Tag: road trips

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

RealImaginarySmokies Day 2 – Cumberland Gap & Camping in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

We continued south on US-23 into Virginia and cut west on Alt-58 and US-58 to Cumberland Gap National Historic Park, where Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee all meet. After enjoying the view there at Pinnacle Overlook, we stocked up on groceries in Knoxville and drove through Townsend into Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where we set up at Elkmont Campground.

In Search of Breakfast

We spent our first night on the road in a warm cozy room at the Eastern Heights Motel in Ivel, Kentucky. We were up bright and early at 6:30am and got on the road just before first light at 7:15am. An early high fog hung just over the hills, shrouding the tops in mystery. About a half an hour after we got going, the sun quickly burned it all off.

We decided to start our day by looking for breakfast. I preferred finding a mom & pop greasy spoon over a national chain place. I expected that there would be plenty of these along US-23, but I was hard-pressed to find any using Google Maps the night before…maybe they never got on the map? So we kept driving south along the highway, keeping our eyes open for prospects.

As we came up to Pikeville, about 10-15 miles from our motel, we decided to exit and search there in hopes of finding something. What I didn’t know is that Pikeville is a more sizeable college town. While there were large sports facilities, parking decks, and big-brand hotels, there was not much in the way of restaurants—especially for breakfast. On the main drag that appeared to be where the US highway used to snake through, we did find Roasted, Coffee and Cafe. However, I didn’t see any breakfast choices that appealed to me for the $5 price tag. So Becky bought her usual espresso and we continued south.

Eventually, we began ascending further and further up hills in the mountains until we went over Pound Gap and crossed into Virginia. Mom & pop dining options along the way were sparse, and we often missed them until we were about to pass them at nearly freeway speed…so it was after 9am and I was still quite hungry. Finally, near the town of Wise, we passed through a commercial strip area where I settled for Huddle House. While the food wasn’t super spectacular or super cheap, it did hit the spot so we could continue on our way.

Morning fog lingers over a valley to the south of Pound Gap.

It wasn’t far to the south where we finally diverged from US-23 at Big Stone Gap and started following Alternate US-58, which is known as Trail of the Lonesome Pine Road most of the way. We passed through several quaint little old valley towns with some beautiful brick buildings right up against the street. In Jonesville, the alternate leg of US-58 joins the mainline highway again and we began following the Wilderness Road. After we meandered our way through countryside and a few more hamlets, we arrived at Cumberland Gap National Historic Park.

Cumberland Gap National Historic Park

Now the Wilderness Road was one of only two good routes across the Appalachian Mountains into Kentucky (the other was the Cumberland Road, which later became part of the National Road that went across from Cumberland, Maryland). Daniel Boone was the man hired in 1775 to blaze a trail that opened up settlement in Kentucky, and that trail became known as the Wilderness Road. It crossed the mountains at Cumberland Gap, which is now the site of a national historic park run by the National Park Service.

Cumberland Gap had been used by Native Americans to cross the Appalachians long before the colonial era. After Daniel Boone carved his trail, it was later widened to allow wagon traffic to pass. It held a great deal of strategic significance during the Civil War, changing hands multiple times. When the US Highway System was created in the 1920s, Cumberland Gap carried US-25E. The Wilderness Road across Cumberland Gap was restored to its historic appearance as a wagon trail in 1996, when US-25E was rerouted through the new Cumberland Gap Tunnel.

Cumberland Gap Tunnel

Inside the Cumberland Gap National Historic Park Visitor Center

Fern Lake between the trees at Pinnacle Overlook

When we arrived, we passed back into Kentucky through this tunnel, and exited the highway to go to the Cumberland Gap National Historic Park Visitor Center. Besides taking a quick look around, I asked a ranger about which parts of the park were the best. It was already about noon, and we still had at least 2-3 hours to drive and a stop for groceries before we made it to Great Smoky Mountains National Park…so we didn’t have more than maybe an hour or two here if we were going to beat rush hour traffic out of Knoxville. The ranger said that hiking across Cumberland Gap doesn’t offer much to see besides the trail itself—but she definitely recommended that we drive up the mountain to Pinnacle Overlook.

