Movin’ to Montana soon
Gonna be a Dental Floss tycoon
– Frank Zappa
I was very interested in seeing Montana – it seems to have a bit of a mystique about it. I was right – very good vibes in Montana!
Butte
We headed out from Red Lodge early to partly back track on I-90 before passing Bozeman and into new territory. I had read a bit about Butte – our overnight – and that it was at one point a large city based on mining. And boy howdy do these like like to dig in the ground!
Butte, Montana
The history of Butte is interesting – it was one of the largest mining boomtowns in it’s heyday in the late 1800s and early 1900s. A lot of history here including labor disputes, large-scale mine disasters and huge environmental impact in a town that once boasted 100,000 residents in a city full of saloons and brothels! My kind of place.
Now – like most places that have anything going for them in the west – it looks like an attractive place to live if you are an outdoor enthusiast or want to escape the big cities of the west coast (and elsewhere!).
That afternoon I checked out the Glacier website to see about tickets to drive the Road to the Sun (now required like the Fossil Gallery in Dinosaur). I needed to get on a 8AM and try and get tickets. So we stayed and I got skunked. Good news I found out later from a local in Columbia Falls you can go early (before 6AM) or late (after 5PM) with no ticket. So that is the plan.
Columbia Falls
We drove to the park we are staying at in Columbia Falls – essentially the gateway to the western entrance to the park and the famous Road to the Sun road – that morning. Once you leave I-90 and head north from Kalispell it becomes very scenic.
Flathead Lake looking North
It also starts to look very expensive given the cars, homes and boats in the beautiful Flathead Lake. This is obviously a big-time outdoor recreation portal on a scale I have never quite seen before. Closer to the park entrance there must be a half dozen very large resorts offering everything from rafting to zip lines to putt-putt golf. America’s backyard for sure!
Sunrise at the RV Park
One Month on the Road
As we arrived in Columbia Falls we celebrated one month on the road! 5400 miles long we have come to the turning point in the trip and set our sights on heading back south and east. What an excellent adventure it has been so far!
Our two day road trip into the park. The first day started well but was long and plagued by pesky humans 😁 later in the day. We adapt and finish the trip on a high note!
Attack plan
When I looked into visiting Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park I was not able to find any availability close by the route I wanted to take going north. This was compounded by the fact that the area I wanted to visit was big – on the order of 200 miles long both north-south and east-west.
I ended up staying at Red Lodge which is close to Beartooth pass and the northeast portal at Silver Gate. I planed to drive from north to south and stay in Jackson overnight. I decided to drive across the top of the park then drop down to the thermal area and finally Jackson that night. In the morning I would photograph the Teton range at sunrise and drive back exiting the park through the east gate. This would take me to Cody, Wyoming and then back to Red Lodge.
Yellowstone National Park Northeast Entry near Red Lodge
It all worked well except by the time I got to the thermal areas the park was crowded to the max. I bailed and headed for Jackson but still had to deal with the heavy traffic. By the time I got to the hotel room I was beat but still saw some of Jackson (really tourist-mania!).
Dawn at Grand Teton National Park 🌞
The next day was much, much better. After catching a most excellent (and but freezing cold) sunrise in Grand Teton I headed back to Old Faithful. Much better at 8AM! Jake and I both got to see Old Faithful blow before heading back on a stunning drive along Yellowstone Lake and an equally stunning drive through Shoshone canyon before heading back to Red Lodge.
Eddie at Old Faithful in Yellowstoned National Park
Yellowstone
We left early and drove back to Beartooth pass. We were able to get some good views from the overlook (that was crowded with cars yesterday). We drove over the pass and finally made it to the northeast entrance.
The northern most road from the entrance was most excellent with breathtaking panoramas and large herds of buffalo.
Northern Drive at Yellowstone National Park
Bufflo at Yellowstone National Park
From there we visited Mammoth Hot Springs and into the thermal areas of the park. this is where it started to get crowded. By the time we got to the Old Faithful area it was getting stupid with people parking all over the place and creating traffic jams. Interestingly enough, there was nary a Park Ranger in sight outside of the areas themselves. I took this (as well as the dog policy – more later) as a sign of the times and decided to just roll with it!
Yellowstone National Park near Mammoth Hot SpringsYellowstone National Park Hot Springs
Norris Geyser Basin at Yellowstone National Park
I decided to bail out and head for Jackson and start out early in the morning to see Old Faithful. Along the way we stopped at Lewis Falls which we saw the day before.
