The Rocky Mountains. A spectacle I’ve long wanted to witness. When they first came into view I screamed at my windshield and pumped my fists. I poked around the town of Red Lodge looking for trail maps before taking the van up and over the famous Bear Tooth Pass along the border of Wyoming and Montana. The views were incredible, I saw snow for the first time in the trip and I learned what a real mountain looks like! I camped at Bear Tooth Lake, staged for a long hike the following morning.
It was mid-July, but over night the temperatures at Bear Tooth Lake dropped into the 30’s. I put on some layers around 8:00 AM and began my first hike into the Rockies. My plan was to follow a mapped trail for a few miles to an intersection, and from there turn off trail towards the Continental Divide and get up on a huge ridge for a view of Bear Tooth Mountain. For the first time in my life, I left my intended route written on a paper and left it on my dashboard. I had fully charged my iPhone to use as a camera, but despite sleeping with the phone inside my sleeping bag, when I woke up the battery was sapped by the cold and wouldn’t turn on.
The hike was above tree line for nearly the entirety and the view was astounding, I felt so tiny in this wilderness and these mountains. The navigation off of the trail was easy enough after years of adventure racing and orienteering, however every task as amplified ten fold…go around the next lake…easy enough…but the lake had huge cliffs and hills around the edges, snow patches to navigate around, and the boulders…oh my goodness the boulders…all day long was hopping from one rock to the next rock for hours and hours and hours, rocks all day, hoping that each one wouldn’t roll out from under me resulting in injury.
As the day ticked into the afternoon, I realized I didn’t have enough time to get all the way to Bear Tooth Mountain, but I kept going to see how far I could get. I made it to the final ridge, huffing and puffing for thin air at higher altitude, heart beating out of my chest. Finally I was pooped, completely sapped for energy and my head was pounding form a headache due to exertion at altitude over 10,000 feet.
Plan B was to summit Lonesome Mountain on the way back, a giant mass that I’d been circumnavigating all day. As I slowly approached the mountain base, what had looked like a nicely sloped ridge from a distance proved to be a 1,000 foot boulder pile to the summit. I stuffed my iPhone down my pants for the climb to try and warm it up for a summit photo. Step, step…breath, breath…step, step…breath, breath…I was gung-ho about reaching the top, but I was sauced…every hard exertion felt like when you stand up out of a chair too fast, triggering blurred vision, vertigo, and nausea. Around 3:00 PM I had submitted the highest mountain of my career, 11,409 feet! No signs or elevation markers at the top, I simply found a dime resting on the highest rock on the mountain, but in my altitude fogged brain, 10 cents seemed like an Olympic gold medal. I was able to turn on the camera for about 30 seconds and snapped 7 pictures before it succumbed to cold once more.
The scramble back down the boulder ridge proved challenging because you no longer have your hands up in front of you to help pull your way up, plus now you’re not chasing a summit dream either. I was lucky enough to fulfill a second dream on the decent though…walk to the middle of a steep snow field, sit down, lift your hands and feet up, and slide down to the bottom of the snow pack on your butt! The hike back to the car was hours of slogging through the woods, I now had constant nausea and couldn’t eat anything and my head was pounding so hard that I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had exploded. I double and triple checked my navigation to keep my muddy brain from missing the trails on the way back. Finally, after 11 hours of hiking, climbing, and boulder hopping, not seeing a single other person, I saw The Red Roamer…home sweet home! I couldn’t even be excited though, I had bitten off more than I could chew this day and my head was in a different world. I forced myself to eat and drink and change my clothes, then it was right into the sleeping bag at 7:30 PM. I couldn’t even lift my head off the pillow without it pounding. I had pushed myself into a new type of exhaustion today. I woke up in the middle of the night around 2:00 AM and had a conscious thought and knew my mind was recovering.
Another cold night in the 30’s, then continued the drive into Yellowstone National Park. I visited the park many years ago with my sister and grandfather, so I wasn’t planning to spend long here, plus I needed a rest day. The hot springs were bizarre, beautiful and serene, the geysers powerful and impressive. I saw a black bear, two elk, lots of bison, and witnessed Old Faithful erupt twice. America’s first National Park was very beautiful, but also drew big crowds this time of year.
Driving through Southern Idaho was a treat, straight roads as far as the eyes could see, not a single car for miles, low scrub brush on both sides, just the open road to cruise! Randomly, out here in the middle of no where, I came across a massive nuclear development research station, also home to the world’s first nuclear power plant, ERB-1!
Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho consisted of a large lava flow with many spouts, tubes, craters, and all things volcanic. By far, the coolest thing was that they let you explore the lava tube caves by yourself! I crawled through the small openings into the open cave below, and clicked on my tiny headlight to reveal the new world around me. It was a little frightening being by yourself down there in the pitch black, but after a mental pep talk, I continued to explore around. Despite the 90+ degree temperatures on the surface, there was still ice down in the caves!
A ranger had informed me that back country camping was allowed in Craters of the Moon, and recommended that I hike out of a location known as Echo Crater. I loaded up my backpacking gear in the van and set out on the 4 mile hike, not knowing what to think.
By golly, as I got closer to the crater, the ground fell away from the middle of a mountain and I walked into the mouth of an old volcano, the walls maybe 300 feet high in places! I set up my tent at the lowest point in the crater, walked around the rim for beautiful views over the land, and wondered what a neat thing it was to be sleeping in a volcano! At dusk, pigeons living high in the walls would coo, creating an interestingly eerie audio performance as it bounced off the crater walls. I slept with the rain fly off the tent in hopes of some nice star gazing, but instead woke up in the middle of the night in the rain and had to quickly throw the fly on.
Further North in Idaho, I approached The Sawtooth Mountains, a gorgeous range of peaks. I caught wind of a big hike nearby and I was looking to set a new personal height record…Hyndman Peak! (The pictures here will slowly get closer to the peak to give you a sense of the scale.) Without a trail map or road map of the back roads, it took a little poking around until I found the gravel road leading up to the trail head, staged for a summit the following day. Another cold night that dropped below freezing. I started up the trail around 9:30 AM.
The first three miles were flat, following along a stream bank, filled with wildflowers of all shapes and colors. The trail turned uphill and the vegetation turned to beautifully scented sagebrush.
From there I climbed about 5,000 feet of elevation in just a few miles…up and up and up and up…past lakes and snow, surrounded by peaks in every direction!
Eventually, vegetation gave way to piles of rocks, eroded away from the mountains over thousands of years.
After a few hours of hiking I came to the final ridge, a steep rock scramble, steep on the left side and a sheer cliff on the right.
Rock after rock I climbed, hand and foot, forever up. I would slowly follow this ridge for the next hour to the summit, breathing slow and moving steady.
At long last, I took my final steps to the summit, 12,009 feet above sea level, Hyndman Peak! The temperatures were cold, but the air was calm, surprisingly little wind, the clouds formed a grey ceiling above me, I felt like I could have reached up and touched them. The summit had a metal, military ammunition box on the ground, filled with a summit banner, some log books, and a few knick-knacks that people carried to the top, the most interesting of which, was a condom!
Breath taking views in every direction, sights I never imagined could exist or that I would ever lay eyes upon them. After a half hour at the summit, I began my slow descent through the scree pile along the ridge.
The altitude headache from previous days came back to a small degree, but I could tell that my body was adapting to the elevation even after just a few days. After seven hours, I sat down in my van, devoured some food, and marveled at breaking the 12,000 foot ceiling for the first time!
Hells Canyon. This incredible area borders the Snake River on both sides, marking the boundary between Oregon and Idaho. A road winds itself through the canyon for nearly 50 miles of rolling beauty.
The edges of the road were covered in wile blackberries, a tasty treat!
I found a nice place to park and camp for the night along the river and spent the day relaxing and resting after the big hike up Hyndman. I did laundry in my bucket, soaped up and took a bath in the river, then read a book in the hammock while drying the clothes on a line. Truly a life in paradise!
With almost comedic timing, within seconds of sitting in the hammock…BOOM…thunder cracked above my head and a drizzle would begin. I took down the clothes line and hammock and waited out the storm reading in the van, only to set it up again about an hour later.
Leaving Hells Canyon the next day, my GPS took me up the Kleinschmidt Grade road. A windy dirt road along the canyon wall for seven miles, with a sheer drop off and no guard rails the entire way. It was freaky and fun, but I’m very fortunate that no cars were coming in the opposite direction down this skinny death-trap!
Glacier National Park would be the next destination for several days. I got the travel the going-to-the-sun road in both directions…very stunning, but very crowded this time of year. I set off early one morning on a 19 miles loop from the Two Medicine camping area to the continental divide and back via the Pitamaken Pass and Dawson’s Pass.