So we set out on the winding switchback road up the mountain to a parking lot with ample space. Several short trails, including one that is handicapped-accessible, took us just over the Virginia state line to Pinnacle Overlook. The view here did not disappoint! You can see for several miles across a few towns, countryside, and forested hills to the south, including Tri-State Peak, where the borders of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee all come to point, and tranquil Fern Lake. I spent a good hour photographing from the vantage point here, since it was a relatively clear day and lighting conditions were rather favorable.

Hey, a stranger we met snapped a decent picture of us!

Becky with one foot in each state on the trail back to the parking lot

Overlooking Tennessee and Kentucky from Pinnacle Overlook in Virginia…I will post a link to the full-res version (1.2 gigapixels!) when I get it uploaded…

Continue reading RealImaginarySmokies Day 2 – Cumberland Gap & Camping in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

RealImaginarySmokies Day 1 – The Scioto Valley & Eastern Kentucky

We followed Riverside Drive along the Scioto River into Downtown Columbus, where we headed south on US-23. We then took US-23 through Chillicothe and followed scenic SR-104 out of Waverly and into Portsmouth. After dinner in Portsmouth, we took US-52 along the Ohio River, crossing into Eastern Kentucky at Ashland to follow US-23 south to the Eastern Heights Motel in Ivel.

Starting Off Around Columbus

So there’s a twist for our last road trip this year! Rather than starting out from home, we start out today from Delaware, Ohio, where our friends Justin and Jennifer live. Jennifer organized a Star Wars-themed costume party in nearby Columbus last night. Besides not wanting to miss hanging out with one of her best friends, Becky is an avid cosplayer and a rabid Star Wars fan. Some fans wear costumes to celebrate their favorite sports franchise, while Becky loves getting everyone in costume to celebrate her favorite movie franchise. I always liked Star Wars too…and will say that it is more fun this way!


Anyway, we spent the night at Justin and Jennifer’s house last night, putting us about an hour or so closer to our destination for the night, which will be some as yet undetermined motel. Rather than taking freeways, we’ll mostly take US-23 the entire way, which will take us through parts of Ohio and Kentucky that neither of us has ever seen. I’m not sure where exactly we’ll stop, because I honestly have no idea how long we’ll spend at stops along the way. And we’re getting a motel because tonight will be the first freeze of the season in much of the Midwest and Appalachia. The weather warms up over the course of the week, and should be just fine for camping.

Following the Scioto River

We started out by following US-42 to SR-257/Riverside Drive, which eventually becomes US-33 and Dublin Road. Along the way we passed two dams and the Columbus Zoo. The drive was very pleasant, with a park between the road and the river almost all the way down. It reminded me of the Valley Parkway in the Cleveland Metroparks or Riverview Road in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, except much busier and with a lot more development.

The plan was to take Dublin Road until it becomes Long Street downtown, where we’d turn south on High Street towards the south side of Columbus. Unbeknownst to us, the Columbus Marathon was being held today, so it was impossible to get to High Street north of I-70. We lost some time trying to figure this out, but we eventually got back on track.

Now US-23 follows High Street at this point, and runs all the way down along the Scioto River from Downtown Columbus to Downtown Portsmouth, which is where the highway crosses the Ohio River into Kentucky. Along the way you pass through or around the towns of Circleville, Chillicothe, and Waverly, which along with Cleveland and Akron were on the route of the old Ohio & Erie Canal. The Ohio & Erie Canal revolutionized travel and shipping across the state in 1832, reducing the trip from Cleveland to Cincinnati from a few weeks to just 80 hours. Railroads came along two decades later, causing most of the canal to become abandoned early in the 20th Century.

