National Parks Adventure 2024 (August 16-26)
- Stephanie
- Aug 26, 2024
- 20 min read
You might have read my Insights Blog post on May 2, 2024, extolling the necessity of purchasing Travel Insurance, especially for high value trips. This adventure demonstrates the reason. We had splurged on an exciting Heli-hiking adventure in the Canadian Rockies, joining friends John and Amy, from last year’s Windstar Mediterranean cruise. As with our typical planning of any trip, we’re looking to maximize the experience and maybe knock a few more items off the bucket list.
In this case, Chris had never been through the Grand Tetons or Yellowstone National Park, both of which I’d visited; neither of us had been to Coeur d’Alene, ID. As noted in Squeezing in Banff Planning, our Canadian Rockies adventure included an active and educational drive from Denver to Banff, with stops for hiking and learning more about Wyoming’s Grand Tetons and exploring Yellowstone National Park. We routed, mapped and put down hotel deposits after paying for the primary Canadian adventure. We even planned to arrive in Banff a few days early to enjoy a rafting trip and a promising meal at a highly rated restaurant with John and Amy.
AN UNTIMELY INJURY
In mid-July, we visited my mom and her wild, mini-Aussie, Greta. Mom was having hand surgery and needed help. Greta, who we rescued in Denver and drove to Ohio in January 2023, is high-energy and needs regular exercise, which is not always possible with my 83-year-old mom. When we visit, we do our best to wear her out with multiple, long, brisk walks. Sometimes we get twisted in her leash as she spots squirrels and other “friends.” This trip was no exception and, on a few occasions, Chris got tangled in her leash. Returning home, United Airlines made sure to disrupt our travel out of Akron-Canton Airport, getting us to Chicago O’Hare about the time our flight to Denver was departing. Chris deplaned and took off sprinting to catch the last flight out that night, which we missed.
Sometime between flying into OH and arriving back in Denver his knee began to ache, a tiny bit. Of course, it didn’t stop him from golfing 18-holes the next week or participating in our weekly pickleball lessons the following Sunday. And though he did schedule an orthopedist appointment for Monday, where he learned he’d probably torn his meniscus, we immediately left for Chicago to spend four days walking the city while visiting our middle daughter. Back in Denver, we spent a day shoveling and spreading 12-cubic yards of mulch at our youngest daughter’s condo complex, in which we have an ownership stake.
By the time he had an MRI on August 13, we knew something was terribly wrong. He was limping and the pain was impacting his ability to sleep. Unfortunately, the next day’s results confirmed he had a significant meniscus tear, along with minor damage to his ACL and MCL. There would be no hiking the Canadian Rockies. Golf was over for the season and next spring’s skiing remains an open question.
CHANGE OF PLANS
All of this to say, boy, were we grateful we invested in travel insurance! Evaluating our overall trip and what we could salvage, we decided to keep the tour of the national parks and explore parts of the west we’d never seen, knowing it would be less hiking and more driving. The original adventure was comprised of three components between Aug 16-31: driving through national parks to Canada, hiking in the Rockies via a tour operator, and hosting a Kindred house-swapping guest. We decided to do the driving through the national parks, while awaiting a refund on the cancelled hiking trip. However, we found ourselves homeless between August 26-31. We did not feel it necessary or fair to disrupt our home swapping guests’ two-week stay in Denver, just because our plans were interrupted.
We easily cancelled our hotels in Banff, rafting and dinner plans ahead of our hiking adventure. We notified CMH, the hiking outfitter, of our need to cancel. Then gathered and submitted the required documentation, medical records, doctor’s notes, confirmation of planned travel and receipts showing non-refundable payments to CMH for the Heli-hiking tour, lodging and elevated meal experience in Canada.
We scheduled Chris’s arthroscopic knee surgery for August 27. Booked all future post-op visits and physical therapy appointments through our departure in late September to Hawaii, and given driving hasn’t been a problem, we headed out to explore the national parks, tour Idaho, looping back through Utah to Denver.
Upon our return, we’d made plans to stay with our nephew, niece and great-niece, who doubles as our granddaughter, following surgery and through Labor Day weekend, when we could reclaim our house!
