restricted to shuttle buses, bicyclists, pedestrians, and horsedrawn carrages at the busiest times. I don’t think an 11-mile traffic jam should be a national park experience. My thought is that if you don’t enjoy traffic, and you can’t get to Cades Cove at the crack of dawn or during the off-season, don’t even bother with it—it’ll just suck the life out of you.

Abrams Falls Trail

Abrams Falls Trailhead, on the far end of the Cades Cove Loop Road

Now we finally get to the good part of the day! After rounding the halfway point on the Cades Cove Loop Road, I told Becky there was a trailhead coming up where we could hike 5.2 miles to a waterfall. She was game, so we took the turnoff and found a spot in the gravel parking lot. We were still dressed for the chilly temperatures this morning, so we took off a few layers of clothing besides filling our water bottles and packing some trail mix for the hike.

The Abrams Falls Trail starts out around 1,700 feet, much lower than our hike from 5,000 feet at Newfound Gap two days ago. The trail doesn’t really gain elevation, but it does sink 600 feet or so by the time you reach the falls. The trail follows Abrams Creek, straggling some very rocky terrain. You’ll definitely want to wear a good pair of shoes for this hike. The trail rolls along at first, but then you go down and then back up two fairly strenuous hills before you go down a final hill that puts you by the falls. That last hill is a doozie on the way back, but the hike and the waterfall are worth it.

The trail crosses some very rugged terrain. At the top of one hill, you have to cross this notch in the rock to continue!

At the bottom of each ravine you cross a stream on a log like this one.

The trail offers a few vantage points high above Abrams Creek and the forest canopy.

Continue reading RealImaginarySmokies Day 5 – Cades Cove & Abrams Falls

RealImaginarySmokies Day 3 – Newfound Gap, The Jump Off & Clingmans Dome

After a late start, we made our way to Newfound Gap with a brief stop at Sugarlands Visitor Center. From Newfound Gap, we hiked the Appalachian Trail to the Boulevard Trail, and made our way to The Jump Off. After hiking back to the car, we made a short trip to Clingman’s Dome, and then made a quick stop in Gatlinburg on our way back to Elkmont.

Home Sweet Campsite

As forecast, our first night in Elkmont Campground was quite cold! The chill made it difficult to get moving any earlier than 8 o’clock this morning, just a bit after sunrise, even though we got to bed at a good time last night.

It was nice that this was going to be home base for several days! There weren’t many nights where we stayed put on our RealImaginaryWest trip last summer. I don’t mind moving around too much, but it is time-consuming to pack up the bedding and the tent, drive to the next location, and then unpack and set up again. Another problem with moving around is that we have to find firewood again if we move very far.

Fueling Our Fires

Firewood is something I try to be a good boy about, even though it’s a real pain sometimes. Campers like us have crisscrossed the country with firewood from home, sometimes spreading invasive pests like insects and fungi. These can and do have devastating effects on forestland. Ever since we started camping, we have always been diligent about acquiring firewood locally. It helps that our car is really only big enough for all of our camping gear and food. The times when it’s been really tempting for us to move firewood is when we’ve had some left over and we’re headed to camp in the next state. The rule of thumb I’ve seen is that you don’t want to transport wood more than 50 miles—but you may not be able to travel even one mile with it, depending on where you are—so you want to be sure! It’s totally worth the effort for us to know and comply with the law so that we aren’t responsible for the demise of the beautiful places we visit.

This year there’s a new regulation at Great Smoky Mountains National Park that requires that all firewood brought in must be heat treated and certified as safe by the USDA. The only other option for campers is to find firewood inside the park. Now back in Ohio, state parks tend to prohibit campers from gathering firewood. But when we were out West, we were allowed to gather dead-and-downed wood in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. They have the same rules here at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, so I brought my trusty sierra saw so we could save some money on firewood. Since this park is at a much lower and warmer elevation and in a much wetter part of the country, I knew it might be tricky to find dry wood that hasn’t already started to rot…but I was optimistic.

A Fence?

In my search, I made a strange discovery…I walked back into the woods directly across from our campsite, which took me up a hill…and to an old wire fence. I knew we were deep within the national park’s boundary, so it was strange that there would be a fence in a random area I figured for backcountry. After I found an opening, I saw that this was an old cemetery. I thought it was strange indeed to find a cemetery inside a national park, but Great Smoky Mountains National Park was created in an area that most definitely had to have had at least some settlement beforehand. While most were from the early 20th Century, a few were as recent as the past five years…further compounding the strangeness.