There are three things I’m especially interested in seeing along our route this afternoon: the Scioto River for one, the city of Portsmouth since it’s on the Ohio River, and the city of Chillicothe, as it was Ohio’s original state capital. Had it not been for so much politicking in the state’s early history, perhaps Ohio’s “Three C’s” would have been Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Chillicothe! I suppose we’ll never know, but maybe that’s how things unfolded in a parallel universe…so maybe one day we will find out…

Chillicothe

Since US-23 now bypasses Chillicothe, we exited to follow Business-23 (which quite honestly is the only Business Route I’ve ever seen in all of Ohio) to go through town. The actually center of Chillicothe is a few blocks off of the old US highway, so we took a detour to check it out. While there were lots of old buildings in good repair, Chillicothe didn’t seem to be all that big of a place and was certainly not bustling this Sunday afternoon.

So we continued south back to the bypass and continued to Waverly. On the south side of Waverly, we followed SR-104, which follows the Scioto’s west bank all the way to Portsmouth. This road was marked scenic on my Rand McNally atlas, and it did not disappoint. There were sweeping views of the river all along, passing through small farms and unincorporated hamlets. The land along this part of the river seems vastly untouched.

Portsmouth, Ohio

The Ulysses S. Grant Bridge connects Portsmouth, Ohio across the Ohio River to Kentucky.

The road joins up with SR-73 just before West Portsmouth, and at the interchange with US-52 we stayed on SR-73/104 to go through Portsmouth. At this point, you can see two prominent bridges…a steel cantilever bridge directly ahead, and a newer cable-stayed bridge towering to the east. After we crossed the Scioto River right next to its mouth, we noticed a huge floodwall a block away. Besides its height, the 21-foot floodwall attracted our attention because it was covered in murals across the entire western section of the city.

It was definitely time for us to refuel, and the cheapest gas I found was just over the river in Kentucky. So before we got dinner and explored some more, we drove across the cable-stayed bridge on US-23. After gassing up, we went back over to Portsmouth to a restaurant I’d found on Google Maps that had a menu that worked for both of us.

Continue reading RealImaginarySmokies Day 1 – The Scioto Valley & Eastern Kentucky

RealImaginarySmokies – Fall Color Camping in the Appalachians

We’re taking one more big road trip to explore our sixth new national park this year and take in the spectacular fall color in the Appalachian Mountains! We start off at our friends’ house in Delaware, Ohio and follow the Scioto River through Columbus to Portsmouth. After following the Ohio River briefly, we’ll head south on US-23 until we get into Northern Virginia, where we’ll go west to Cumberland Gap National Historic Park. Then, we’ll go through Knoxville and set up camp for four nights in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Finally, we move to Indian Boundary Campground in Cherokee National Forest for a night or two, and then we head back home to Cleveland on I-75 and I-71.

Let’s Capture Some Fall Color!

My original plan was to enjoy this year’s fall color while camping for the week at Hocking Hills State Park. This is hands down my favorite park in Ohio, and always gives me ample photographic opportunities. It’s easy to camp there over a weekend, though, so we’re there rather often. Our RealImaginaryWest road trip in July expanded my mind toward new possibilities…and got me thinking about how to scratch another national park off of our list.

Ash Cave at Hocking Hills State Park in Southern Ohio is the largest recess cave east of the Mississippi…and there are a million other beautiful things here…but we have been here many, many times…

Brandywine Falls in Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Northeast Ohio

Frozen Niagara in Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky

The view from the top of Stony Man in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia

We’ve hit three of the four national parks within a day’s drive…Shenandoah in Virginia, Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, and Cuyahoga Valley in our own back yard. The Appalachian Mountains should look incredible this time of year, although higher and colder elevations up north are probably well past peak color. Trees further south should be at peak this week just like our trees in Southern Ohio, so let’s go to Great Smoky Mountains National Park! When I floated the idea past Becky…she was on board, and I began hunting for campsites…

So off we go on another adventure to what will be our sixth new national park for the year! Back in July, we visited Badlands, Wind Cave, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Rocky Mountain National Parks. Before this, I was always afraid that camping in temperatures lower than 50°F would spell trouble for my asthma, so I never risked it. When I found out that overnight temperatures regularly dip below 40°F at most campgrounds in Yellowstone, I told myself to suck it up…because you’re camping in Yellowstone! Thankfully we risked it and everything was fine, which is great because we’ll have to endure a couple of sub-40°F nights early this week in the Appalachians.

