This blog entry is being written by Greg because Laura is too tired after I took her on a death march up Mt. Washburn . Mt. WashburnMt. Washburn is one of the higher peaks in Yellowstone and is 10,243 feet high. The climb is about 1500 feet of vertical with a 5 mile roundtrip hike from the Chittenden parking area. The trail follows the service road up to the fire lookout station which is manned full time from Spring to Fall. This means that there are no ultra-steep sections because a truck needs to drive up with supplies every now and [View Full Entry]

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Jackasses found on the trip so far: 1) Eating ice cream cones yesterday at the canyon & a guy approaches two college age guys about reckless driving. Another guy comes storming up and started screaming and ranting about remaining calm on the road. Evidently he needed some calming as well. The driving doesn't surprise me... there are a bunch of crazy drivers passing on blind corners and speeding (they will nail a large animal). Almost all the bad drivers have had Utah plates on their car. 2) Greg got gas this morning and pissed off a guy in a large van/camper. [View Full Entry]

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There was frost on the picnic table this morning - I was certainly cold last night. Greg says that the campground is over 7000 feet in elevation. We got packed up quickly and headed to Mammoth Hot Springs (which we drove through last night). We reserved a campground for tonight so we don't have to go through the same thing we did as last night... plus we get hot showers! We did a little gift shopping in the town (the elk were still there, it's the middle of rutting season) and headed over to the hot springs. The hike was fascinating [View Full Entry]

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We stopped in Polson MT last night as it was getting dark, and the road wasn’t safe with all the animals that could potentiall be crossing. It was a nice evening and we could finally hook up online to check email, and could finally get cell reception, which we never had in Glacier up to that point. We had passed Flathead Lake-the largest lake west of the Mississippi, which was very cool-it was beautiful near sundown, and have very neat little towns along the side of it. It is 30 miles long. No bear. We headed out this morning going to [View Full Entry]

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We got moving slowly this morning. Boy, was it windy! Whitecaps were out on the lake and the stove had a hard time heating water. Greg used the other stove as a windbreak to let the flames hit the pot. We're back to oatmeal and hot chocolate after 2 days of cereal, muffins, and toast (at the hotel). I packed up most of the camp and boy was I proud! Greg reminded me how to help put the tent away. It was extra tough with the windy conditions because everything kept blowing all over the place. As we were leaving we [View Full Entry]

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Well, we used our inginuity to download photos to the web. Greg's inginuity, really, since my work laptop doesn't have the right drivers for my camera (or enough disk space). So Greg wrote up the travel journal and we should be able to post it for friends and family. We drove out of Calgary, AB this morning. Said goodbye to the rockies and hello to big sky / farm country. You wouldn't believe the farmland out here - it stretches for miles. Near Ft. Macleod we saw a large wind farm in the distance and 1 tower up close. They are [View Full Entry]

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We spent the day trying to get some sort of mechanism to pull pictures off of Laura's camera. Her laptop's USB ports do not function. After many fruitless hours at various electronics stores last night and today we bit the bullet and 'bought' a computer which we'll be returning tomorrow. Greg was able to upload everything to box.net and enter all my hand-written journal entries into this online blog. We went out to dinner to a local steak house (Alberta is known for beef) and had a very nice meal for less than it cost us to eat at Chilli's late [View Full Entry]

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I think we're getting good at tearing down camp. It was well below freezing again last night and we didn't want to get out of bed this morning. Greg has been in full mummy-sack mode with long underwear and sometimes a cap. I have a warmer bag and can stay comfortable in PJs. Today we visited Lake Louise, Johnson canyon, Banff, and then headed to Calgary. Lake Louise is one of the most picturesque lakes in the rockies and it's home to the Fairmont hotel which is very fancy. We wandered around the hotel for a bit and then headed over [View Full Entry]

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Although we are staying in Banff NP we took a day trip to Yoho NP which is on the other side of the continental divide. The main attractions are the spiral rail tunnels, Takakkawa Falls, and Emerald Lake. The spiral tunnels are a bypass of the old railway grade that was ultra steep and very unsafe. With the spiral tunnels the trains actually go through two spiral tunnels in the mountain. You can actually see the engine exiting the tunnel while the rest of the cars are still entering the other hole (right below it!). No trains were nearby when we [View Full Entry]

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We woke up in the morning and packed up our camp after multiple days in the same campground in Jasper NP. We did a canyon hike in Maligne canyone and then drove the entire icefield parkway down into Lake Louise in Banff NP. On the way to Maligne canyon we passed multiple elk and sheep but still no bear sitings (grizzleys or black bears). The rivers are shallow so we were expecting to see bear everywhere... none so far! The canyone hike was along the beautifully blue Maligne river. We started our hike at 5th bridge with the intent to hike [View Full Entry]

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