My curiosity wore off when my hunger reminded me that I was on a mission to gather wood to cook breakfast, so I walked out the gate on the gravel drive out of the cemetery and down a hill. I found several good small trees a short distance from there and cut a couple of long segments that I could drag or carry back to camp. I’d cut these up and we’d have more wood to supplement what we’d bought last night.

Checking In

Since we’d arrived after the camp office closed last night and our reservation tag wasn’t up on the after-hours board, I had no idea how to tell anyone we were here until this morning. While we were finishing up breakfast, someone came by and told us that we’d need to check in by 11. This seemed simple enough…

When I went down to the camp office and told them about my reservation, they scoured their printed lists and still couldn’t find me. I told them I booked on Saturday morning, but I didn’t have any way of pulling up the confirmation because I don’t have Internet service on my phone. I was surprised that they still used paper for all of this, seeing as reservations are all done by phone through a call center or online! Eventually they did find my reservation, and they set me up with a tag for our site. This stressed me out a bit, but everything was fine in the end.

Getting Out…Slowly…

I was really excited to explore the hiking options here at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but I found the volume of possibilities overwhelming. Since we’d decided to come here so last-minute, the only preparation I’d managed before we got here was to find an online trail guide and cache a few of the descriptions on my phone. Unfortunately, collecting wood, cutting it, checking in, deliberating over what to do, and our slow and easy pace with breakfast this morning took up the first half of our daylight before we knew it. It was well after noon, and we needed to head out very soon if we were going to get any kind of a hike in before sundown at 7 o’clock.

The views along Little River Road from Elkmont to Sugarlands Visitor Center put the fall foliage on magnificent display!

I finally settled on a hike that departed from a trailhead at Newfound Gap. So we cleaned up our campsite, packed up the car, and headed out. Under ideal conditions, it was a 20-mile, 40-minute drive down Little River Road to Newfound Gap Road. It seemed easy-peasy, but this was when we first discovered how bad the traffic gets here! We decided to stop at Sugarlands Visitor Center, which is near the corner of the two roads. I never imagined that traffic backups could be so bad in a national park, but it took us at least 10 minutes or so to advance from being able to see the visitor center to being able to turn into its parking lot! The particular shame of the matter was that we had to get in line again in order to get back to Newfound Gap Road…cringe!

Not long after we hit the traffic jam, we came into the range of civilization and our phones began to explode with pent-up text messages. While I had only a few, Becky had tons from her friends about the Star Wars trailer the night before. One from Jenny was actually important though—last night, she was supposed to buy tickets for opening night in December—but she wasn’t able to because so many people tried at once that several ticket sites crashed! So we didn’t actually get tickets until today, but we did get them. While we were in the visitor center parking lot, we were able to get a strong LTE signal that allowed Becky to get the new trailer to play on her phone…so we finally got to see what we’d been waiting so many years for!

Anyway…this ate up even more time, and we didn’t get back on the road until 2:30pm…and we didn’t get up to Newfound Gap until almost 3 o’clock. This left just barely enough time for a good hike.. I figured we could get to The Jump Off, which is a 6 1/2 mile round trip, mostly to the east on the Appalachian Trail.

The Appalachian Trail to The Jump Off

The Appalachian Trail, often referred to as “the AT”, is a 2200-mile hiking trail that extends along the Appalachian Mountains from Springer Mountain in Georgia all the way to Mount Katahdin in Maine. Its route traverses Great Smoky Mountains National Park, with a major trailhead at Newfound Gap. We’ll hike on it for our very first time today, using a 2.7-mile section on our way to The Jump Off.

Looking east from the parking lot at Newfound Gap provided a splendid view of the colorful trees on the North Carolina side of the park, as well as the moon just above the horizon.

Becky poses before our first hike on the Appalachian Trail. It’s 1,972 miles to the end of the trail in Maine, but only 3.25 miles to where we’re going!