It was well worth enduring chilly nights to enjoy a place like Yellowstone National Park!

Rough Itinerary

Day 1 Sun Starting in Delaware, Ohio, follow the Scioto River down through Columbus to Portsmouth. Follow the Ohio River and then US-23 from Ashland, Kentucky to about Prestonburg or Pikeville where we’ll hopefully find a cheap motel for the night.
Day 2 Mon Continue south on US-23 into Virginia, and then cut over to Cumberland Gap National Historic Park, where the borders of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee meet. From there, we’ll proceed via Knoxville, Tennessee to Elkmont Campground in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Day 3 Tue Explore Great Smoky Mountains National Park from Elkmont Campground.
Day 4 Wed Explore Great Smoky Mountains National Park from Elkmont Campground.
Day 5 Thu Explore Great Smoky Mountains National Park from Elkmont Campground.
Day 6 Fri Leave Great Smoky Mountains National Park and move south to Indian Boundary Campground on the Cherohala Skyway in Cherokee National Forest.
Day 7 Sat If we can get another campsite at Indian Boundary Lake, we’ll stay one more night in Cherokee National Forest.
Day 8 Sun If we’re still there, we’ll depart Cherokee National Forest and take I-75 and I-71 back home to Cleveland.

Continue reading RealImaginarySmokies – Fall Color Camping in the Appalachians

Afterword: Numbers & Notes

The Numbers

Looking back...
Ingalls Dugout Site in Walnut Grove, Minnesota
Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota
Clepsydra Geyser in Yellowstone National Park
Grand Teton National Park
Huffers Hill at the Alpine Visitor Center in Rocky Mountain National Park
The summit of Pikes Peak in Colorado
Colorado State Capital in Denver
Joe's Kansas City Bar-B-Que in Kansas City, Kansas

By the time I returned our rental car today, here were some of the numbers from our trip:

  • 4,875 miles
  • 18 days
  • 11 states (OH, IN, IL, WI, MN, SD, WY, MT, CO, KS, MO)
  • 5 National Parks
    • Badlands
    • Wind Cave
    • Yellowstone
    • Grand Teton
    • Rocky Mountain
  • 1 National Memorial (Mount Rushmore)
  • 1 National Monument (Devils Tower)
  • 1 National Grassland (Buffalo Gap)
  • 7 National Forests
    • Black Hills
    • Bighorn
    • Bridger-Teton
    • Routt
    • Arapahoe
    • Roosevelt
    • Pike
  • 5 State Parks
    • Mirror Lake, WI
    • Mill Bluff, WI
    • Custer, SD
    • Keyhole, WY
    • Buffalo Bill, WY
  • 3 Laura Ingalls Wilder hometowns
    • Pepin, WI
    • Walnut Grove, MN
    • DeSmet, SD
  • First National Park in the World (Yellowstone)
  • First National Forest (Bridger-Teton)
  • Highest continuous road in the U.S. (Trail Ridge Road)
  • Top of a 14er (Pikes Peak)
  • 2 trains (Pikes Peak Cog Railway and RTD Denver light rail)
  • 1 sailboat
  • 1 rental car
  • Numerous hiking trails
  • Accommodations
    • 7 campsites (Pepin, Ingalls Homestead, Cedar Pass, Ponderosa, Canyon, Grant Village, Colter Bay)
    • 4 motels (Janesville, Rapid City, Craig, High Hill)
    • 1 covered wagon (De Smet)
    • 1 home
    • 1 emergency room
  • People We Saw
    • 1 aunt
    • 8 cousins
    • 5 cousins’ significant others
    • 6 old friends
    • 2 photographers
    • Several fellow road trippers
    • Many hospitable westerners