Unfortunately, my camera battery was not cooperating again from the cold temperatures, but just google the area and be ready to pick your jaw up off the floor. Up on the ridge lines, you look down into these massive valleys carved out by glaciers, and walk the 20 foot strip of flat land still standing between the cliff walls. Then I heard something “baaaaaa” above me…it took a few seconds to locate the ten mountain goats above me on the cliff face. At the highest out crop, I took my last step and discovered a marmot all the way out on the tip, facing into the sun, whiskers blowing in the breeze, soaking up the warm sun on a cool day. I put on my rain jacket to stifle the breeze and when I turned around I was shocked to discover a mountain goat about 20 feet behind me. I stood still and observed it as it walked right by me, out to the tip of the outcrop where the marmot was, as if I didn’t even exist! The trail continued around a mountain peak for three miles at elevation along a scree slope, one mis-step on the 18-inch wide trail and you would have slid down the loose rock all the way to the bottom of the valley and likely to severe injury if not worse. After completing the hiking loop, I washed off in Two Medicine Lake back near the car, it was cold, cold, cold, from glacial snow melt. Ten seconds under the water to scrub off and I was out of there, my skin pink with cold!
The next two days in Glacier National Park were rainy and foggy, but still offered some exciting camping and lower altitude hiking. A hike nearby Bowman Lake started with a low fog that burned off just as I was arriving to an active tower used for fire spotting, complete with all the appliances!
As I was leaving Glacier, I stopped at a small camp store to buy some food supplies. As I walked towards the store I hear a lot of coughing, when I got closer I realized that everyone within 50 yards was hacking up a lung…I went into the store and before long, everyone in the store was also coughing! Then I felt it…an immediate spark in the throat and I began coughing myself…I realized that someone had discharged their bear spray (pepper spray used as a bear deterant) out front of the store!
The road through Northern Cascades National Park offered enormous views of snowy peaks, lush pine forests and glacial lakes turquoise like jade. I had planned a long 20 miles hike up and over Devil’s Dome, but after taking an hour to reach the first turn, what I had estimated to take 20 minutes. It turns out, that I was looking at the wrong scale on the map, and my intended loop was really 50 miles in length!
Bear scat
Oh well, I enjoyed the hike and simply turned around after a few hours. Back at the trail head, I saw a hiker trying to hitch a ride, his name was Mike. He was heading in the opposite direction, but I had a full tank of gas and all the time in the world, so I gave him a lift back to his vehicle about 40 miles away. Mike had quite an impressive resume of hiking, turns out he’s even a triple-crown thru-hiker, having completed the AT, PCT, and CDT! On the way back into the park I pulled off for a 7 mile hike called the Maple Loop. Absolutely gorgeous views, ridge walking, blue lakes, tons of snow, peaks in every direction, waterfalls flowing down every cranny, incredible!
On the final day in Cascades National Park, the van took me down a long gravel road, ending at the base of Cascade Pass. Right out of the parking lot the trail started up, some 40 switchbacks up and up the mountain side. Three mountain goats greeted me at the pass, as well as many glaciers in the distance.
A side trail climbed several more miles up to the West arm of the Sahale Glacier. The views were insane, maybe even better than the previous days…so many peaks and so much snow…IN JULY!
At the top, there was a young couple camping out…I didn’t even know that was an option! I enjoyed the view for a long time before getting cold and starting down. As I was turning to leave, five mountain goats came up to the glacier. The guy camping yelled something peculiar at me, “If you have to piss, do it, they will thank you for it!” It was comical, but OK, I urinated all over a rock, and I’ll be darned if those goats weren’t licking that rock dry within seconds. It turns out, it is difficult for them to get much salt and other electrolytes living as such high elevations, so they love when campers dish out some salty pee! I learned this from a 64 year old, retired forestry worker named Jeff on the hike down, he was a great guy and we shared conversation for the entire three hour descent.
I am flying back to Maryland for a week of vacation with my family at Ocean City, so I slept one night near Seattle, parked on a street side. It was a little noisier than I’m used to, but I had my privacy screens up on all the windows, so I could sleep in peace. As I was fading into dreams, I heard some fumbling on the outside of the van…great, someone is trying to break into the van, or vandalize it, or some other tom-foolery in the middle of the night…I slowly pulled down the sheet separating the rear compartment from the front seats…there was thumping on the roof of the van…suddenly, with a loud BUMP, two cats landed on the hood of my car and chased each others tails before bouncing off into a yard! Sweet dreams everyone, look forward to the next blog entry when my siblings are flying out to join the road trip for two weeks on the West Coast!!!
Joely the Goalie 
So very wonderful to know these beautiful areas still exist….we could all use a little mountain time, even if we just read along and imagine!! The one picture with the fog looks like a painting, I think I want to frame that!!!
Hi Joel! Loved reading this post–keep up the good work!
Fantastic photography … postcard worthy!!