Continue reading RealImaginarySmokies Day 3 – Newfound Gap, The Jump Off & Clingmans Dome

RealImaginaryWest Day 14 – Two Miles High in Rocky Mountain National Park

After setting out from Craig, we arrived at Rocky Mountain National Park at about noon. We drove scenic Trail Ridge Road to Estes Park, spending about 90 minutes at the Alpine Visitor Center along the way. Finally, we proceeded to the Denver suburb of Aurora to spend the evening with family. (Ignore the map for now…Google Maps is being dumb 😛 )

Once again, we got a later start than we hoped. Though we weren’t out incredibly late, we didn’t get to sleep until around 11 last night. We wanted to be up and on the road by 6am to possibly beat the traffic rush at Rocky Mountain National Park, but that didn’t happen. Yesterday took a lot out of us, and rather than using the bonus time from not having to pack up our tent to get an early start, we opted for more sleep. We managed to get on the road by about 8:30.

What Might Have Been

Travelers Inn, our motel in Craig, Colorado

Beyond our last day in Yellowstone, we couldn’t make reservations at Grand Teton National Park, and we didn’t have any at Rocky Mountain National Park. This gave us the option of spending either two nights at Grand Teton and one at Rocky Mountain, or vice versa. We ended up staying the two nights in Grand Teton. Our original plan was to spend one night—last night—camping in Rocky Mountain, which would give us the better part of the day to hike in the east side of the park near Bear Lake.

However, on our first full day at Grand Teton, we wound up at the emergency room in Jackson because I was dehydrated. We had planned on hiking up into Cascade Canyon. Since we didn’t want to leave without a hike, we decided to extend our time at Teton—and we dropped the plan to camp one night in Rocky Mountain National Park. All of this resulted in having time only for a basic drive through. Now with the late start, my original goal of hiking near Bear Lake looked like a major long shot. I often wonder how things would have gone if we hadn’t juggled things around so much, because I had drank enough water like a good boy! C’est la vie…

Reality In the Rockies

I can’t really complain too much…for being a couple of first-timers doing this on our own, well over a thousand miles from home in strange, rugged lands, without our moms or dads or any locals by our side to help us avoid dangers, we’d seen and done an awful lot without dire consequence in the last two weeks! Adventure awaited us yet again as we set out for our fifth and final national park for this trip. Up until 9 days ago, Becky and I had only ever seen 6 of the 47 national parks in the Lower 48—and in this one trip we’d almost doubled that number and seen places we’d only ever read about in books, seen on TV, or dreamed about. I always thought this would be a lot harder…and I’m really glad we decided to do this!

Anyway, we started out east on US-40 with me driving to the next town, Steamboat Springs, which was almost an hour away. We traversed high desert for most of yesterday, so I was hoping for some trees today. The maps depicted national forests just a few miles to the east of Craig, but yesterday we saw nothing of these woodlands on our drive in from Wyoming, not even in the distance. Most of the drive from Craig to Steamboat Springs followed the Yampa River and a railroad line. It was pretty country but not spectacular, with a lot more greenery than anything we saw last night. The scenery really started to improve just as we entered Steamboat Springs.

Steamboat Springs

While Craig seemed more like a blue collar town where the locals worked at growing, mining, or making things, Steamboat Springs instantly struck me as a larger version of Jackson, Wyoming…a fancy ski resort town with a lot of tourist money flowing through. On the mountain in the distance, you could see grassy green ski trails between the trees, although we were not yet close enough to make out the lifts. The architecture as well screamed “rustic ski resort!”. You could tell they worked hard to appeal to international tourists too, with all their speed limit signs in both imperial and metric units.

The plethora of retail along the main road had me hoping for a decent place to score a quick breakfast. Also, the amount of water I’d been drinking made the stop totally necessary. We still had nearly two hours of driving to get to Rocky Mountain National Park, and this was the most sizeable community for quite some distance. We drove through most of town when I finally just pulled into a Starbucks. One of their La Boulange breakfast sandwiches would do the trick for me, and Becky was happy to get coffee and dig into our trail mix.

Our Big Fat Bag of Potato Chips

When air pressure outside the bag drops, air inside the bag expands to equalize pressure.

Among the many things we packed for our trip back home in Northern Ohio were two bags of Trader Joe’s Hawaiian-Style potato chips. Somewhere in South Dakota, Becky noticed that she couldn’t get them to fit into one of the plastic food bins in the trunk. By the time we’d reached Cody, Wyoming, the bags were puffed up like a balloon, and Becky wondered what had gone wrong with the chips! She knew that sometimes a bag would spoil and expand, but she couldn’t believe it had happened so fast. She opened one of them, and the chips seemed perfectly fine…but she was still mystified as to what was going on.