Things We Learned From This Trip

Continue reading Afterword: Numbers & Notes

RealImaginaryWest Day 18 – Reflections, Reunions & Returns

We woke up to heavy rains that were predicted to last longer than we wanted to stay in St. Louis, so we just kept heading east toward home. The extra time allowed me to cook up a little surprise for Becky with our friends near Columbus, Ohio.

Itching to Get Going

It was a dark and stormy…morning. Rain fell torrentially as if it was trying to wash our motel off the map like a bad stain. I think I would have been OK with that, so long as it waited until after we checked out…

It’s no fiction…it was dark for being first thing in the morning, and I’m not kidding when I say that this was the only motel room on the whole trip that seemed like a joke for the price.

Becky and I got up before 6am Mountain Time the day before, and took turns driving across Colorado, Kansas, and most of Missouri yesterday. When my head hit the pillow at close to 11pm last night, I fell fast asleep. I wasn’t crazy about our motel, but I was too tired to worry about it.

Our Motel Room…

Let me say that I would not recommend the Colonial Inn off of I-70 in High Hill, Missouri. Before I went to bed last night, I saw a sign on the air conditioning controls strongly encouraging guests to turn off the A/C while they’re gone. I mentioned yesterday that there was a strange damp sort of smell that I hoped subsided with the A/C running for a while…well, it was still there. This room definitely had a mold problem, which was not readily visible by looking at it. I’m highly allergic to mold, as my itchy eyes reminded me this morning. It’s really no surprise, because the A/C was off…and probably remains off almost every entire hot, humid Missouri day in the summer…so the mold probably likes it here.

I also awoke once in the middle of the night and noticed the sheet was not really on my corner of the mattress…because apparently they don’t use anything but top sheets at this establishment. I thought I pushed it back, but when I awoke this morning, it was all out of place again…which is why one uses bottom sheets to cover the mattress!

As I got up to go to the bathroom, I noticed a sign on the door. It became clear to me why the hotelier took so much information…the sign clearly indicated that management would charge my credit card and call the police should any of my room’s appurtenances come up missing. For a $39 motel room, they certainly had decided to go out of their way to protect their small investment in inadequate bedsheets. This may be a little paranoid, but I thought this motel room could easily get a lot more expensive if the maid got sticky fingers and pointed one of them at us.

I was in no way interested in lounging around to be implicated or to fill my airways with more of the milldewyness, and neither was Becky. The downpour outside made rushing to the car quite easy. Our stuff barely got unpacked, so it was pretty easy to throw back into the trunk. The rain was still coming down hard enough to get us pretty wet though.

To St. Louis, Or Not to St. Louis?

With the heavy rain coming down, I checked the forecast and the radar. The plan for this morning was to make a quick stop to photograph the Gateway Arch in Downtown St. Louis. The radar…and my ears…told me that the rains were not going to cooperate…so when we got in the car, I decided to scrub St. Louis and get home a bit earlier. Although this did give us just enough time…

Our friends, Justin and Jennifer, at a steampunk-themed party we held at Pugh Cabin at Malabar Farm State Park

You see, we have two very good friends who live in Delaware, Ohio…about 20-30 minutes from the I-270 Jack Nicklaus Outerbelt around Columbus, which is on our way home. I wrote about Justin and Jennifer last year after Justin, a roofer at the time, fell and suffered a traumatic head injury that scared us all and landed him in the hospital for over a month. He’s mostly his old self again, but it still takes about five full years to fully recover from an injury as bad as his. Anyway, before we left the hotel, I snuck a text out to Justin and Jennifer to see if they could meet us this evening and surprise Becky—and they were game! I just needed a proper smokescreen for stopping somewhere innocuous in their area. I wasn’t totally sure of the timing, but I thought we might be able to make it to the REI store in Dublin before it closed at 6pm.

