Heading home… Jackson WY to San Mateo CA, via Ely Nevada… 2 days in one post…

From Jackson, the trip takes a turn, and changes from a vacation to a transit home… still a vacation, but the transit home takes precedence… The distance driven grows… the sense of urgency to make time looms… few pictures are taken.

Saturday morning, early, we checked out of the Angler lodge in Jackson, drove a block away or so and had breakfast at the Bunnery, a local breakfast place… some years ago Rachel Ray visited… The New York times has mentioned it… We have been here before…  We had breakfast…

Well fortified, we headed south, through Afton with its “world’s largest antler arch”, through Montpelier Idaho where the Hole in the Wall gang robbed the bank (on August 13, 1896) … then through Logan Canyon heading to I-15…

I-15 South took us through Ogden, Salt Lake City and Provo… Off to the east are a couple of wild fires… new fires.  We can see spot fires down wind… We can see the sudden bright neon orange of a borade air drop.  The weather is weird… broken clouds, likely leading to lighting but little rain… the dreaded dry lightning.  We leave the interstate at Nephi UT… and on to the little roads… following local roads in search of US Hwy 6… and from there east to Ely, NV… this is not highly populated country… farms and ranches giving way to open range… at one point it was 80 miles between gas stations (with one unlucky truck sitting by the side of the road with two blown tires, almost exactly between… 

Just across the Nevada border was Great Basin National Park… a wonderful little known isolated park… It is very vertical… ranging from 5,000’ to a bit over 13,000’ with a range of eco systems and unexpected vistas…   We didn’t spend as much time in Great Basin as the site deserves… This is one of the dangers of road trips… the need to move on leads to rushed visits…

Any road trip is about unplanned meetings… at the visitor center at Great Basin we encountered the “4K for Cancer” cross country bicycle riders… The vans were in the parking lot… the bikes piled outside (neatly) and the riders collapsed in the visitor center… They are taking 70 days to ride cross country… 

A little over 50 miles beyond we reached Ely Nevada. Home of the Nevada Northern Railroad and the Hotel Nevada…  We drove by the railroad depot where a train was waiting… then on to the Hotel Nevada, our home for the night… It’s a “classic” hotel… downtown, 4 or 5 stories… said to be the first hotel in Nevada with a bath in every room… (a sign suggestst the plumbing is old but we had no issues) It is old school… real Nevada…  We had dinner downstairs… then collapsed for the night… We could see the Nevada Northern Railroad excursion train from our window as it headed up to Ruth…

The next morning, our last on the road… Up… shower… breakfast downstairs… a really nice old school eggs and meat and carbo breakfast… I had corned beef, Tina French toast… Nearby a fire crew is eating… two others are apparently here to support a fire air crew…  We don’t see it but there is a fire nearby, to the south east… 

We stop for gas and ice and headed south-east on Nevada Hwy 6… the real loneliest road… 186 miles to the next services… sadly the sign saying “Next Services 186 Miles” seems to be missing, likely someone’s souvenir…  Once on the road We passed a truck… one truck… we saw 18 oncoming cars… most in the stretch between Warm Springs and Tonopah, in 186 miles… There were deer in one field… two herds of wild horses…

We explored Tonopah, found the new brewery… It’s not quite open yet but should open soon.  We got half a tank of gas (i.e. fuel, in the desert you never leave a place with fuel with less than a full tank…) then headed out of town… eventually heading south on Hwy 6 again… past the closed truck stop and whore house at the Jct of 6 and 95, over Montgomery Pass at Boundary Peak (with its closed motel and whore house… apparently the rural sex industry in Nevada is seeing hard times). Then down into the Owens Valley… checking in at the California Agricultural inspection station… (we only had dried apricots purchased in CA in their original package… she (aka the agent) suggested I was waiting to tell her that… I might have been, I once surrendered a store bought apple with its sticker here) Now down the valley to Benton…then right on 120 to Benton Springs and beyond… there were signs for “Bicycles on road”… and eventually bicycles… we passed Mono Mills… past the ash cones and tufa towers… to Hwy 395… early in the trip the trip was about Hwy 395… now for a few minutes we rejoin the road on our jog north, a couple of miles to the 120 turnoff toward Tioga pass… we pause at the 395 Mobil… the Jeep carries a Lee Vining Mobil sticker from a previous visit…  Up towards the pass… traffic is thick… slow… and comes to a stop a mile and a half from the entrance… An hour wait in line… this sucks…

There is a fire in Yosemite… (The official “Yosemite July Lightning Fire Update #1” from July 24 reported that there had been over 3,000 lightning strikes with more than 21 fire starts in the last 10 days, its all about the dry lighting.)  As a result the road between 120 and the Valley is closed… rangers are challenging (this is not a nice word but the only way I could describe the interaction with the young lady in the magic hat at the east entrance) guests entering the park… “where are your going” (no mention of fire or road closures) we are not going to the valley… they let us pass but never mention the fire… I am not impressed with the customer service offered by the NPS…  If we had been headed to the valley, a sign at the bottom of the hill would have let us choose options other than driving up the hill, setting in line at the top of the hill for an hour, then turning around and driving back down the hill.