When Becky brought this to my attention, I asked her what happens to air pressure at higher elevations. I saw the light bulb go on instantly! Back in Ohio, we live below 1,000 feet, but by the time we were in Cody, we were around 5,000 feet, with much thinner air, causing the air in the air-tight bags to expand. Our last bag of chips had survived some pretty high elevations so far—most of our time in Yellowstone was over 7,000 feet, and we’d crossed Powder River Pass in the Bighorns at over 9,500 feet. Now came the ultimate test—Trail Ridge Road—which at one point surpasses 12,000 feet! When I rummaged for my camera in the back of the car, as Becky was taking over on driving, I remembered our our big fat bag of potato chips and put them in the back seat so we could hear when it pops. Either it was gonna blow today or not at all!

Rabbit Ears Pass & US-34

On the road again, we ascended from 6,700 feet in Steamboat Springs to over 9,000 feet over Rabbit Ears Pass. The highway hugs the side of a mountain most of the way up, giving way to spectacular views of lakes below, and snowy peaks far off into the distance. About halfway between Steamboat Springs and the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park, US-40 and US-34 are marked as the Colorado River Headwaters Scenic Byway. The two roads fork just before the town of Granby, where US-40 heads southeast to I-70 and Denver, and US-34 proceeds northeast into the park.

US-40 follows the Colorado River through some semi-rugged terrain east of Hot Sulphur Springs.

For several miles, US-34 follows the resort areas along the shores of Lake Granby and Shadow Mountain Lake. The lakes were rather large with giant mountains rising up on the opposite sides. There were a number of marinas, motels, vacation houses, and mobile homes all along the highway. We crossed the fledgling Colorado River a couple of times here, as the road closely follows it.

Finally we passed beyond Shadow Mountain Lake, turning northward and more uphill, and saw a sign that we were entering Rocky Mountain National Park. The busy resort area gave way to forest and meadows on both sides of the road. All around, everything was green and peaceful.

Looking to the mountains across Lake Granby

Rocky Mountain National Park

Not far down the road we came upon the Kawuneeche Visitor Center, which is just outside the Grand Lake Entrance Station. We stopped here so Becky could get our friend’s National Park Passport book stamped, and of course, so we could use the restroom. The visitor center was small, but extremely busy. It was close to noon, and every family was there with their kids. One room had a relief map of the park and its features. You could press a button and get one to light up—but it was of little use with the never-ending stream of kids repeatedly pushing all of the buttons out of shear boredom.

While Becky looked for the stamp, I looked for a park ranger. I suppose it was wishful thinking, but I asked if it was realistic to get a hike in at Bear Lake and still be back in Denver by 5:30pm. She told me that driving and parking there at this time of day is no picnic, and that we’d probably run out of time for a hike before we found our way to a trailhead. She suggested options along Trail Ridge Road…some were along the Colorado River, while others were in the alpine areas of the park. She warned us to be careful about lighting in the alpine areas, since there’s no cover.

The Grand Lake Entrance Station

For some reason I still thought we should head for Bear Lake, but I was more open now to checking out something in the high country, especially the Alpine Visitor Center. The west side of the park was green with lots more trees, but Bear Lake was on the more interesting rugged east side of the park. Besides its ruggedness, the east side was also within a two-hour drive of Denver, which made it exceptionally popular. The alpine regions through the center of the park sounded like a worthy compromise.

Ascending the Trail Ridge

So we got back on the road, which for about 10 miles passed through forest land, with the Colorado River on our left, and mountains towering to our right. The Colorado at this point is just at the small beginnings of the mighty river it turns into downstream. The valley narrows gradually until the road takes a hairpin turn to the right and begins ascending a long switchback that surpasses two miles above sea level!

Along the way were spectacular pulloffs, but we were unable to stop—not so much due to time, but due to urgency. Since we were going up a road that topped out over 12,000 feet in elevation, I had been drinking plenty of water to thwart a repeat of my dehydration episode at Grand Teton National Park. So even though I took care of things back at the Kawuneeche Visitor Center, I had to go pretty badly…again.

We passed right on by the Fairview Curve and on to our first restroom opportunity at the Lake Irene Picnic Area. After relief, I felt a bit woozy and just told Becky I wanted to sit for a minute and get used to the altitude or whatever was bothering me. I hadn’t eaten a lot so far today, and we’d just gone up a switchback with numbered U-curves with a full bladder, so who knows for sure if it was one of these factors or the altitude.

