Portland 2019: Pictures from Yellowstone

Zach and I just returned from a whirlwind five-day trip to Montana, where we visited my brother Christian, who works at Yellowstone National Park (department of inventory— you never think about how many office jobs are needed to sustain a park of that size). Although it rained on and off the whole time we were there, we still managed to get in a few hikes and a bit of sightseeing. Here are some pictures!

The next several pictures are from the Beaver Pond Loop near Mammoth Hot Springs

Beautiful gumweed was growing everywhere!

Driving toward the Midway Geyser Basin in Yellowstone

Grand Prismatic Spring! We had never seen it before. Although we weren't able to get parking at the boardwalk that takes you to the edge of the spring, we were able to hike to this overlook. 

Grand Prismatic Spring from ground level

We drove past this smallish male right after seeing a gigantic bull further up the road (and a stupid tourist standing ten feet away to get a good shot). 

Driving down toward Mammoth Springs

Mammoth Hot Springs!

Looking up a hill toward the mountains swathed in clouds— this was on a hiking trail just outside of Gardiner, MT

Cactus!

Sunset on the Columbia River on our drive home

The Grand Gallivant: On the Road to Idaho

After three solid days in Glacier, it was time to head out for our next destination. We decided to split the drive into two days for Zach’s sake, and to give us a little more down time before getting to our next farm. So on Saturday, we only had a four-hour drive, allowing us to bum around Agpar Village in the rain all morning. Off we drove, retracing our steps to Kalispell through a maze of tiny tourist traps (advertising huckleberry pie, preserves, ice cream, soda, pastries, sauces, wine, and anything else you could possibly put huckleberries in), then heading south.

We wound along the edge of Flathead Lake, which is the largest-area freshwater lake west of the Mississippi. Clouds hung low over it, giving the water a glassy gray shine. We soared along the deserted stretches of highway and crawled through the little towns, listening to The Who’s Live at Leeds. (“A young man ain’t got nothin’ in the world these days,” Roger Daltrey howled, and Zach remarked, “See, young people have always complained about everything.”) 

After rejoining Interstate 90 (and its awesome 80 MPH speed limit), we soon left the trees behind and took the open plains, bordered by mountains and patched over with farmland. 

Cute doggie!

Our stop for the night was Anaconda, where a couchsurfing host had offered us a place to crash— except we found out last minute that she wasn’t going to be there. She seemed perfectly comfortable with the notion of us staying there, though, and just left the door open. Maybe it’s my big-city ways, but I was paranoid that she was some sort of creative ax-murderer trying to lure us into her house. Inside, we found a friendly note on the kitchen counter and a blue heeler (Australian shepherd) who was terrified of us at first, but soon warmed up and nearly loved us to death. We spent a relaxed evening cooking dinner, and slept like rocks that night. But it was definitely the strangest couchsurfing experience I’ve had yet!

Sunday’s drive took us into even more open plains, where hawks perched on the barbed wire fences, antelope roamed through the sagebrush, and magpies and ravens scavenged for roadkill. We listened to Frank Zappa’s song “Montana” in honor of our last day there, then passed the rest of the state listening to Ziggy Stardust. The unchanging miles— sagebrush, farmland, distant mountains— rolled by as we passed into Idaho.

Zappa's song discusses his plans to move to Montana to become a dental floss tycoon.
Therefore, here is a picture of me in Montana with dental floss.

We had noticed the day before that our route to the farm took us past Craters of the Moon National Monument, so we made plans to stop. I’m so glad we did! The park covers several acres of weird volcanic landscape, and thanks to our national parks pass, we got in for free.

Looking down into a crater

We hiked a 3.5 there-and-back trail over mounds of lava in different stages of crumbling, from smooth bubbles of gray rock to dust-like particles that looked like asphalt. Cones and columns of lava jutted out at odd angles. 

The wildflowers were in peak bloom as well— rarely more than two inches high, they had tiny flowers in muted pastel colors, evenly spaced so their root systems could gather precious water. The winters here are arctic, and the summer ground temperatures can reach 150ºF, so I greatly admire these hardy little plants.

After Craters of the Moon, it was time to reach our next farm! We got a bit lost wandering the dirt roads, but at last found the right house and were greeted by Kate and Billy, who gave us a tour of their property, including the two-bedroom house that we get all to ourselves. That was two days ago, and our time here so far has been fantastic... but that’s another blog post. Welcome to Idaho!

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The Grand Gallivant: Two Medicine, Glacier NP

After our hikes on the west side of the park, Zach and I decided that we should make a trip to the more easterly part, where the mountains are more dramatic and the hikes more intense. We didn’t want to drive nearly three hours to get to the most iconic part of Glacier, so we decided on the southeastern corner, a little area with few roads called Two Medicine. A ranger gave us some hiking suggestions, and off we drove, skirting the park’s southern edge on wide curving mountain roads. 