It is smoky in the park… I am used to fires, and this is not a surprise… There has been bad smoke on 6 days of the trip…  once again the west is burning.  Smoke does not seem to be affecting visitation to the park, but the views must suck in the valley.

The road is initially crowded but soon thins out and we pass over the Tioga Pass road at near speed limit… (45 and 35 mph… not fast but reasonable…)  I think about this road in comparison to the “Going to the Sky road in Glacier, and the Bear Tooth Hwy…  There may be a blog post about that later… 

At the park exit we are in a 15 minute line while they check people out…  This is our 6^th park and the only one that is checking people out (as well as in.) The park staff don’t seem to understand the effect on their policies on visitors, and I might suggest don’t care…

Out of the park… down Old Priest Grade and into Oakdale… We pass a couple of fire crews headed up the hill… in Groveland they have a Red Cross shelter set up…  Once off the mountain our speed increases… we head across the valley to the Bay Area… and home…  The dogs are happy to have us home…

The trip has taken 13 days, covering 8 states and one Canadian Provence… 6 National Parks (plus Waterton in Canada) a National Wild Life preserve… and 3,986 miles…  There are 5 new stickers on the Jeep… I won’t guess at the number of wild fires.

Red Lodge to Jackson…

We were up moderately early… mostly packed then headed downstairs for a wonderful breakfast…  Then a quick blog post (blog posts are never quick, but at some point after writing and rewriting the bloody thing I post it… at least the posting is usually quick)

We headed up hill, south-bound, towards the Bear Tooth Highway… it was switch backs up and up, and up… above tree line… into a landscape of small snow fields and marshy meadows filled with wild flowers and views that went on forever.  The Bear Tooth Highway is maybe the best road ever…

We paused on the back side at the Top of the World store (and a sticker for the jeep)… again at Cooks, at the new local museum… then down into Yellowstone and Lamar Valley…   

Yellowstone was crowded… lots of folks were fishing… eventually we saw a bison… then a few bison… then Tina spotted a small herd of prong horn antelope… from there it was herds of Bison… 300 plus at a time… above near the tree line were more antelope, and far away, walking across Tina spotted a bear… (Tina is good at spotting wild life… except for the unfortunate armadillo incident… but we rarely talk about that.)

Now into the park proper… (this was my 4^th trip here in 10 years… it was Tinas 2^nd in 5 years… we were not here to visit Yellowstone… but only to drive through)  There was a group parked by the side of the road with a ranger… there had been a bear feeding in sight of the road, but said bear had wandered off… A rumor suggested that there had been a bear sighted near Tower with cubs…  We pressed on to Tower… there was a closed area, but no one gawking… We parked and walked out to see Tower Falls… the parking lot was crowded… crowded is the new normal in our national parks… it used to be Yosemite… but the disease is spreading.  The ghost trees are still around… from the 1988 fire storms… trees don’t rot as fast here, so the forest is marked with grey spires… not as many as 10 years ago, but still a common sight.

Then continuing south, we picnicked, then stopped at Canyon to look around… I spent some money in the book store and renewed our Yellowstone Association membership… then south… now in the Hyden Valley… The Yellowstone river was running high… the bison were scattered… we encountered a couple of bison jams… We paused at the dragon’s mouth geyser with two busloads of unusually rude Asian tourists (I have never been elbowed by someone who wanted to take a picture before, but I was today.. I watched her move through the crowd like a linebacker on steroids.)  Beyond we stopped at the Yellowstone Hotel… the old Northern Pacific Railroad hotel on the lake… Its painted yellow and so is known as the Yellow Hotel… its huge but not as grand as the lodges in Glacier… or the Old Faithful lodge across the ridge…  again we head south… along the lake… We see some people parked looking at something… it was a bull elk… a mile later Tina spots another off to the side… we stop to take pictures and cause a elk jam… again a bit later, another elk, another jam… then south, out of the park… we look for more animals with a notable lack of success.

Into Grand Teton National Park, we stop at the first visitor center where I buy a book on the park’s history (it was the first really nasty political fight over the creation of a national park) and a sticker for the jeep.  A couple of miles later I spotted a human climbing onto the road where humans were not commonly found… I slowed… I spotted a bronze Mazda in the trees where cars are not commonly found… we stopped… it was a one car accident, the driver the only occupant… he was unhurt.  Another car stopped, she a nurse… She checked the driver… more cars stopped, some local fire and ski patrol… they checked the driver… emergency services were called… eventually we had a local volunteer fire/EMT, a park ambulance, two police/rangers, and a fire truck…  We were asked to stay and make statements… a bit over an hour we left… now running late.  We skipped the spot in on the Snake River below the dam where I always see moose… We decided that we were done looking for wildlife… then we saw a few elk and a bison along the ridge line to the east… at the river we encountered an animal jam… a bull moose…  We may have been done with the animals but they were not done with us.

Into town (Jackson) where we check in to our hotel, the Angler Lodge, then go down the street to the Snake River Brewing Company for dinner… then back to the lodge, a quick walk around together, then back… then I go out and walk some more while Tina checks email and catches up on work…  It’s now near 10:00, Tina sleeping me blogging…

Heading South

We awoke for the last morning in Glacier on Thursday.  Today is a transit day… heading from Glacier to Red Lodge, just north of Yellowstone.  It’s close to 450 miles of driving.