Continue reading RealImaginaryWest Day 18 – Reflections, Reunions & Returns

RealImaginaryWest Day 17 – Kansas, Kansas, More Kansas, and Kansas City Barbecue

We began our bittersweet journey home after an early breakfast with my family in Denver. We took I-70 across almost all of Kansas, save for a detour for some Kansas City barbecue! Finally, we took I-70 across most of Missouri to a motel in High Hill, about 30 minutes outside the St. Louis area.

So we were back on the road again. When you’re headed east from Denver, the plains of Colorado and Kansas look pretty much the same until you get close to Kansas City…and then there are some trees. And then you cross Missouri.

The End.

OK, just kidding! Actually, the reason we were driving across Kansas in the first place was because I wanted to have something eventful to look forward to along the way home. There was a real temptation to take I-80 back through two states I’d never seen before, Nebraska and Iowa, but the lure of Kansas City barbecue and the Gateway Arch along I-70 thwarted it. Besides that, I didn’t know of anything pressing I wanted to see except for maybe Chimney Rock along the Oregon Trail.

Last Breakfast

So after having such a great time and a short time together with my Denver family last night, we all decided we’d get up super duper early to have a last hurrah this morning before Becky and I hit the road. So we woke up at about 5:30am to pack up our car for our two-day voyage home. This went quite easily, as we had no tent to pack up. Kelli was so kind as to supply us with ice from her freezer, so our cooler was even stocked well enough to make it through most of the day.

We all met up at a regional chain breakfast restaurant called Snooze, right off of I-25 on Lincoln Avenue. The food was very good. I had the French toast and fruit, which was well-prepared and came with real maple syrup. The fruit was also fresh and tasty, and obviously not from a frozen bag. Even though we were in a shopping center in a sea of parking lot, the patio was comfortable and far enough from the cars. It was a perfect place to relax one last time with the family before heading out.

All but a few from last night sacrificed their chance to sleep in today to see us off, and I sure appreciated it! Even though it had been several years since we’d spent time together, it felt just like I’d expect family to feel. I’d seen my Aunt Pat in the last couple of years, but I hadn’t seen my cousins Cathy, Kelli, and D.J. much since 2012, when they came in for our grandma’s funeral in my hometown of Wellington, Ohio. And until yesterday, it had been 15 years since I’d seen any of Cathy’s girls. I sure hope it won’t be another 15 years before I see them again!

After breakfast, we stood in the parking lot for several more minutes…finishing our conversations, saying our thank-yous, we’ll-miss-yous, and our last good-byes. They all talked of making plans to come to Ohio since it’s been several years…I hope they make it soon!

On The Road Again

MOAR TRANEZ!!!

After all the hugs, we drove north up I-25 while I checked prices on GasBuddy. The best price, coincidentally, was at the Sam’s Club off of I-225 and Mississippi Avenue, near where my Aunt Pat lived when I last visited 29 years ago in 1986!

Getting out of the Denver area went smoothly, but as I mentioned, there isn’t much to see along the road across Eastern Colorado and most of Kansas. While it isn’t exactly a void, this part of the country is sparsely populated. The view along I-70 isn’t really too much different from I-90 across South Dakota, except with flatter terrain and fewer trees. Something that’s cool about Eastern Colorado though, is that you can see the glorious Rocky Mountains on the western horizon. You can even single out Pikes Peak from well over 100 miles away. Since I-70 runs southeast for a few dozen miles, it’s fairly easy to look west and enjoy the view when you’re not driving. The highway also parallels a railroad line, with a few opportunities to look out to see entire trains as they cross the plains.

