Saturday Summary - Week 35 - Bison, Bears & the Best Kind of Chaos

June 27 – July 4 | Alpine, WY (60s) → Jackson, WY (70s) → Rigby, ID (70s) → Island Park, ID (60s-80s)

Where We Stayed

• Melvin Brewing — Harvest Host, Alpine, WY (Saturday)

• Jackson Hole Still Works — Harvest Host, Jackson, WY (Sunday)

• Jefferson County Lake Campground — Rigby, ID (Monday & Tuesday)

• Henry's Lake State Park — Island Park, ID (Wednesday–Saturday)

Holy Sh*t, It's July

Let me just start there. We are in July. The last season of our Adult Gap Year. I've been trying not to dwell on what comes next and stay fully in the now, but it's getting harder. Summer means more kayaking, more biking, more of everything we love, and we're leaning into that. It also apparently means ticks, and I'm hearing this is a particularly bad season for them. Living in 80 square feet without immediate access to a shower or a clothes dryer to kill them is a new kind of challenge. But we dealt with the mouse. We'll handle the ticks, when we encounter them. One uninvited passenger at a time.

Grand Teton National Park

First up this week was Grand Teton, and from the start we made a conscious choice to do it on our own terms. The parks are under enormous pressure from visitation (Grand Teton sees 3.8 million visitors a year, Yellowstone 4.8 million) and being one more person funneling into the same overcrowded trailhead at peak hours isn't how we want to experience these places, or how we want to treat them.

So on the rainy and cool Saturday we explored outside the park boundaries. We explored Caribou-Targhee National Forest and drove the Teton Scenic Byway (through Victor, Driggs, and Tetonia), crossing back and forth between Idaho and Wyoming along the way. The Teton Outlook in Idaho and the Teton Canyon Overlook in Wyoming both delivered, even through the clouds. We hiked Teton Canyon; it was steep in spots, with almost no other hikers, just a couple of mountain bikers and multiple bear-warning signs. We opted to leave Lucky in the bus; it was a cool day, and she was comfortable, and we weren't sure she was the bear country hiking companion we needed. Thunder brought us back down before we finished the trail, and then hail followed. Not the big scary kind, fortunately. We've been quietly wondering what strong hail would do to our solar panels. We still don't know, and that's the way we want to keep it.

We waited out the storm in a parking area near a bike trailhead, made a nice lunch of hummus, veggies, and crackers, and joined the Kuhl Call (I had missed it the last two weeks and was genuinely glad to be back). After the storm passed, we headed into Driggs for some souvenir shopping and a cup of tea. A good, full day, even in the rain.

Our Harvest Host overnight was at Melvin Brewing, officially our first overnight in Wyoming. (I thought we'd spent a night in Wyoming earlier when we stayed near the Valley of Fire Recreation Area, but it turns out that site was technically in Utah. I still think it should count, but fine.) The camping spots at Melvin Brewing are technically on BLM land right next to the brewery, which is a fun detail. About ten other campers were there that night, and we ended up meeting Gil and Deb from Colorado. Deb is working through a bucket list of every National Park, and this was their official Grand Teton visit as part of that commitment, even though they'd been there before. That made me laugh and think about our own trip rules. Do the states we visited in Skuhlie before we officially started our Adult Gap Year count toward visiting all 48 contiguous states? Technically, according to Deb’s rules they don’t. We've been counting them anyway. I feel good about that.

We ended up having dinner with Gil and Deb, and it was genuinely so much fun. We don't often sit down to eat with people we've just met on the road, and this was a reminder of how fun it can be.

Sunday, we headed into Teton National Park itself. We talked to the rangers first (which we will always try to do) we asked specifically which trails would be least crowded, and were pointed toward Colter Bay on Jackson Lake. We also bought bear spray and got a thorough tutorial on how to actually use it. I'm grateful for every ranger who has taken us seriously and given us real information rather than generic warnings. This one was no exception.

The scenic drive to Colter Bay was slow in the best way; we pulled into multiple overlooks with cloud covered views of the Teton Range without dealing with the chaos of the crowded lots. At Colter Bay, we hiked. The trail we were on was part of a longer route that had been closed due to bear activity. I'm genuinely grateful they close trails for the bears. It gives the animals space and it gives me peace of mind. Most hikers we met were respectful. The clouds broke twice, giving us glimpses of the peaks. It was an almost perfect day.