AN ABBREVIATED ADVENTURE
I’d love some feedback here. I started writing this blog as a travel diary, “Day one we did these three things and visited these sites. Here are a bunch of pictures. Day two ditto, etc.” I find doing so unimaginative. What I want to share is what we discovered or learned about ourselves while traveling to different places. What unique experiences or unusual conversations did we have. My intent and honestly, the part I enjoy most about blogging, is researching where we go, visit, or what we see, and sharing the history, significance, and highlights of our journey. Does this resonate with you? Please tell me!
BUC-EE’S
We hit the road about 9am on Friday, August 16. It was a perfect day for a drive; sunny, clear and warm. We drove north on I-25 for less than an hour before our first stop to experience CO’s newest phenom, Buc-ee’s, a Texas road-trip mainstay known for its “world famous” restrooms. Located south of Ft. Collins in Johnstown, Colorado’s first store offers every touristy gift item imaginable, and beyond its vast inventory of gimmicky gifts, there are aisles of processed, and packaged food options and beverages. Imagine Super Target merging with Flying J’s Truck Stop with an equally as large parking lot.
We bought a bag of yogurt-covered pretzels and a Buc-ee’s sticker
(SIDE NOTE: When we lived in North Denver and had a hot tub in our backyard, Chris hung a 3-foot piece of corrugated sheet metal along our fence, where we posted stickers of places we’d visited – sort of a memory board in our oasis of a backyard. Upon moving to Cherry Creek, we installed our sheet metal in our garage, where we pass it daily and smile about our incredible life as recorded in stickers!)
We crossed into Wyoming, and turned west, where the landscape was not wholly different from Colorado for the next few hours. Weaving our way north and west the grasslands and farms gave way to weathered rock formations, brown, green, red and striated by veins of minerals present in the soil. For a brief expanse, the ground flattened and a solitary flat-topped butte rose from the sage blowing through the Wind River Valley.
CROWHEART BUTTE - WHAT LEGENDS ARE MADE OF
Legend has it (paraphrased from Wikipedia and WyoFile) Crow tribes (pushed West through treaties), began hunting on land used by Shoshone peoples for generations. In 1866, Chief Washakie, leader of the Shoshone sent an emissary to settle the land dispute peacefully, but the Crow killed him, forcing the two tribes to battle. Hand-to-hand combat erupted near the base of the butte, with men dying on both sides.
Recognizing he was losing too many warriors, Chief Washakie offered himself as the tribe’s leader, to fight a battle to the death, chief versus chief. The people whose chief died would respect the outcome and leave. Chief Big Robber of the Crow agreed and Chief Washakie promised, “When I win, I’m going to cut out your heart and eat it.”
At the designated time, the two men met, fought and Washakie killed his opponent, carrying Big Robber’s heart back to camp on his lance (he did not eat it). The Crow vacated the territory, and the butte forever became known as Crowheart. Leaving Crowheart Butte in our rear-view mirror, we continued mostly west, toward the silhouette of a mountain range, the Grand Tetons.
GRAND TETONS: MOUNTAINS AND LAKES PARADISE
Since retiring last August, we’ve spent time in the Colorado Rockies, French Alps, Hawaiian volcanoes, Peruvian Andes and now Grand Tetons. Each mountain range has its own personality, based on origin, age, material make-up, tectonic plate activity and weather patterns. They are all beautiful and majestic, awe-inspiring in so many ways, offering differing trees, plants, flowers, wildlife, navigability and inhabitants. Always surprising to me is the sight of snow at the highest elevations, while the valley temperatures soar into the 90s or 100s.
I’ve been reading the book, Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond, a UCLA professor who writes about how different human societies evolved across different continents during the last 13,000-years of our homo sapiens. I appreciate the context of our developing civilization. For example, communities of people have called Jackson Hole, the valley surrounding the Teton Range, home for more than 11,000 years. The last glaciers retreated from the valley 14,000 years ago, allowing plants and animals to colonize, and Paleo-Indians with obsidian tools to hunt seasonally for large animals.