Lewis River at Yellowstone National Park
It was much better when we reached Old Faithful before 8AM – only had the main parking lot was full. I left Jake in the car but noticed that a lot of other people had their dogs with them. So Jake and I got to watch Old Faithful blow it’s top – together 😎🐶!!! Most Excellent!
Jake & Eddie Excellent Adventure at Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park
Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park
After that we headed east for Yellowstone Lake and the eastern entrance to the park. The drive along the lake was most excellent indeed!
Yellowstone Lake at Yellowstone National Park
Grand Teton National Park & Jackson
Grand Teton National Park
The drive east of the mountain range offer fantastic views of the Grand Teton range. We headed for Jackson and out $200 a night Motel 6 room. I do have to say it was the nicest Motel 6 I ever stayed at other than the bed which pretty much sucked 😏.
Jackson itself is a mess of a tourist town in a spectacular setting. The drive into town is most excellent. Like Telluride – Jackson is in a box canyon and hosts a ski area which makes it the perfect place for bars and T-Shirt shops. And lots and lots of traffic.
The next morning was really cold but calm and clear as a bell. Perfect conditions for some sunrise shots. I first visited here in 1978 and forever had the impression of this breathtaking mountain range. I was not wrong. Most excellent indeed!
Grand Teton National Park
Grand Teton National Park
Grand Teton National Park
Shoshone Canyon
Leaving the park on the second day I was treated to a superbly excellent drive through Shoshone canyon. The Shoshone river is part of the Bighorn watershed and runs from near the east entrance of the park to Cody. The canyon has darker rock and spectacular rock formations.
Shoshone National Forest, Cody, Wyoming
Jake in Shoshone canyon
Shoshone canyon
Fire near Red Lodge
When I was hiking with Jake before our road trip we noticed a fire on the backside of the mountain range to the east of us. This turned out to be a bad fire that developed while I was in the park. At the end of the drive home we could see the area clearly including helicopters carrying large buckets and DC-10 tanker planes circling the area.
Robertson Draw Fire near Red Lodge
Our road trip comes to a close. Our next stop – Glacier National Park!
The first two days in Red Lodge we explored the local area and did a great hike!
Red Lodge is located at the Northeast corner of Yellowstone in Montana. A old western town turned coal mining town that almost fell into decay before being revitalized as a outdoor destination like so many mountain towns. I found it still retained it’s charm. It is very popular with Bikers looking to ride Beartooth Pass (more later on that!).
Carbon County Court House in Red Lodge
We spent our first day provisioning and touring the town. The KOA was nice – close by to town but not too close. They had a very cool Airstream 345 class A motorhome out front. These were built in the 1980s for a short period of time. As an interesting bit of relevant history – one of them was used to ferry the Space Shuttle astronauts to the Space Shuttle before take off and was aptly named the Astrobus!
Lake Fork Trail
The second day we got up early to beat the heat and headed for Beartooth Passs. I found a nice hike alongside a river that Jake and I did – 7 miles round trip! It followed the river up to a small pond where we had some brunch and headed back before it got too hot.
Lake Fork Trail near Beartooth Pass Panorama
The river was full and flowing quickly and there was not a cloud in the sky. The river had sections with tumultuous cascading water falls. Most excellent!
Jake & Eddie near Beartooth Pass Wyoming
Lake Fork Trail
It was a fantastic hike and I was beat at the end after a week or so of sitting and driving.
Beartooth Pass
After the hike we headed up BeartoothPass. I did not quite realize what it was until I got into it. At nearly 11,000 feet it’s way above tree line and a windy, narrow road full of traffic.
Beartooth Pass Summit Looking Towards Yellowstone
Apparently this is a favorite road for Bikers to ride. We saw a lot on the road and a lot of signs in town advertising to that crowd. I can see why, what a fantastic road!
We headed back to wrap up curdy and get ready for our two-day road trip into Yellowstone and the Tetons!
The trip to Red Lodge was long but spectacular! We drove from Arco to Idaho Falls and then north on the west side of the Tetons. The road lead to West Yellowstone and then up to Bozeman. From there a long drive on I-90 across the top of the park to the Red Lodge area on the edge of the Custer Gallatin National Forrest.
We arrived at Red Lodge late in the afternoon. It was a long ride but the stunning scenery made the trip go fast.
We are here at Red Lodge for 5 nights – one night we will overnight in a $200 a night Motel 6 in Jackson Hole! I sure hope those stale muffins they serve for breakfast will be nearly as good as the two day drive in the X6 (less the nearly 2 ton Excellent Adventure!) through the most magnificent park in the continental United States. Denali is still my current favorite – we will see!