Two Harvest Hosts instead of a campground this weekend was a deliberate choice. Most campsites in the area were running $100 to $150 a night. For a campsite. If I'm going to spend anywhere near that, I'd rather spend it on beer and dinner and a growler to go, which is exactly what we did at Melvin. Sunday night at Jackson Hole Still Works with locally produced spirits, gin for me, something intriguing for Don. We grabbed takeout from The Bird restaurant nearby and ate in the bus. While waiting for our order, we met Naan and her partner from Pennsylvania, also traveling the US in stretches. Two wonderful connections in two days.

Jefferson County Lake Campground

A short two-hour drive back into Idaho. Cold, wet, and windy,  a completely different kind of miserable than Saturday's rain. We did laundry on the way, arrived to find the campground also had no shower (what is happening this month?!), and collectively decided to do nothing about any of it. Soup for lunch. Pasta for dinner. Tea and a book in the evening. Sometimes the trip is glamorous, and sometimes it is very much not, and both are fine.

The next morning, the sun came out, and the park was a completely different place. Lucky and I walked a loop around the lake. There's a little dog beach where they can be off-leash, and I tried letting her roam free; she mostly just stayed right next to me. She got her feet wet. She was not particularly impressed. Don ran a 5K in the afternoon while I worked on a tiny puzzle, and we had a genuinely nice, quiet day.

June 30th. Eight months on the road. I truly cannot wrap my head around that.

Henry's Lake State Park

We chose this park partly for its location near Yellowstone, and partly because it has Henry's name. Staying somewhere that reminded us of our son felt like more than enough reason. It sits in a beautiful landscape right on a lake with mountains on both sides. We arrived shortly after a snowstorm, and the peaks were completely white. By the time we left, four nights later, about 80% of the snow had melted, a reminder of how fast things move in summer at elevation.

The 4th of July weekend meant lots of families, kids on bikes, kayaks on the water, the whole picture. We had two days of strong winds whipping off the lake strong enough that I got a warning about our pop-up tent. I decided to sit in it through one of the storms rather than take it down, about half an hour of sideways wind and something that was almost hail. It was exciting in that specific way where you're not actually scared, but you're not entirely comfortable either. The tent survived. We took it down overnight anyway because impaling it on a neighboring RV at 2 am seemed avoidable.

Thursday was slower: trip planning, meal prep, neighbor chats. And then: moose. First one, spotted on a walk, casually eating trees. A couple of hours later, two yearlings walked through the campground like they owned the place, completely unbothered by the crowd that gathered. Everyone gave them space. They wandered for a while, long enough that people started to lose interest, and then they drifted off over the hill. Also at Henry's Lake: pelicans. And seagulls. In Idaho. I truly didn't see that coming.

Yellowstone — The 5 am Edition

Don had July 3rd off, so we set the alarm for 5 am and headed in early. The entrance booths were staffed at 5:30! I'd read they were unstaffed until about 9 am, but the holiday weekend apparently changes things. Our destination was Lamar Valley for wildlife viewing, which is a two-hour drive from the West Entrance. It took us three, for the best possible reasons.

Before we even reached the valley, we spotted two herds of elk (top on Don's list), two bears, and about five bison right off the road. In Lamar Valley itself, we counted at least six herds of bison, roughly 500 animals spread across the valley floor. Three herds of antelope. One coyote who got uncomfortably close to a group of people who had left their cars for a better view, including children. We watched nervously as he appeared to circle them. He eventually crossed the road and moved on, but it was a tense few minutes. Two bald eagles. Three bears total for the day, and more bison outside our window than I can count.

The early morning was its own kind of magic. Steam rising off the river and streams in the cold air and the morning mist layered over everything; it was genuinely otherworldly. We stopped at a spring boardwalk to watch boiling water push up from the ground. We pulled over at a geyser that was constantly shooting steam into the air. The sulfur smell is everywhere, and the air is thick with vapor; it is absolutely, completely surreal.

We also encountered a driver who held up 30 cars for 15 minutes while stalking a bear with his vehicle. Bear sightings are exciting. Thirty cars of people who can't see anything while you block the road is not. We headed to the Museum of the National Park Ranger. A very good friend of mine is a retired Park Ranger, and we visited the museum thinking of her. We were out of the park by 2 pm, considered going back for geysers later, went to a brewery instead, met a retired flight attendant who was so fun to talk to that we stayed much longer than planned, and went to bed tired and happy. While in West Yellowstone, we got ice cream and passed by a Bullwinkles, which reminded me of Vanessa and our time at FSU.

