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The Great Northwestern Loop


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#11 Mark W. Ingalls

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Posted 23 August 2009 - 03:37 AM

Yellowstone

The motivation for "The Loop" began over a year ago, at a less happy time. Edna, Robert & I had been on our way back from visiting Edna's family in the Rio Grande Valley. Something was seriously wrong with Edna, although we didn't know it at the time; we just knew she was badly constipated or something. When we go back to Houston, we stopped in at MD Anderson to get her checked out. They checked her in instead: she needed major surgery and a long convalescence while learning to live life with some unpleasant adjustments.

I tried to inspire her with plans of visiting Yellowstone "someday," a place that seemed impossibly far off in space and time. In an effort to make such an implausible idea more plausible, she (and I) added other stops to our dream trek. While Edna slept, I planned and executed a remodel of the Hawk that would allow us to be more comfortable on the trip, as if it might actually happen one day. After missed opportunities, e.g., the Pigfest, we would hope all the harder for the trip we'd make "someday."

Slowly, hesitantly, Edna's health returned once more. We started spending time away from the security of MD Anderson in the Spring. Returning from one such trip, even though Edna spent two days in the hospital while Robert and I had to sleep without her in the Hawk, Edna began to draw the map of her mondo loop.

Being called to Salt Lake City for work made it real, but Yellowstone was always the inspiration point.

Edna wanted to come in from the South and go out through the North. She wanted to come up through Wyoming to get there, passing through Jackson Hole and the Tetons to make our approach.
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En route I spotted the first of many Four Wheel Campers parked along the way and stopped to snap a shot.
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We hadn't risen too early that morning at Antelope Island and we'd taken our time getting underway so by the time we finally made Yellowstone it was after nightfall. The camp grounds at the South end of the park were all full. Our back-up plan was to camp outside the park in Bridger-Teton National Forest, but construction delays put the last camping area I saw more than an hour's drive back South (with another hour or more the next day to get back into the park). We decided to activate "Plan C": We would stay in a rented lodge in Lake Village and then camp two more nights at a reserved campsite in Grant Village.

The first thing we wanted to see Wednesday morning was (of course) Old Faithful.
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We immediately noticed two things:

1. A lot of people had the same ideas we did.
2. It was very cold.

Our new plan was to spend Wednesday travelling around the West Thumb || Canyon Village || Fishing Bridge loop, Thursday travelling the Norris || Mammoth Hot Springs || Roosevelt loop and then spend Friday catching anything we might have missed.

But I made the following journal entries...

29-Jul

Old Faithful

Predicted high temp: 59
Predicted low temp: 32 - 39

YS is all tore up with construction. It's packed also. Edna's getting frustrated with all the driving. (We can't get out and hike.) She's going to cancel the two nights' reservation we made for the Grant Village campground. Then we'll go see the Mud Volcano and backtrack to the North Entrance.

It looks like we'll be sleeping in the [Gallatin] National Forest tonight. (whoo! hoo!) On to Mud Volcano

(I prefer camping in the woods, while Edna prefers camping at campsites. Edna's idea of 'boondocking' is a Wal-Mart parking lot.)

Even that didn't work out. The noxious "Mud Volcano" made Edna sick to her stomach, and then she had to walk all the way back around to the truck to sit down. Edna was too tired and sick for me to even think about trying to take her where bears might be, so we camped close to the highway that night in Montana.
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It was also stinkin' cold outside. We used our catalytic heater that night for the only time the whole trip. When we started (and ended) the trip we also used the Window A/C in stinkin'-hot-outside-Texas. Talk about extremes! Inside the Hawk we stayed snug-ly smug! B)

Here is some video I shot: Fire Hole Lake
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#12 realbtl

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Posted 23 August 2009 - 09:14 PM

Aw Mark, 59 and 32-39 is just a cool spell for a Montana summer, keeps us from getting all sweaty and everything. Actually, Yellowstone weather is notoriously unpredictable, being perched on the Continental Divide like that. A couple of years ago I took a mid-May motorcycle trip down there. I froze my a** off on the way down, then rode around the park in a t-shirt in 70 degree weather. I always keep my down vest handy here.
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#13 EdoHart

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Posted 23 August 2009 - 09:32 PM

This is the best trip report yet! The videos add so much more to the experience. I'm glad to hear Edna did some adventurous stuff (even if she doesn't realize yet how much fun it was).

I look forward to the rest of it.
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#14 Mark W. Ingalls

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Posted 23 August 2009 - 10:40 PM

Montana

We decamped and headed North for Glacier NP. It didn't really bother us that Yellowstone was not what we expected because we were having such a grand time just travelling through the country. Our breakfast stop that morning typifies the grandness in the mundane.

My journal entry:

30-Jul
Breakfast in Wilsall, MT @ 9:00 a.m. Americana to the max. We're the only three in the place everybody else doesn't know.

Signs on the wall:

"Preserve the wolf- Take him to a taxidermist"
"Don't screw with Montana"
"I'm comfortable with my opinions"


I squelched the urge to photograph the scene. Taking pictures of people as if they were on exhibit is just too crass. Here is a shot of the town though.
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Edna's route had been designed to avoid interstates when possible. She had us going through the Lewis and Clark National Forest, where we noticed a large percentage of the trees appeared to be dying.
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We stopped at a Ranger Station so Edna could inquire. She learned about mountain pine beetles. According to the ranger this insect outbreak has been worsened because recent winters haven't been cold enough to kill many of the beetles. They are causing a fire danger as well as causing the direct release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the dead trees rot.

Earlier, we had been in communication with realbtl who advised us to enter Glacier NP from the East, so we camped on Lower Saint Mary Lake.

I journaled:

Camping in Babb, in not-yet-refurbished-but-open-anyway "Chew Blackbones Campground" that looks like it has been reopened after a long dormancy; no hookups, no toilets, but no crowds either. We camped right on Lower Mary Lake. It poured hard and leaked into the camper.

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#15 Barko1

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Posted 24 August 2009 - 12:05 AM

Yellowstone is great, off season :lol: You didn't mention mosquito's :unsure: Nice loop!

South edge of Yellowstone, probably North end of Tetons
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Yellowstone summer
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#16 chnlisle

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Posted 24 August 2009 - 01:05 AM

Mark you and yours just lift my spirits. Thank you.
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#17 Mark W. Ingalls

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Posted 24 August 2009 - 02:48 AM

It wasn't the mosquitoes nor the weather, you guys; it was the highway construction. Everything's a 45 minute wait to get rolling again. At least people are working, I guess.

P.S.: We weren't the only irate ones there...
P.O.'d residents...
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#18 SunMan

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Posted 24 August 2009 - 04:18 PM

Great stuff! Ditto on the video supplements.
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#19 Mark W. Ingalls

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Posted 26 August 2009 - 03:16 AM

Glacier NP

Although we didn't realize it at the time, our attitudes changed when we got to Glacier. Getting to Yellowstone was achieving a goal. Driving though Glacier, we were slowing down and experiencing leisure. Since there was no place "we needed to be," we could just be...

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In this place was more than a mere continental divide--

Glacier National Park sits at the headwaters of the North American continent. From Triple Divide Peak water flows north to the Hudson Bay, west to the Pacific Ocean and south to the Gulf of Mexico.



This is why some have named Glacier NP "the crown of the continent."

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#20 Mark W. Ingalls

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Posted 27 August 2009 - 01:54 AM

More Glacier photos...
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