It didn’t seem like we were two miles high up where we were. I looked around but didn’t find Lake Irene…I just saw a bunch of cars and a few picnic tables with people kicking back for lunch. We were still subalpine with trees surrounding the little meadow here. The only indications you were very high were the millions of hungry mosquitoes trying to eat you before the cold came back and killed them, and your body feeling funny and telling you to slow down.

I decided to eat a few slices of bread to calm my stomach. Becky was chomping on trail mix or almonds we had with us. All of a sudden, POP!!!

We looked at each other and thought for a second, and then we began giggling. Our science experiment in air pressure had ruptured at just short of 11,000 feet above sea level! The bag had ripped open along its bottom seam. We laughed some more about how low the air pressure must be, and started snacking on the chips too.

A few minutes later we felt jolly enough to continue up the road. About a mile down, we crossed the Continental Divide for the eighth and final time. After a few miles more, we ascended above the tree line to the alpine elevations—where only the smallest plants and grasses manage to survive. Another switchback later, we arrived at the Alpine Visitor Center, way up at 11,796 feet.

Looking southwest from above Medicine Bow Curve toward part of Trail Ridge Road that we drove on below Medicine Row Curve as we approach the Alpine Visitor Center.

Continue reading RealImaginaryWest Day 14 – Two Miles High in Rocky Mountain National Park

RealImaginaryWest Day 13 – Grand Teton National Park to Craig, Colorado

After a boat ride and a short hike up to Inspiration Point at Jenny Lake, we depart Grand Teton National Park and Wyoming for Craig, Colorado. This takes us most of the way to Rocky Mountain National Park, where we head tomorrow.

Waking Up

After a few days at altitude slowly dehydrating me and making me feel like garbage each morning, waking up today was really easy. First light came, and my bladder reminded me of how much water I’d been drinking to rehydrate after yesterday’s visit to the hospital in Jackson. My bladder woke me up around 1:30am too. Oh the price we pay to stay healthy while roughing it…

More Wet

Once I’d returned from the restroom and was able to consider less urgent matters, I noticed our tent was covered with water droplets. I complained to Becky about how wet everything was still…and she informed me that it had rained again overnight. Grrr!!! That explains it! (I must have slept better than I thought!)

Since we had to pack up this morning, this was disappointing. It became downright frustrating when I realized that water was inside the tent again too, and that all of our damp towels left out to dry overnight were now quite soaked instead. I did not expect rain to be this much of a problem out West where summers (I thought) were mostly dry.

Most of all I was beyond irritated with our tent. Every time it rained, water got inside. I really expect any tent I own to do two major things: 1.) keep me warm, which this tent was not great at, and 2.) keep me dry…major fail. I came to find out later that you’re supposed to seal these things at least once a year. (You’d think they’d put that in the setup instructions!) And maybe it’s unrealistic on my part to expect a three-season tent to be all that warm.

Anyway, expectations aside, our Coleman Rosewood 4-person tent is a great starter tent. But this road trip did expose some weaknesses. It didn’t ventilate exceptionally well in the heat, but it also didn’t hold onto heat overnight. Also, the poles are made of fiberglass, and break easily even under extraordinary care—they’re also not easy or even possible to repair, and replacements cost almost as much as the tent. It also has a high profile which gets flattened by strong winds like we experienced in De Smet, South Dakota. Maybe we’ll look into an upgrade for next year…

So with a soaked tent and soaked towels, packing up was going to be a drag. I picked up the driest towel I could find and started wiping. I still saw water droplets. Our entire rainfly was also wet on the inside…condensation from our breath in the cold air. We could probably pack everything up now and dry it off in Craig, but I wasn’t fond of having a damp tent in the car all day long. Tonight’s rain potential had also inched up from 0% to 10%. Awesome. Ten percent seems to be all it takes this summer.

The best course of action seemed to be to leave the tent up to dry here for a few hours. This meant an extra hour of driving from Colter Bay to Jenny Lake and back from our hike, and tacking on an extra 30 minutes to our drive down to Craig. And checkout time is at 11am. Bummer.