Fast forward to the early 1800’s when fur trappers and explorers such as John Colter, David Jackson, and Lewis & Clark arrived on the scene. The first ascent of Grand Teton was made by a man from the Hayden expedition in 1872, and the first woman in 1923. Paul Petzoldt ascended the mountain four times and then opened the first guide service in 1924. A historic landslide, and the first climbing fatality were a fast follow in 1925.
When financier and philanthropist John D. Roosevelt, Jr. toured the area in 1926, he fell in love with the mountain scenery and began buying land. Over the next two decades he amassed 35,000 acres through the Snake River Land Company, with plans to donate it to Grand Teton National Park, which was officially established by Congress in 1929.
In 1943, John D. Roosevelt, Jr., pressured distant cousin and US President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, through Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, to use the Antiquities Act to establish the 221,000 acres Jackson Hole National Monument. FDR set aside national forest adjacent to the existing park, plus the land acquired by JDR, Jr. through the Snake River Land Company to create the national monument. After WWII, the park and monument were combined in 1950, and boasted more than a million visitors annually by 1954.
Today, Grand Teton National Park, occupies approximately 310,00 acres in northwest Wyoming, barely 10 miles south of Yellowstone National Park. The park includes the nearly 14,000-foot Teton mountain range, the valley known as Jackson Hole, numerous lakes and streams and an almost pristine ecosystem (with the same species of flora and fauna existing from prehistoric times). In fact, some of the oldest rocks found within any US national park, dating back 2.7 billion years, exist within Grand Teton.
During our two days in the park, we stayed in a cute, but rustic national park cabin in Colter Bay on Lake Jackson. Chris limped around on his bad leg, enjoying the easy trails around the bay and capturing breathtakingly beautiful sunsets over the marina. We both enjoyed an afternoon canoe trip (during which we discussed the differences in muscles used when canoeing – which we haven’t done in years vs kayaking, which we do frequently) around a few of the smaller islands outside Colter Bay, where the water was clear, but cool.
JENNY LAKE
Another day, we visited Jenny Lake within Grand Teton National Park, which I explored in 2002 with my daughter and family friends. It is a focal point of the Grand Teton area, formed 12,000 years ago by retreating glaciers. Jackson and Jenny Lake are the only two lakes in the park, and as of 2005’s water study, both remain pristine.
After we parked at the visitor center, I set out along the main loop, counter-clockwise, covered in sunscreen and equipped with bug and bear spray. Prominent signs cautioned of bear awareness and hiking in groups. Therefore, I was delighted to have Gary and Cindy from Dallas join me along the trail for the first mile or so. We chatted about blended families and launching the young adults of today! By the time they turned off, more people were on the trail making noise and scaring away the bears.
While Chris couldn’t hike, he did enjoy the ferry ride across the lake to wave at me when I climbed to Inspiration Point. In total, I hiked 10 miles in and around the lake, joining Chris for the ferry ride back to the visitor center, where I was sure to obtain my “National Park’s Passport” stamp, before heading off to lunch.
WILDLIFE HAZARDS
Departing Grand Teton National Park, we stopped into Leek’s Marina and Pizzeria for lunch. The place was packed, the line was short but the wait for food was long. We initially sat down inside as all the outside tables were full. When an outdoor table emptied, we grabbed it, thinking we’d won the lottery looking out over the lake, and even seeing the back of a bear cub scurrying down the beach in front of us. Until the bees discovered my beverage and we were swarmed.
(SIDE NOTE: I am highly allergic to bee stings and should carry an Epi pen, though I forgot it this trip.)
We retreated inside and the young couple next to us grabbed our vacated outdoor table, even though we warned them. Not long thereafter, they also returned inside. Chris walked by and asked if they were also swarmed by bees. Not only were they swarmed, but the young woman was actually stung and her partner was fetching ice and asking about where to purchase Benadryl!
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK
Yellowstone National Park is largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming, but also extends into Montana, and Idaho. It was established by President Ulysses Grant in 1872, as the first national park in the US and perhaps the world. The entire park sits within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, 22 million acres of the last remaining large, nearly intact ecosystem across the northern latitudes of earth. As a result, Yellowstone was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978.