Cows drink from a well near Agate, Colorado. The hazy silhouette of Pikes Peak can be seen on the horizon here, even though it’s over 70 miles away!

Kansas

My cousins scoffed at how terribly boring and long it is to drive across Kansas, and I have to admit my childhood memories of it are mostly just heat, humidity, and boredom. I talked to my mom a little bit one day while we were at Kelli’s, and expressed that I wasn’t longing for this part of the trip. Interestingly, she had a much more positive spin on Kansas. She liked the rolling grassland and fields, and enjoyed seeing the windmills and water troughs used to water the cattle. So I did my best to keep an open mind about Kansas.
Continue reading RealImaginaryWest Day 17 – Kansas, Kansas, More Kansas, and Kansas City Barbecue

RealImaginaryWest Day 15 – Colorado Springs & Pikes Peak

We took a short drive to spend the day with our friends, Lexi and Joe, in Colorado Springs. After going to the top of Pikes Peak on the cog railway, we got lunch and visited the penny arcade in Manitou Springs. Afterward, we visited Helen Hunt Falls and Garden of the Gods. We headed back to my cousin’s in Denver not long after dinner.

Starting for Colorado Springs Early…WAY Early!

We got up and on the road at 6am today. We were headed to Colorado Springs to spend the day with our friends, Joe and Lexi. They wanted to get a jump on the crowds heading up to Pike’s Peak, so we agreed to meet at their house at 6:45. Neither Becky nor myself are what you call “morning people”…but in three days, we would be back home—in the Eastern Time Zone, which is two hours ahead of Colorado. So as much as we’d have loved to sleep in, it really was practical to get going way early.

The sun was already cracking the horizon by the time we got on the road. The air was a little hazy, but that only added to the dramatic look of the golden light and dark shadows on the terrain ahead of us, and on the Rocky Mountains to our West. Though we were heading from one major city to the next, the drive was a mere 45 minutes, thanks to my cousin’s house being as close to the edge of Denver’s suburbs as you can get. The farther south we went on I-25, the more it felt like we were in the foothills rather than on the plains like in Denver.

Becky with Lexi and Joe

Now Lexi and her family are originally from Cleveland. I met Lexi on the exact same day as I met Becky for the first time, actually! She was already a good friend of the family by then. Becky’s sister, Rachel, was actually in Lexi’s wedding three years ago. Lexi ended up in Colorado Springs with her two brothers when her mom remarried a few years before that. Lexi’s husband, Joe, was good friends with Lexi’s brother, who recently married one of Rachel’s best friends after he moved back to Cleveland. Lexi came in for our wedding, and we met Joe when they both came in for her brother’s wedding. So yeah…we know Lexi and her family…but today would be our first time really getting to know Joe. So far he seems like an OK guy…

Pikes Peak Cog Railway

We pulled into Joe and Lexi’s driveway a minute or two after 6:45. They both rushed out and told us to jump in their car so we could get to the train in time to get good seats. For the rest of the day, Joe did all the driving, which was an awesome break for us!

The Pikes Peak Cog Railway station in Manitou Springs

In 20 minutes we were at the station for the Pikes Peak Cog Railway in the mountain town of Manitou Springs. Parking was painless, and we were in line for good seats for the first train of the day, which departed at 8am. The station was rather compact, with just enough room for a ticket office, a gift shop, small restrooms, and an area to queue passengers boarding the train. Unfortunately, they do not allow outside food or drinks—not even water bottles—and therefore the prices remind you of what you’d pay in a movie theater. Joe was kind enough to buy each of us a 32-ounce bottle of water, but my eyes popped out when I saw it cost him $13!

Speaking of water, I was glad that we were on the first train, and therefore there was not double the amount of people because of returning passengers. I’m sure the small restrooms get quite a bit of use since there are no restrooms aboard the trains. Altitude and hydration were still foremost on my mind, being that even on the ground we were already at 6,000 feet. Since it’s a 60-90 minute trip each way, I knew that managing my drinking and peeing would be critical to my comfort today.