But before that we will resupply and explore the northeastern Yellowstone area.
We visit Craters of the Moon and stayed in nearby Arco, Idaho – the first city (more of a small town actually 😏) powered by Nuclear Power!
Getting there
We left Vernal and drove through the mountains to end up outside of Salt Lake City. The drive was quite scenic – especially the high mountain lakes and the steep decent into Salt Lake. The winds were quite high on the drive and that combined with rabid Truckers driving like maniacs on I-80 (speed limit = 80mph) made for a fun ride to my stop that night.
I stayed in a KOA outside of Brigham City, UT. A very quite area – the stay was pleasant and uneventful. We headed out the next morning for Arco and the Craters.
Backstory
This stop, like the previous stop in Alamogordo, is part of my story.
Back in 1978 I was finishing a degree in Mechanical Engineering. I intended to go to graduate school to get a Masters in Nuclear Engineering but I also interviewed with the Nuclear Navy. They told me that I would be sent to Idaho to learn how to run a submarine’s nuclear reactor if I joined. Once I started graduate school I visited this area with my thesis advisor.
This area is home to Idaho National Laboratory – when I visited it was called Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL). My graduate work was funded by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and was linked to one of the labs at INEL called LOFT (Loss of Flow Transient) which studied what happened when a reactor lost it’s water coolant. My professor Dr. Albrecht and I flew in his private plane and visited the lab at one point shortly after I started my research.
At that time I distinctly remember flying into Idaho Falls. In the morning everyone who worked at the lab got on a bus for the hour trip to the various laboratories. I also remember that everyone I met was a Mormon. I remember driving for miles seeing nothing but desert and tumbleweeds until you could see some huge facility all by itself in the distance. I guess the idea was if there was an accident it would be in the middle of nowhere!
Arco Idaho
Just outside of Arco is Atomic City. It is home to the Experimental Breeder Reactor I – the first nuclear power station to generate enough electricity to power the light bulbs in the building the reactor was housed in. Arco, the town where Jake and I stayed, was the first city to new completely powered by another reactor in the area in 1955 – the year I was born.
Although the Experimental Breeder Reactor is now a museum, it is not currently open due to COVID. It was very cool to more or less stumble into this history while coming to visit the Craters!
Craters of the Moon is a lava field or what is known as a flood basalt area. Although I could not hike with Jake to see some of the more unique features we drove the loop as were able to hike one paved trail. The Park Service does not allow dogs partially because of prior experiences with the lave rock damaging a dog’s paws – apparently the dog of the original explorer to the area had to be carried out!
We did get so see a lot of the features of this weird landscape and learning about it’s unique habitats.
We headed back to Arco and explored the local area. Next stop Yellowstone!
Photos and experiences visiting Vernal Utah and nearby Dinosaur National Monument
We left our friends and headed north to Vernal Utah and Dinosaur National Monument. I did what was so far the oddest overnight in some god-forsaken town in the Utah desert. I called and was told a woman would meet me and show me to the site.
She was there – dressed in a house dress that reminded me of a Mennonite. She proceeded to show me to what passed there as a site (in a Mormon hayfield I figured) and talked to me the whole time I was setting up (more like sort of told me what to do 😖). I asked her if she was a Mormon and she told me no – she quit the Mormons and now believe it is a cult 😂. She told me I needed to be a Baptist and then proceeded to tell me how to identify polygamous housewives at the local market. Bizarre but oddly fit right in as another somewhat weird excellent adventure 😎🐶.
Vernal
Vernal is the Utah gateway to Dinosaur National Monument. The Monument spans both Utah and Colorado. Like Kanab it caters to a variety of outdoor experiences for the visitor. We setup camp and did some resupply later the day of our arrival.
We spent the next day exploring the Monument
River Trail
Based on our earlier experiences I knew I needed to take Jake out early if we were going to do any hiking. The only trail open to dogs goes along the Green River between two campsites. It was a really nice trail – we went about halfway from the Split Mountain campground before turning back. The campground was full of cars and trucks pulling trailers for rafting.
Visitor Center and Fossil Gallery
We headed back to the Adventure for lunch. Jake has gotten really good about staying in the trailer so that afternoon I headed back for a tour of the visitor center and fossil gallery. I found out the day before you needed to have a ticket – I got one on line easily before the visit.
I also took the opportunity to really drive the X6 for the first time on the windy backroads from Vernal to the Monument entrance. A little excellent bonus fun!