The center of what is now the park is a collapsed Supervolcano, which last erupted 631,000 years ago, when it formed a 30 by 45-mile caldera or basin, the heat of which powers the park’s hydrothermal features. Yellowstone Lake, the largest high-elevation lake (above 7,000 feet) in the US, sits atop the dormant Yellowstone Caldera.
While there are many opportunities to hike in Yellowstone National Park, due to Chris’s torn meniscus, MCL and ACL, hiking was off the table. Instead, we visited various geothermal phenomenon and took lots of pictures. We walked a few trails and explored different areas of this massive park.
We found Yellowstone much busier than the Grand Tetons. Many more foreigners and families seemed to be visiting compared to the Grand Tetons, which I found fascinating since the Tetons offered so much in the way of water sports with swimming, kayaking, canoeing, hiking and climbing into endless canyons.
HYDROTHERMAL FEATURES
According to the National Park Service, there are five types of hydrothermal features in the park, grouped into two categories. There are those with water (e.g., hot springs and geysers) and those without water (e.g., mud pots and fumaroles).
Hot Springs are formed when surface water seeps into the bedrock and the underlying magma of the Yellowstone Supervolcano heats it without constrictions, allowing the superheated water to rise, spew and cool frequently. Temperatures depend on surrounding pressure, gases and salt present in the water. Yellowstone’s hot springs range between 198 - 275° Fahrenheit.
Hot springs are the most common feature in the park, often appearing as different colors due to the microorganisms (aka thermophiles) that inhabit them. The chemical content of the water further delineates: alkaline-chloride present in Old Faithful, acid-sulfate present in mud volcanoes, and calcium carbonate responsible for travertine terraces.
We visited West Thumb Geyser Basin, an irregularly large bay along Yellowstone Lake, a caldera within a caldera, and the largest basin on the lake. It is home to Abyss Pool, named in 1935 by Chief Park Naturalist C.M Bauer for its deep, ultramarine hue, and Fishing Cone, where it is said you can catch a trout from the lake, and while still on the line, cook it in the hot spring.
Geysers are hot springs with constrictions present in their underground plumbing, preventing hot water and steam from easily circulating, and periodically causing them to erupt and release pressure. Some eruptions can be predicted.
While Old Faithful is the most park’s most famous, there are seven additional geyser basins in Yellowstone.
Our first stop in the park was to the Upper Geyser Basin, site of Old Faithful. When I visited 20+ years ago, it was one geyser, surrounded by a boardwalk that allowed visitors to see it from every direction. Today, Old Faithful is one of 150 geothermal features in a half-mile-wide basin of rolling hills and maintained paths along Firehole River. It is surrounded by lodges and visitor centers and hordes of people.
Travertine terraces are hot springs resulting from water rising through limestone, dissolving the calcium carbonate and depositing the remaining chalk-white calcite on the surface.
These fast-changing features quickly emerge and dry up nearly as fast. They are found at Mammoth Hot Springs and surrounding areas in the northwest corner of the park, which is outside the Yellowstone caldera, and not heated by the magma chamber.
We did not make it to Mammoth Hot Springs; thus, we will be returning on another visit.
Mud pots are acidic hot springs with limited water. Microorganisms along with acid from volcanic gases decompose surrounding rock to create clay and mud.
Various seasons and changes in precipitation can impact the consistency and activity of these features.
We visited mud pots at West Thumb Geyser Basin and Mud Volcano Thermal Area, north of Yellowstone Lake as you head toward Canyon Village. One of the more popular attractions along the 2/3-mile trail is Dragon’s Mouth Spring, a hot spring cave with steam lashing out, as a tongue might.
Fumaroles, also known as steam vents, are the hottest hydrothermal features in the park. The small amount of water present in their system, flashes into steam, causing hissing, whistling or thumping as it exits the earth.
More than 2,000 of them are found throughout the park and are easiest to see when the weather cools down. Look for them in all of the major hydrothermal areas.
Check out Mud Volcano Thermal Area for great examples of fumaroles, just don’t lean over them!