As we waited for the train, we could see splendid examples of the reddish colored Pikes Peak granite all around. This rock was everywhere in and around Manitou Springs, and really contrasted well with the green of the pines and aspens all around us in the golden rays of the low morning sun.

Up!

Passengers enjoying the view as we ascend Pikes Peak on the cog railway

Tree-covered slopes give way to rocky ones as we ascend toward the tree line, where the climate is too harsh for trees to grow.

We were on the train and out of the station at 8:07am. From here on up to the top, the conversation amongst ourselves was intertwined with that of our conductor and tour guide, Luke. Luke was a young man who looked to be at most 25, but easily could have been much younger. He shared quite a bit of history on Pikes Peak and the railway. He shared that Pikes Peak had several names before it was finally called Pikes Peak. The mountain is named after Zebulon Pike, who mounted an expedition to climb to the summit, but failed. And while Pikes Peak is but 1 of Colorado’s 53 “fourteeners”, or mountains over 14,000 feet, there are very few mountains between it and the Great Plains. This makes it the most prominent mountain in Colorado’s Front Range, making it appear to stand alone for hundreds of miles over the Great Plains to the east—all the way to Kansas.

As Pikes Peak has a story that is unique among Colorado’s mountains, the Manitou & Pikes Peak Railway also has a unique story among Colorado’s railroads. Back in the 1880s, railroads were built primarily for industrial purposes to take advantage of the state’s many mining opportunities. After a ride to the summit of Pikes Peak on the back of a donkey, Zalmon Simmons of Kenosha, Wisconsin and founder of the Simmons Beautyrest Mattress Company, saw a business opportunity. He decided to build a railway to make it way easier to go to the top of Pikes Peak, and he did it purely for tourism. He went home and lined up investors, and two years later he was taking people to the top of Pikes Peak for a cool $5 each—that’s $125 in today’s money. The railroad was a hit back then, and since our early train was completely full, I’d say it’s still a hit today. The good news is that the cost of tickets has not kept up with inflation, as round-trip tickets cost only about a third of $125—and that may be why they sell water at $3.25 per bottle.

Anyway, there are three cars on each train heading up and down the mountainside. There’s an aisle down the middle with three seats on the left side going up, and two seats on the right side. The seats are arranged front-to-front and back-to-back, meaning every passenger faces another passenger. Before we embarked on our 18-day journey, a friend back home warned us that we want to get seats that angle up rather than down. And about 15 minutes up the mountain, Luke suggested that we introduce ourselves to the folks across from us—we were heading into our first 25 percent grade, and we’d probably be getting more familiar with them as a result. This was easy for us, because we knew each other, but we followed his advice nonetheless. Becky and I were angled down on the way up, though, and we really didn’t have any problems staying in our seats.

Joe points out at something when we are well above the tree line.

Each set of seats facing each other has it’s own window. On the bottom, the windows are all open, and it’s easy to see over them and take pictures. By the time you pass the tree line into alpine elevations, the temperature is decidedly cooler, so Luke told us we could close our windows and turn on the heater for the rest of the trip. The heater made things quite comfortable in spite of the 36°F temperature at the summit. I would still recommend having at least one or two extra layers of long sleeves handy though, not just for the trip, but the summit too.

Before we reached the top, Luke advised us that we’d have a little less than an hour there, and that the train whistle would blow ten minutes before departure. He said it was important for round-trip passengers to be on the train at departure—Otherwise we would “slowly transform into hikers—and what a hike it is! Thirteen miles in one direction from the summit back to Manitou Springs. And for you runners out there thinking, ‘thirteen miles!’, yes, they do have a marathon each year, going up and back down the mountain.”

The Summit of Pikes Peak

The view at the top!

Continue reading RealImaginaryWest Day 15 – Colorado Springs & Pikes Peak

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