We took Hwy 2 across the bottom of Glacier, continuing on across the plains to via Cut Bank and Shelby, then south on I-15 to Great Falls… the change in landscape was wonderful, as the mountains fell away.  The possible highlight was the giant penguin in Cut Bank… although said to talk, he was silent when we were there…   The landscape changes from cattle and hay, to wheat, then back to hay and cattle… towns were marked by grain elevators… We got off the freeway a couple of times… one sad little town seem to consist of two grain elevators, one for wheat, the other for malting barley, a feed elevator, two bars, and a gas pump guarded by an old yellow dog.

In Great Falls we visited the Lewis & Clark Museum, a wonderful museum run by the Forest Service… then stopped for lunch at a brew pub, Bowser Brewing… (one beer only, a nice IPA) then back on the road, but now on lesser roads, I-15 going elsewhere.

At Harlowton there was a Milwaukee Electric locomotive on display by the highway… the town was interesting… lots of substantial stone and concrete buildings along the main street… one burned out, most less used…. We explored a bit and found the old wooden railroad roundhouse and yard (lacking track) down the hill.

Back on the road, in the middle of a construction site area Tina spotted a herd of prong horn antelope off to the side.  We paused but soon returned to the journey.

We spent a few miles on I-90, east bound, before getting off at Columbus, picking up gas and heading into Red Lodge… through deer filled countryside… 

Our hotel for the night, the Pollard is an old rehabilitated place on the main street… it is wonderful, with live music in the bar.  The internet works in ways it never does in a National Park hotel…  The main street if full of motorcycles… the tribe is gathering for Sturgis…

Going to the Sun… aka Wednesday

We started in Many Glacier… getting up later than the sun… having breakfast in the hotel, then heading back out of the park… Glacier is different than most national parks… a mountain range with only one road across (within the park) it is instead a series of units… each a drive in from outside the park boundry… we had started in East Glacier (the hotel outside the park boundry) then drove in to Two Medicine… our again then in at St Mary… then back out to East Glacier… Back in the next day at Waterton (really a separate park in Canada) out again to go back in at Many Glacier, out again to go back in at St Mary for the Going to the Sun road…  (we would leave again from West Glacier to re-enter at Pole Bridge, then out again and back in again at West Glacier…)

Back to Wednesday… We turned west at Babb, pausing for gas and ice. Back in at St Mary, then along St Mary lake… beyond we hit this years road construction… and a flag man and one way traffic…  We were told we would have to wait 13 minutes… not 10 minutes, not “a few minutes”, not “no more than 20 minutes”, but specifically 13 minutes… and 13 minutes later we started through the construction site lead by a pilot car…    

The road construction meant that we were now traveling in a bunch… a crowd… and crowded became the theme for Going to the Sun… at Logan Pass the parking lot was full and overflowing… and after trying to find a place to park for some time we abandoned hope and moved on… Going to the Sun road is a high alpine pass… a spectacular road, but not unlike many others… we were a bit disappointed.  The crowds felt like Yosemite Valley on a summer weekend…  This is not the park’s fault… it is our collective fault, for we are loving our parks to death…  Without parking hikes were out of the question… 

We dropped down the west side (I suspect the road is more spectacular driving west to east, but we were driving east to west)  To Lake McDonald, then to the Lake McDonald lodge where we checked in… (we are in cabin 7… room 3… cabin 7 is a real log cabin… not just logs nailed to a wood frame… we face away from the lake, but the lake is right around the other side… the room is tiny but clean and nice, the lodge a few hundred feet away via a lake side trail)  then headed out, first to picnic nearby, then to the visitor center (the visitor centers at Glacier are not the big interpretive centers found in other parks… they are more commonly an information desk a few interpretive panels, and the mandatory book/tee-shirt/post card store), then out of the park and north to Pole Bridge where we reentered… and from there up to Bowman Lake…  This side of the park is less spectacular (i.e. few big granite walls).  The lake is more an area for outdoor recreation than a place to worship nature…  Like much of the park this side shows the effects of a burn… ghost trees surrounded by new trees… this country doesn’t recover fast… the ghost trees last for 40-50 years…  it was a 6 mile dirt road in… one lane…   We walked around a bit… then returned to the jeep to find a moose in the parking lot nearby… There were a couple of deer in the other direction…  We stopped at the Pole Bridge store and bakery on the way back… (Tina had a huckleberry bear claw) Then back into the park… we drove through West Glacier Village and Apgar to see what they looked like (like Tee shirt shops, outdoor outfitters, café’s and motels)  

We had dinner in the Lounge/Bar then tried our luck with the wifi in the lobby…  It worked better than Many Glacier, but not well… I ended up posting one post to the blog 6 times… (since removed)

Now Friday morning… it rained last night, and is grey and cloudy this morning… I got up early for coffee and a bit of (very) slow WiFi… Tina is stirring and starting to pack… we want to be out by 8:00…