YELLOWSTONE’S GRAND CANYON
We enjoyed exploring the canyon area, where the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, formed by the erosion of Yellowstone River, created a 20-mile-long, 1,000-foot-deep canyon. We stopped at various viewpoints, including Artist Point to view the 109-foot Upper Falls and 308-foot Lower Falls.
While staying in the Yellowstone Lodge cabins we heard about Xantera’s (the hospitality company that runs Yellowstone) Helping Hands program, which employs retirees and college students for one or both of two five-week terms between May and October. They provide lodging (unless you camp or have your own RV) dining hall access and a minimum wage. My parents did this one summer in their late 50's and loved it. Could be something we check out when we’re able to hike again.
BEARTOOTH HIGHWAY - CHARLES KURALT'S “MOST BEAUTIFUL ROADWAY IN AMERICA”
Chris had read somewhere that Beartooth Highway was one of the most beautiful stretches of road in America. Given our proximity, we decided to check it out. It’s a stretch of Highway 212, passing through Montana and Wyoming, between Yellowstone’s northeast entrance and Red Lodge, MT. Due to heavy snowfall near it’s almost 11,000-foot peak, the pass is generally only open from mid-May through mid-October. It is considered a scenic byway and maintained by the National Park Service.
In 1872, a Civil War General, Philip Sheridan, and 120 men were returning east from an inspection tour of the Yellowstone National Park. Instead of taking the long southern route to Billings, Sheridan followed the advice of a local hunter with extensive knowledge of the Beartooth Mountains, and went across the Beartooth Pass. When the highway officially opened in 1936, it essentially replicated Sheridan’s route.
The byway winds through lush forests of pine, alpine tundra, glacial cirques, clear alpine lakes and wildflowers. Along the way visitors can see 20 peaks over 12,000 feet, including Granite Peak, Montana’s highest. The Beartooth Mountains are part of the nearly one million-acre Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, home to grizzlies, black bears, elk, deer, moose, bighorn sheep, mountain lions and bobcats. I was disappointed we didn't catch a glimpse of Grizzly 399 throughout our time in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, so hoping to spot wildlife along Beartooth.
BUTTE
We stopped in Bozeman for dinner and enjoyed some appetizers and drinks at the bar at Montana’s Ale Works, recommended by a former work colleague who lives in town but was under the weather, before continuing to Butte for the night.
MINING HISTORY
Butte, Montana, which sits on the Continental Divide, was a gold and silver mining camp in the 1860s, attracting prospectors from England, Ireland, Wales, Lebanon, Canada, Finland, Austria, Italy, China, Mexico and more. With the advent of electricity near the turn of the century, Butte became one of the largest copper boom towns in the American West.
It’s also the site of the deadliest underground rock mining disaster in the world. On June 8, 1917, a fire occurred in the Granite Mountain/Speculator Mine, killing 168 miners, as flames and smoke spewed from the mine shaft. Most of the dead died from asphyxiation.
With more than $48 billion worth of ore generated in Butte over the course of time, it’s no wonder several attractions and museums are dedicated to the city’s mining history, including stories of immigrants, copper barons, bordellos and breweries. In fact, the neighborhood known as the Uptown Historic District is on the National Register of Historic Places with more than 6,000 contributing properties.
BERKELEY PIT
On the east end of Uptown Butte, we visited the one-mile long by half-mile wide, Berkeley Pit. Touted as the state’s “toxic tourist trap” and once home to a bustling open-pit mining operation, today it is a nearly 1,800-foot-deep crater filled with 40 billion liquid gallons of acidic water, various heavy metals, and sulfuric acid, and part of the largest complex Superfund site in the US.
Berkeley Pit, from which one billion tons of copper, silver and gold were extracted during its 27-years of operation (1955-1982), was considered much safer than the previous method of underground mining. When the pit was closed in 1982, the water pumps at the nearby Kelley Mine (3,800 feet below the surface) were turned off, allowing the groundwater to slowly fill the open void.
From our morning in Butte, we continued on to Idaho with our first stop in Coeur d’Alene.