Once at the visitor center I waited for the shuttle to the Fossil Gallery. I took the opportunity to learn how the area was a river bed at one time. It is believed that a global, cataclysmic event caused a drought that killed huge numbers of dinosaurs whose final resting place because this Monument. A cautionary tale, perhaps.
View from Fossil Gallery at Dinosaur National Monument
The gallery is literally the side of a mountain excavated to show a cacophony (I have always wanted to use that word!) of fossils from the animals piled on top of each other over millions of years.
As I touched a fossil resting in the stone, I was left breathless imagining what it must have been like 100 million years ago – a mere sliver of time in the earth’s 5 billion years. It was an electrifying and deeply moving experience. A most excellent experience – and adventure – for sure!
Kanab is a great place to explore southern Utah and northern Arizona
Signpost at Grand Plateau RV Park outside of Kanab
Central to most of the major sights in the area and has everything a happy camper and his pupper need to help make it an excellent adventure! There is a great store that sells natural rock art and some great places to eat including the Rocking V Cafe where I had a killer Bison tenderloin.
Jake on a walk at the Grand Plateau RV Park outside of Kanab
The RV park where we stayed was (so far) the nicest park Jake and I have stayed at. There is some great places to take Jake for a walk and a killer hot tub with strong jets like mine back home. The views from the park were most excellent!
View from Grand Plateau RV Park outside of Kanab
One of the close by places to explore were the Coral Pink Sand Dunes state park. It is a favorite of many that come to the area to ride dune buggies. These have evolved from the homemade VW powered buggies to newer ones built by the same companies that build snowmobiles. I also saw some cool Porsche 911 Rally cars in the area.
We ended up going there twice – the first time to see the dunes and the second time in a nearby area to see to Petroglyphs. Unfortunately both were too damn hot for Jake’s paws so we chilled in the shade and enjoyed the views!
Toroweap Overlook is a rustic North Rim scenic area, reached by dirt road, perched 3,000 ft. above the Colorado River
We left later in the day to be there for the late day sun. The access closes at sunset so we left about one hour ahead of time.
The dirt road was very long – the round trip was over 6 hours but well worth it for the stunning views.
Toroweap Selfie
The cliffs were not for the faint of heart and I made sure I had Jake on the lead whenever we were close to the edge on any of the hikes we take.
We spent several hours there, had dinner and admired the views as the sun sunk ever lower in the west. Towards the end the sun came out in all it’s glory to give us some beautiful views.
We ended getting back close to midnight. Thanks to Dan for the driving! A fantastic day for the excellent adventures of Jake & Eddie 😎🐶!
The forces of Mother Nature on display for us mere mortals to look at in wonder
When I took my trips to the southwest in the 1990s I never made it to Zion. It too was high on my bucket list of places to visit along with the North Rim and Glacier.
Zion National Park
As with the North Rim – I was not disappointed! The forces of Mother Nature on display for us mere mortals to look at in wonder. I tried to imagine the pressure and changes over the millennia that formed the landscape. Amazing!
Zion Panorama
It was very crowded which forced us to park away from the visitors center at the campground. On the way over Jake got in the stream for a quick cool-down. Bad move on my part as the streams were known to contain a neurotoxin from a type of algae. Dogs were particularly susceptible!
A Ranger at the visitor center alerted me and two of them helped me rinse Jake off. I was scared but when I read about it I was not too concerned that he was exposed. However, I truly thanked those Rangers for helping me out.
Zion Panorama
Because the crowds we so large we did not get to take the tour. Never the less, we enjoyed the views and took our time driving and getting a closer look at the fantastic scenery!
Zion Panorama
John had visited the park in the Winter and talked about how it looked with snow added to the mix. Sounds like I just might have to come back and see for myself one day and take in more of this magical place!
One of the first places to visit on my bucket list
I first visited the south rim of the Grand Canyon in the 90s while living in Colorado. I had always heard the North Rim was quite a bit different than the South and wanted to visit. It was one of the first pins I dropped on my bucket list of places to visit.
Brite Angel Point – North Rim Grand Canyon
It has been over 25 years now and I was not disappointed! Given that the region is in a serious drought I found it to be very green and more in your face than I remember the south rim. We visited the main Visitor Center and hiked the trail out to Bright Angel Point.
North Rim – Grand Canyon National Park
Bright Angel Point Panorama
Grand Canyon National Park Panorama
We thoroughly enjoyed the visit – Jake did great given he heat and the crowds!