Off to Jenny Lake

By around 7am we had everything but the tent packed up, and we were on our way to Jenny Lake for one last hike before leaving Grand Teton National Park. Yesterday the plan was to take the shuttle boat across and hike up into Cascade Canyon. Since we had a 6-7-hour drive ahead of us, we’d do an abbreviated version of that this morning. The shuttles run 10 minutes apart, so I guessed it must take just under 10 minutes to cross the lake. With a 30 minute drive back to Colter Bay and another 30 minutes to dry off and pack up our tent, I estimated that we needed to be on a boat back a little before 10 o’clock. This would give us about two hours to hike—not a ton of time, but hopefully enough!

Along the way, I saw a sign for North Jenny Lake and a scenic drive. I remembered seeing this one-way road along the lakeshore on the map. Being impulsive and curious, I decided to check it out. It was a pretty little drive with a few pullouts and OK views along the lake, but it wasn’t anything seriously impressive like I’d hoped. My mind was wandering anyway…I kept thinking about whether we shouldn’t see about a late checkout to give us a little more time on the trails.

The light was beautiful, so I couldn’t pass up a quick stop at Willow Flats Overlook to capture a high-resolution panorama. This can be printed HUGE, since the original is 24817 pixels x 8272 pixels. The low-hanging clouds looked so cool!

I also grabbed this shot with a clearer view of Grand Teton.

This ground squirrel foraged around the fringes of the parking lot at the Willow Flats Overlook.

Parking at the Jenny Lake Visitor Center was a breeze when we arrived at 7:50! Coming in yesterday just before 11am put us at the peak of the crowds. Of course, it was time for me to hit the restroom again. Becky also wanted to comb the gift shop one more time to find a “Jenny Lake” souvenir for her best friend, Jenny, back home. This would easily take us up to 8 o’clock, which is when the camp office at Colter Bay opens. Before we get on the shuttle and leave cellular range, I could call and ask for a late checkout.

Unfortunately, Becky came up empty again. They only had stickers and fridge magnets, and everything else had sold out. We did, however, get OKed for a noon checkout! Awesome! Now we’ll definitely have time for a good hike.

Taking the Shuttle Boat

Round-trip fare for the shuttle boat across Jenny Lake was $15 per person. This seemed pretty steep for a short trip, but when you figure in the remoteness and the short four-month tourist season here, it’s more understandable. It would definitely save us time, too, as it shaved a six-mile hike to Inspiration Point or Hidden Falls down to only two miles round-trip. What really sweetened the deal was that they also sold Jenny Lake water bottles at the docks—so we had more water, and Becky finally had the gift she wanted for her bestie!

A shuttle boat head back to the docks by Jenny Lake Visitor Center.

Becky enjoys the ride across Jenny Lake in the crisp morning air.

The lake was very calm. Winds here seemed to be calm overnight and intensify with the sun throughout the day. Becky said she heard that Jenny Lake is hundreds of feet deep, which would keep the lake from getting too rough for very long. This made for a smooth ride across. The overnight storm had also left behind some beautiful low clouds between us and Mt. Moran.

I was a little torn between hiking to Inspiration Point or Hidden Falls. The driver taking us across shared that Hidden Falls was an easier trail but had no view, while Inspiration Point has an elevation change of 600 feet over the course of a mile and an extraordinary view at the end. We probably could have done both, but the trail in between was closed.

I asked the driver how long it took to get to Inspiration Point, and he way very vague. It was pretty difficult to judge someone’s physical condition and acclimation to the altitude. He said it takes him about 30 minutes, and that most people should expect it to take at least 45 minutes. This sounded like it would work for our timeframe, which at this point was a little over 2 hours.

Continue reading RealImaginaryWest Day 13 – Grand Teton National Park to Craig, Colorado

RealImaginaryWest Day 5 – The Good & Badlands of South Dakota

We drove through drizzly conditions from De Smet to Mitchell in Eastern South Dakota, and then traversed most of the state on I-90 to Badlands National Park and Wall.

Last Stop with Laura

So, after another violent Great Plains storm (albeit in much more secure conditions) and our car already packed, we emerged from our covered wagon to much cooler but drizzly weather. The misty haze was not looking good for my photographic aspirations today! The forecast showed the rain holding on for just a little longer in De Smet, and that there would be a general clearing trend where the sun might come out and burn off the fog. Becky and I each got showers this morning, since it would have more long-lasting effects than if we’d showered the night before with the 85-90 degree heat and humidity. The humidity in South Dakota was nowhere near as high as what we had experienced before we left Ohio, but it was enough to make you move a lot slower so you didn’t overexert yourself in the heat. Now that the temperature had dropped to 65-70 degrees, everything except the haze was peachy.