COEUR D’ALENE
I was blown away by the beauty of Coeur d’Alene, its lake and surrounding mountains. Our first night we enjoyed a so-so meal at Terraza Waterfront Grill, overlooking the Spokane River, just north of where it feeds into Lake Coeur d’Alene. The food was mediocre, but the waterfront esplanade and views were spectacular. We watched multiple people skiing, tubing, paddleboarding and kayaking while we dined.
NATIVE INHABITANTS
The city was founded in 1888, and as with all parts of the United States, it was inhabited by Native Americans for centuries prior. The Coeur d’Alene Tribe, who roamed a vast four-million-acre territory were semi-nomadic and referred to themselves as “Schitsu’umsh, meaning “Discovered People.” Their name came from French Canadian trappers who attempted to trade insignificant items for valuable furs. The shrewd Native Americans suggested the trappers had hearts as small as the point of an awl (a pointed sewing tool), which stuck and the tribe was thereafter known as “Heart of Awl”, or Coeur d’Alene.
DOWNTOWN, McEUEN PARK, TUBBS HILL
The next morning, we walked around the quaint downtown, an entertainment and shopping destination, popping into boutiques and cute shops before we stopped for a wonderful lunch at Rustic on E. Sherman Ave. The town is cute, populated with many art galleries, and a plethora of restaurant options.
We spent a lot of time wandering around McEuen Park, amazed that this 22-acre green space on the lakefront, featuring more than six pieces of public art, also offers the city’s largest playground, a splash pad, tennis and pickleball courts, an off-leash dog park, public pavilion, boat launch and many memorials (e.g., K27 Forever Memorial, Dwight Bershaw Monument and the Fallen Heroes Plaza). We happened upon the trailhead for Tubbs Hill and set off on a 2.2-mile “easy” hike.
The natural 100+-acre park, located on a peninsula, borders Lake Coeur d’Alene on the west, south and east side. Tony Tubbs, a German immigrant who arrived in 1882, fell prey to a popular sales tactic at the time, selling undeveloped land as if it were flat and shovel-ready for construction. However, what he purchased was actually a solid rock, peaking at over 375 feet with various grades ranging from 8 to 30 degrees. Tubbs had little success selling the steep hillside, and the city began acquiring sections of the land in 1969 as public space. It’s a beautiful retreat in the midst of the community. Along our hike, we stopped frequently for pictures of beaches, overlooks, swimming holes, cliff jumpers, float planes, a suspension bridge and wildlife. We were able to see the main building of the Coeur d'Alene Resort, but not its floating green.
FLOATING GREEN
Being married to an avid golfer, meant we attempted to check out the world-famous floating hole 14 at the Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course, but were turned away at the entrance gate. The course was built in 1991, and the Floating Green, is one of the more challenging par 3’s in golf. Through modern engineering via a computer-controlled, underwater cable system, the hole moves every day. To finish this hole, players board the “Putter,” an electric-powered shuttle boat, that ferries golfers to the island green.
I definitely see a repeat visit to this gem in northern Idaho!
BOISE
We didn’t see much of Boise, unfortunately. While traveling, we made plans to connect with a former colleague who lives in town, at Telaya Wine Company on the Greenbelt. It was a lovely summer evening and we chatted over a bottle of red wine for about two hours before heading to our hotel.
The next morning, we left around 9am and started driving through Southern Idaho. At some point, I started plotting a course to a coffee shop to get my near-daily chai latte, meanwhile Chris was wanting to find a gas station. Somehow, I got us off our main route to Park City and we ended up on old farm roads, crossing the state line into Utah, following tanker trucks and farmers driving agriculture equipment. Not particularly efficient, but it was sort of interesting to experience the wide-open spaces and many wind turbines.
PARK CITY
We arrived in Park City, UT in the late afternoon and walked the mile into downtown looking for food. It’s a cute old town filled with bars and cafes, shopping and entertainment. While it also started as a mining community, the ski industry modernized the town, making it the resort destination it is today. Park City has hosted the winter Olympics, and continues to host Sundance and Slamdance film festivals.
