This night, the ski underwear wasn’t enough. We need get some additional blankets if we are going to survive Glacier National Park. We gave up our sleeping attempts around 7:30.
The washrooms were well heated for a camp site, and it turned out we both independently fantasized about moving there during the night – great minds think alike – but, of course, none took action.
Breakfast of champions, aka hot porridge with tea, slowly revived us.
After packing up, we drove the same road north along the Yellowstone River, that we came yesterday evening. Our first stop had the irresistible name Mud Volcano. It was an interesting piece of landscape with boiling and bubbling hot springs and pools. There was a a wooden trail, as floor temperatures were stated to be up to 94 °C.
Find the animals:
Heading further north, we passed Hayden Valley again, where a large herd of Bison was hanging out next to the road.
We followed the Yellowstone River when it took a turn East into the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. There is a road South and North of the Canyon. We started with the Southern one. The first parking was closed due to construction, so we headed on until the end of the road and took a short hike along the Canyon’s rim. The views where jaw-dropping.
The WiFi controllability of my camera, allows for selfies beyond stick-range.
The Northern road provided a better view on the lower fall, especially if you are willing to do some height meters down and up again to a lower viewing point.
If you have to chose, we’d highly recommend the Southern road and hike.
We reached the campground at Canyon Village around 13:30, determined to take shower there. Well, that plan didn’t work out as they were cleaning until 15:00. No WiFi or mobile data connection either. We continued to the nearby visitor center, hoping for WiFi and some input for our next steps. At least we got the latter from the always helpful park rangers.
We had two options, either exit Yellowstone in the North or the East. A friend and my seat neighbour from the flight both recommended going east through Lamar Valley and over Beartooth Pass. On the other hand, that meant a major detour, as we are headed North to Glacier National Park. We took option three from below, since going through the town of Helena meant driving closer to the mountains, i.e. better scenery.
From Canyon Village we headed North through the mountains to Tower Junction.
We then and turned East into Lamar Valley. The great views today wouldn’t stop. Endless planes, mountains in the background and Bison.
After the valley, the road started to incline. We exited the National Park through the Northeast Entrance, and went on through Colter Pass. When we reached Beartooth Pass at 3337 m above sea level, the timing couldn’t have been better as the evening sun started to shine its light on the scenery – photo time. Hope whoever reads this on their mobile has a good data plan.
We made our way down the pass pulling out every other opportunity to enjoy the view. After some time we reached Red Lodge, the first town since leaving Yellowstone and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the little 4G symbol in my phone’s notification bar. We finally could put our mobile data contracts to good use. We also pumped gas and gave the insect-coated wind shield a good cleaning.
We had dinner at Subway in Laurel. I used the opportunity to charge my notebook, and looked up a nearby campsite.
Half an hour later we arrived at the Mountain Range RV Park in Columbus and checked ourselves in. Due to the height difference our air mattress needed a refill. Need to think of that when going up again. The temperatures here at around 1400 m altitude are almost warm.
The campsite is great value for 20 $ if you don’t mind seeing and hearing the highway. We did not. WiFi and a hot shower at last.
P.S. It’s 17:08 now, 2018-09-15, Saturday. It took all day to compose this post on my tiny phone with fragile connectivity, while doing navigation and other co-pilot duty. Meanwhile Marius is tirelessly driving us towards Glacier National Park. Stay tuned.