We got a fairly early start, getting out of the Ingalls Homestead around 8am. We headed into De Smet and to the local coffee shop, Ward’s Store. Interestingly enough, this was the site of Charles Ingalls’ store, and in the original building that rose in its place after he sold it and moved out to his homestead. Becky was really glad to have gotten coffee here, since now she’s been to every place where Laura lived in De Smet.

We then continued south on SD-25, making our way down to Mitchell, which is only about an hour away. We planned to see the famous Corn Palace, and I hoped to score a quick breakfast. Ever since we’d left De Smet, it had been horribly foggy, drizzly, and hazy. The rain had let up completely by the time we’d reached Mitchell, but the fog lingered.

The World’s Only Corn Palace

A look south down Main Street in Downtown Mitchell

We got breakfast at a hip restaurant called Cafe Teresa. The place seemed to be loaded with college students, who I’m assuming were from Dakota Wesleyan University. It was easy to overhear bits of conversations about finals, classes, and professors. Becky and I both ordered eggs and toast, which hit the spot..and so off we went to see the Corn Palace.

The Corn Palace wasn’t quite itself on the day we visited… This made us sad. 🙁

It was still way cool to see the corn murals though! 😀

The Corn Palace is the main tourist draw in Mitchell, which has about 15,000 residents and a rather quaint and decidedly Western downtown. The building is decorated on its exterior by thousands or maybe millions of ears of corn, color coordinated to depict western scenes of cowboys, buffalo, stagecoaches, and Indians on the front and sides of the building. Unfortunately, it took us a bit to make sure we had actually found it because it looked much less flamboyant than the pictures we’d seen. Apparently they were in the process of replacing the domes on top and had run into a delay because the new domes weren’t strong enough to hold up to South Dakota’s wind (which Becky and I have noticed is quite substantial). Also, it appeared that they were updating parts of the building’s exterior, which they do every year anyway because it’s probably a good idea to slap a fresh coat of corn on the building to keep it from peeling.

So it’s that kind of palace!

Becky and I proceeded inside “The World’s Only Corn Palace”, hoping for a more satiating indoor experience. There were lots of exhibits inside about corn, the history of the Corn Palace (reaching way back into the 1890s), and then there were doors…turns out through the doors you could see that the Corn Palace had a lot in common with San Francisco’s Cow Palace and the Detroit Area’s Palace of Auburn Hills—for it was a small basketball arena where a giant souvenir and gift shop had been set up. I didn’t figure it for an opera house, but I have to admit that without having done any research that in the back of my mind when I saw the general shape and size of the building, I wondered if in fact this was a basketball arena.

It seemed like a very nice place to see a game. It was likely that it hosted games for either the Dakota Wesleyan University or the local high schools. But either way, the clock was ticking and we had to move on to Badlands National Park, which was about 3 hours away on I-90.

You GOTTA SEE South Dakota!

A VERY small sample of the gimmicky advertising…I regret that I did not capture more of these sorts of things!

I’d like to take this opportunity to recognize South Dakota for a couple of things. First, Mitchell was my first indication that South Dakota really was a great place to analyze advertising gimmicks, because between what we saw here and what we saw later that day in Wall, it was readily apparent that South Dakota took the art of a tourist trap to a refined art form! There were signs and buildings and old trucks and cars and dinosaurs in front of billboards all along the interstate that really were sights in their own right and really made it tempting to stop a lot along the freeway and check this stuff out.

No, your eyes do not deceive—the speed limit really is 80mph!

Second, the speed limits in South Dakota often seemed to actually make sense! In Minnesota and most other states, you drove 55mph, maybe 60 if you were lucky in remote two-lane state highways—we hit the SD state line, and voila—65mph! When we first got on I-90 in Mitchell, we had to check our eyes at first—”Speed Limit 80″—AWESOME! So thank you, South Dakota, for admitting that you might as well be able to drive fast on the roads here because there are so very few cars, the visibility is great, and it takes so very long to reach someplace.