As we walked, we kept noticing ribbons on front porch columns and railings. Some homes had one or maybe two, others had multiple, more shredded ribbons blowing in the wind. We stopped and asked a homeowner about the ribbons and learned the Park City Historical Society (which runs the Park City Museum), has been honoring the town’s history for over 30 years by annually placing ribbons on all historic (defined as at least 50 years old) buildings within the city limits.
The next morning, we walked along a city trail, past a memorial to the Olympics and on to Five Seeds, a fantastic local restaurant, for breakfast. We failed to completely research options for activities given Chris’s knee injury, so we missed the Olympic Village and Museum. We did, however, sit at the pool a bit, relaxing, reading and soaking in the hot tub, before wandering around and exploring more of the city’s history. Remember, our motto in retirement, is not to see everything and do everything, but to immerse, enjoy and learn.
We headed back into downtown, along a shaded city path running beside Silver Creek. We rode the city trolley from one end of main street to the other. We witnessed an art gallery opening with many residents in gowns and tuxedos and a western-themed wedding at the base of the Town Lift West. We enjoyed wine, bruschetta, agnolotti, a kale salad and tiramisu at Loma, watching the sun set over the mountains.
All in all, it was a relaxing visit and now knowing we missed the Olympic Village, I want to return. Chris had been to Park City as a young adult, when an older brother got married in Salt Lake. His memories were mostly around visiting the golf courses (apparently there are two! And riding the alpine slide). Perhaps when he recovers from knee surgery, we can make a quick trip back!
GRAND JUNCTION
The next morning, we set out for Grand Junction, CO. It’s about half-way between Park City and Denver and makes the drive bearable. Overall, Chris covered nearly 2800 miles behind the wheel. Along our way we decided we’d stop and revisit Arches National Park, which we’d previously explored pretty thoroughly and Canyonlands, which had snow when we last visited. In both cases, I was able to get a National Park “stamp” in my passport.
CANYONLANDS AND ARCHES NATIONAL PARKS
This time we mostly toured Canyonlands, in and around the Island in the Sky plateau, sliced on either side by the Green and Colorado rivers. The park has 527-acres and I know we barely scratched the surface. It really is quite amazing to stand in the midst of three mountain ranges that dot the landscape across 100-miles of horizon.
This park in particular, which wasn’t established as a National Park until 1964, experienced limited exploration, mostly roamed by Native Americans, cowboys, river explorers and uranium prospectors due to its remote ruggedness, unpaved roads, primitive trails and wildlife. The least accessible section of the park, known as The Maze, is considered one of the most remote and inaccessible areas of the United States. Horseshoe Canyon, just north of The Maze, contains panels of rock art made by hunter-gatherers 2,000-1,000 BC. The artifacts, dwellings and murals are some of the oldest in America.
It was raining off and on and we were able to see flash flooding and waterfalls washing over sheer buttes and canyons. We stopped at a few lookouts to take pictures. During our tour of the visitor center, I was most struck by the fact that various sedimentary rock, layers of different material deposited over time and acted upon by the climate or disrupted by tectonic events has existed for more than 300 million years, but it wasn’t until 70 to 20 million years ago that tectonic uplifts exposed magma which hardened into igneous rocks forming the surrounding mountain ranges. Then, the rivers began to carve canyons into the softer sedimentary rocks in the valleys below.
Pretty amazing stuff and stunning surroundings.
GAS GAUGES ARE CRITICAL TOOLS ON THE ROAD!
The most exciting part of rolling into Grand Junction, was that we arrived! Chris wasn’t paying attention to the gas gauge, afterall every direction was breathtaking, and as the sky grew darker and we found ourselves between Moab, UT and Grand Junction, CO, on a stretch of road without services for 60 miles, our car's gas range showed 58 miles. The range dropped much more quickly than the remaining miles. in fact, for the last ten miles our car showed 0 range, our tank was on empty and still we rolled along. It was with a HUGE sigh of relief that we pulled into the first gas station we saw in Loma, CO, a few miles west of Fruita. With a full tank, we continued a few more miles to Grand Junction and enjoyed pizza delivery to our hotel room.
We set out the next morning marveling at beautiful Western Colorado, through Glenwood Springs, Vail and on to Denver. What a fabulous journey through the Rocky Mountains and associated National Parks.
Comments