Fourth of July Adventures

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I want to be honest about my complicated relationship with the Fourth right now. I love this country. I love what it can be and what it aspires to be. I do not love its current management, and I cringe when I see the flag weaponized in ways that feel more like threat than pride. In our yard at home, we fly the US flag alongside the LGBTQ and Nicaraguan flags. That's what it means to us. At Henry's Lake, the campground had a small parade. The real entertainment, however, was a boat whose owner fell overboard and spent approximately five hours circling unmanned in the lake while the sheriff's boat stayed nearby to keep other vessels at a safe distance. No one was hurt, and it provided more conversation, more theories, and more community bonding than any planned activity could have. One gentleman suggested they should just shoot it. I had to remind myself I am firmly in the West.

We debated staying in all day but ended up driving to Quake Lake, which our neighbor Larry had recommended. Shortly after leaving the park, we got pulled over. A little backstory: the West takes aquatic invasive species very seriously, and there are mandatory watercraft inspection stations all over the place. We'd stopped for inspections in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, but we failed to stop at this particular one. We did see it; we chose not to stop. The kayaks hadn't been in the water since our last inspection, and I figured we didn't need to inspect them. I figured wrong. The officer gave us an official warning, and we circled back for inspection before continuing on.

Quake Lake was worth the detour. In 1959, an earthquake caused a massive landslide that blocked the Madison River, killed 28 people, and came terrifyingly close to causing the Hebgen Dam above it to fail. The Forest Service has built a beautiful interpretive center there with a clear view of the lake and the landslide scars still visible on the hillside. We took a short hike, spent time at the visitor center, and then headed to West Yellowstone for the Kuhl Call. My dad's birthday also falls on the Fourth, but between his company, Gretel's company, and Nora and Vickie being together, the call ended quickly.

Don and I looked at each other and decided to go back into Yellowstone for the late afternoon. No line at the entrance at 4:30. A bald eagle greeted us shortly after arriving. Two elk by the side of the road two minutes later. We were clearly meant to go back.

We stopped at the Fountain Paint Pot boardwalk: the silica-lined Silex Spring with its impossible colors; Leather Pool, which appeared after 1959 earthquake; Red Spouter, which can't seem to decide if it's a hot spring, a fumarole, or a mudpot and behaves like all three; and Clepsydra Geyser, splashing and steaming constantly from multiple vents, a geyser that used to erupt every three minutes before that same 1959 earthquake changed everything. Several of these features are directly connected to Quake Lake, which we had visited just hours earlier.

We skipped Prismatic Spring; the parking lot was chaos, and people were being openly rude to each other in traffic, and we'd already seen so much beauty without the grumpy crowd energy. We also intentionally skipped Old Faithful. I know that's a controversial choice, and we stand by it. There is so much to see and experience at Yellowstone without adding more demand to its most overwhelmed attraction. The giant parking lot, the giant visitor center, the whole Disney-fied flow of it, that's not what we came for.

We ended the day at the Firehole River. After the heat, the wildlife, the geysers, the mudpots, and the steam, it seemed like the perfect close to our time at Yellowstone. We walked Lucky along the bank, waded in, and I eventually walked right out into the middle of the river because the water was perfect and the moment was too good to observe from the edge. We drove back to the campground ready to pack up.

Tragedies in the Parks

This was a hard week of weather across the national parks, and it's worth documenting.

• Yellowstone - While we were having a cold, rainy day in Idaho, Yellowstone received significant snowfall, and we were headed there the following weekend. At elevation, snow can come any month of the year. We packed accordingly.

• Glacier - More seriously: Glacier National Park, our next anchor stop, received near-record rainfall the same weekend, causing flooding, campground evacuations, trail closures, and the closure of the Going-to-the-Sun Road until further notice. We are scheduled to be there in two weeks. We are watching closely.

• Canyonlands - And in Utah, fires. The Babylon Fire forced a temporary closure of the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. Three firefighters lost their lives fighting it. We've seen fire alerts throughout this trip and we take every one of them seriously. 

Next up: Glacier National Park.