Another reflection I have to make about South Dakota is that I didn’t expect it to have so many trees—in fact, I didn’t expect it to have any at all without at least a creek nearby, since it is in the Great Plains—and the Great Plains is a great big huge prairie that just doesn’t have the rainfall to really grow trees. Apparently the main reason why there are so many trees is because of the Homestead Act, which allowed you to earn your 160 acres of land through growing enough trees on your claim…and probably because people who aren’t used to vast open grasslands prefer to have lots of trees to break up the scenery (and did we mention wind?). Personally, I’m all about diversity and history, so I was excited at the prospect of seeing a land that was just covered with prairie and all the things that come with it! I also think a giant prairie sounds awesome for just grazing cattle, which we saw a lot of actually. Black Angus cows were everywhere, and lots of pieces of property up in the northern part of the state had lakes and sloughs where the cows often congregated to play in the water and drink as well as graze. As we pushed farther west from Mitchell, we started to see a lot more of the open prairie I expected and we got to see fewer trees if any at all.

The Great Plains Are Not Flat

One big misnomer about the Great Plains is that it is all flat. That may be true in places like Illinois or Kansas, but it is most definitely not the case in Minnesota or South Dakota where rolling hills are pretty much the rule.

There are even deep valleys, especially along I-90, with the biggest valley being the Missouri River, which runs right through the state. It was unfortunately extremely foggy when we crossed it, but it was still a site to behold! It seriously was more like crossing an expansive lake than crossing a river, and was actually much much bigger in person! If they had called it part of the Mississippi instead of naming it a whole other river, the Missouri-Mississippi River would be among the longest in the world, and from what we saw, it had enough water to prove it!

Crossing the Missouri River on I-90. Sorry for how hard it is to see anything, but it was actually so foggy that we could see even less in person! I cranked the Dehaze on Adobe Lightroom up to +75 for this one (no joke)!

Crossing the Missouri was significant for another reason too—prairie dogs—of which we had seen none so far along the entire prairie we had crossed. I asked someone about that in De Smet, and was told that all the prairie dogs were located on the other side of the Missouri River. The locals here hate them, because as this gentleman said, prairie dogs with their burrowing “just destroy the land”. We were still looking forward to seeing some though, as they are an animal unique to the American West.

Another feature I noticed were steep escarpments to the south along the freeway, and sometimes there would be giant protruding chunks of land in the middle of the prairie. We were pushing closer to the Badlands, and so it seemed there were small little badlands appearing more frequently in the distance to our south along the freeway.

When we got on I-90, I told Becky to let me know if she wanted me to drive, since we’re about to get on a long stretch of mostly straight freeway where highway hypnosis can set in. About an hour or so away from Badlands, Becky said she was starting to have trouble, so I had her pull off a few exits down the road so I could finish my last blog entry. It was my first taste of legally zipping along at 80mph, on a freeway in the middle of the open prairie.

Who knew crap like this would be in such demand?

We were just a few miles away from our exit for Badlands National Park on I-90 where we pulled off the freeway at a scenic overlook. As we headed up the hill to take in the view of the expansive prairie all around us and the Badlands in the distance to the Southwest, two people seemed engrossed in some sort of spectacle taking place on the ground. When we got close enough, you could see two little pieces of poop rolling up the hill being pushed by little dung beetles who were happy to have scored dinner!

Overlooking I-90 from the scenic overlook at Buffalo Gap National Grassland, just a few miles east of the exit for Badlands National Park

Entering Badlands National Park

So many peaks…each unique…

Unlike many national parks, you can go off-trail and climb on the rocks…so your photo-op creativity is really only limited by your command of gravity!

We pressed on into Badlands National Park, a place where neither of us had ever been, and our first national park of the trip. On the map it looked as if you got off the freeway and BOOM there’s the Badlands. Reality however, was that it was still nearly ten miles until we reached the park entrance. Since we planned on visiting four national parks with entrance fees on this trip alone, we ended up purchasing an annual pass for $80. The total for entering each of these with just an individual park pass would be $105, so I recommend the annual pass if you plan a trip like this, at it saves you a substantial amount of money!

Entering the Badlands was like entering another world! You’re on the prairie and then there are sharp layered outcroppings of rock that look like teeth made of mud sticking straight out of the ground. Some were as tall as a person, and some were hundreds of feet high, while plenty of others were in between. Cedar Pass was positively awesome, where the road descends at least a couple hundred feet down an escarpment that revealed how big these Badlands really were when you could see them from the south. It was almost like going down a great big step over a monster’s bottom teeth and into its mouth.

Overlooking the lodge and visitor center from Cedar Pass

Continue reading RealImaginaryWest Day 5 – The Good & Badlands of South Dakota