Blogs from West Yellowstone, Montana, United States, North America

I woke up and headed to the toilet where Steve soon joined me. He looked a little pissed as he was desperately trying to dry his trainers with the hand blower. Turns out that whilst the rest of us took cover from the rain the previous night, Steve and the rest of Group C still had the washing up to do. The small room on the block that could be used for washing up could only take one person in it, and there was no hot water. Basically the four of them had to take it in turns standing in the room washing up whilst the rest stood out in the rain getting drenched and trying to dry up. Steve was really pissed, and was slowly calming down as Todd and I apologised for their predicament. ... read more

Having survived the wind through the night and getting some sleep, we loaded up and headed towards the North Entrance and into Yellowstone National Park. Almost straight away we on a road that runs alongside a stream, but not any old stream. At one point the stream flows into and passed a natural hot spring, turning the water from refreshing coolness to extreme hotness. After being dropped off at the top of a hill covered in sulphur pits to make our way (carefully) down to the bottom, we headed on to the natural spring, and took a dip. I was the first to walk the long path to it, and waited for the others to turn up before taking the first steps into it. It was pretty cool how the water changed between hot and cold ... read more

On making it through Oregon's vast rural East side, we made it into picturesque Idaho. Faced with the decision of interstate or rural road, it was an easy decision to head for the mountains and follow the Middle Fork river along the famous Ponderosa Pine Scenic Byway (Highway 21) from Boise to Stanley, then taking Route 73 to Ketchum before checking out Craters of the Moon National Park. From there, we travelled through the bizarre Arco before heading straight for miles through the eerie landscape of Route 26 that slices through the vast Atomic City and the enormous US National Laboratory area (all signal dampening included!) to reach Idaho Falls. From there, on to West Yellowstone in Montana and a venture to Buffalo Bill's hometown of Cody, Wyoming to pick up some cowboy boots and spurs. ... read more

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30, 2010 Today we left Glacier National Park and headed south towards Yellowstone National Park. We are sad to leave because we had so much fun here, but are really excited to go to Yellowstone too. The drive towards YNP is another beautiful trip it was 75 degrees and sunny. The first part of the journey was along the Flathead Lake, which is a huge lake, or "ONE BAL" as Aaron called it. We followed it on HWY 93 from Somers, MT to Polson. We traveled through Missoula and along the Rockies. They do not have nearly as much snow as in GNP. About 50 miles outside of West Yellowstone we hit a little bit of rain and a HUGE double rainbow. Now when I say huge this rainbow crossed from one side of ... read more

I drove down to Driggs ID today to register for the Horseshoe Canyon 10k trail race on Sept 19. The drive down was amazing. I was in the Teton valley which is west of the Teton mountain range. The views of the peaks were amazing and the road was fun to drive. It finally warmed up and I headed back to West Yellowstone to go and ride in Yellowstone. I don't know why but I was a little apprehensive about going into the park on a bike. Might be all the really big creatures that call Yellowstone home. I did see several elk and my favorite the bison. Theses animals are massive and you really get the sense of that riding by them without the protection of a metal car body around you. I was stuck ... read more

I didn't think my trip could improve, but it keep getting better every day. I left Jackson and drove up to the Grand Teton National Park. The weather has been unbelievable so far. There was hardly a cloud in the sky and it was an amazing day to be in the park. The setting of being in the valley and looking up at these huge mountains gives you perspective of just how tiny we really are. I stopped and did most of the main sights in the park. I would love to spend more time hiking and exploring in this park. I was amazed about every five minutes at what I was seeing in the park. The drive from Teton to Yellowstone was interesting. They state is doing road construction so the road is basically gravel ... read more