Two hours and a nice sing-along to Yellow Submarine later, we arrived at Two Medicine’s central hub, which consists of a camp store and a ranger station perched on the edge of a lake. As we stepped out of the car, a ferocious wind whipped about us, and we saw that the lake was covered in whitecaps. Still, the cool weather was so welcome after the muggy heat that we didn’t mind too much.

We ended up piecing together a route that generally looped around the main Two Medicine Lake, with a few spurs, both incidental and multi-mile, to visit waterfalls, scenic overlooks, and Upper Medicine Lake. The route was well over ten miles, so it took up all late morning and early afternoon, as we strolled through wetlands, huffed and puffed up steep switchbacks, and trekked through arid alpine forests. 

Near Upper Two Medicine Lake, the trail disappeared into a foot of water, and we had to hop up onto snowfields and find our way from there. Everywhere we looked, the gorgeous scenery felt overwhelming in the best possible way. 

After our hike, we chilled for a while in the camp store, looking out over the lake with its impossibly gorgeous scenery. It was a good day.

~~~

The Grand Gallivant: A Bear and a Sobering Hike

The view of Lake McDonald from Agpar Village

During our time on the west side of Glacier National Park, Zach and I hiked two trails, both of which I highly recommend. The longest hike was Sperry Lake trail, a 8.3-mile line up the mountain to a glacial lake framed by a huge bowl of craggy peaks. Along the way we traveled through fragrant pine forests, over little threads of streams, and through meadows of glacial lily and yellow violets.

The first and shorter hike, however, was definitely more memorable, for good and for bad. 

We decided to begin our time in Glacier with the most popular trail on the west side of the park: Avalanche Lake, a two-mile jaunt that wound up a mountain through dense, spooky forest with a narrow, water-carved rift off to our left that thundered with glacial melt. Even though the trail only gained 500 feet over two miles, we were huffing and puffing (and blaming it on the elevation). 

Still, we reached the lake in good time, glimpsing it through the trees on our left. As we stepped on a boardwalk that led us through the bushes toward the beach, the hikers in front of us cried out in alarm and jumped off to the side. Before we could process what was happening, a black bear lumbered out onto the boardwalk about fifteen feet in front of us, glancing nonchalantly at us before starting to nibble on some plants. With a hand on our bear spray, we backtracked to a safe distance and watched it in awe, warning the other hikers who were headed up the path. The bear was small, no taller than a black lab although stockier, with the cutest round ears. He munched on the plants, absorbed in his salad buffet, for several minutes, then wandered off. 

Taken with a zoom, fyi.

When we were sure he was gone we ventured onto the beach of Avalanche Lake, a clear still body of water, gray in the late afternoon light. A minute later, the bear emerged on the shore about a hundred yards away, and all us tourists, at a safer distance than before, oohed and ahhed over him.

On the way down, we passed a mother hiking up the trail with four little children, with a baby swaddled on her chest. Soon after, we started pacing a woman who was nearing the end of a five-month solo trip around the US, chatting with her about her travels throughout the national parks. 

As we were gabbing, two guys came sprinting up behind us and asked, “Do you have cell signal?” We didn’t, of course, but they told us to call 911 at the soonest possible opportunity. “A baby got hit with bear spray,” they told us, then sprinted on down the trail.

My heart bottomed out when I heard this— that could easily be fatal. I thought of the mom with her little children. I racked my brain for any first aid knowledge of what to do if you inhale aerosol-propelled capsicum powder that’s designed to stop a grizzly bear in its tracks, but came up with nothing. Zach frantically searched for a signal, and tried calling 911 on the chance that another network would pick it up. There was literally nothing we could do to help.

The three of us— Zach and I and the solo traveler— hiked on in somber silence. I prayed and prayed and prayed. The sprinting guys returned up the trail, hiking at a walk this time, having called emergency services. As we left the parking lot, a ranger SUV with sirens screaming passed us. 

My mind could easily imagine the worst, could easily imagine the baby ending up in the next edition of the Death in Glacier books sold at the bookstore, books read with morbid curiosity by people who perhaps don’t think of these deaths as being real people with real families and real impact. But I didn’t know what happened, and I’ll probably never know what happened, so I told myself that maybe it wasn’t that bad, that maybe things would be all right, that maybe emergency services got there in time. 

That night, Zach and I drove back to our campsite and made a fire and laughed and joked and shoved the uncertainty to the back of our minds. All night, whenever I thought about it, I kept soothing myself, maybe it wasn’t too bad, maybe it wasn’t too bad.

When bad things happen, you have to tell yourself a good story about them, or you’ll lose your mind.

~~~