After our night on slanted ground at the RV camp, we woke up early and headed out to Grinnell Glacier within Glacier NP. Two notes here: 1) FiFi wakes me up at 7am pronto every morning. She ain’t about to waste no time. 2) Grinnell Glacier was a recommendation from my friend Ellen But not Dog. Thank you, Ellen!
We get to the Grinnell Glacier parking lot and start our climb up along some of the most beautiful country I’ve ever seen. Seriously. This is the most beautiful place I have been to on this trip thus far. The climate, the vegetation, the bird diversity, it has it all. We pass tons of slow-moving families as we head to our glacier destination. About halfway up, there’s a chain over the trail saying there is ice and snow along the path. Bring crampons and other snow walking equipment. Beware of avalanches. I mean, it’s not saying the trail is closed, just to be careful. We duck under the chain and continue on. Another mile up we get to a gushing waterfall that’s spilling onto the trail. Some folks are attempting to hike under and around the water, but most are just trekking through, trying to not get pushed off the narrow rock ledge by the flow of water. We decide to go the shorter, wetter route of under the falls.
After only one hairy moment we’re through the falls and soaking wet on the other side. We keep hiking. About another half mile up we meet a team of three employee chicks shoveling ice and snow off the trail. They are working hard as hell, shoveling fast and furious. I’m impressed. I crack a joke and tell them I’ll switch for a few minutes and give them a break. I think one girl took me seriously, but decided it was probably a bad idea and went back to shoveling.
After passing the shovel team, we were faced with a few snow covered paths, and ultimately a steep rocky climb up to the glacier. Once there, we are blown away at how beautiful it is. I mean, it’s half melted and sitting in a pool of its own water, but it’s still amazing. I bet it was even more spectacular just 20 years ago. We sit on a rock a few feet up from the ice and water and begin snacking while stalking birds. While we sit, a chick next to us is jumping into the glacial pool while her friend takes a video and pictures. They apparently just can’t get the angle right, because she has to re-do the jump about 6 times. After the last one, she’s shaking uncontrollably, and all of her exposed skin is red. I’m slightly concerned, but fuck this girl. Who jumps into a god damn glacial pool for an Instagram pic? PS Kenny I know you jumped in too, Amy already told me.
After thoroughly judging this chick on her life choices, and soaking in the amazing view, we start our hike down. The shovel crew has already cleared all of the snow-covered paths. They rocked. After getting down from the hike, we decide to walk around a lake at the bottom to get some different views in and to see if the nearby hotel has a gift shop. FiFi like to purchase patches…. While walking along a paved path, we hear a ruckus coming from the bushes. A grouse is there with chicks, and a three-toed woodpecker nest with two adults hanging out were found in a single square meter of forest floor. What are the odds to have so many cool birds so close to each other! FiFi gets some amazing photos before we continue our walk to the hotel.
The hotel was actually pretty cool. FiFi and I get decently priced coffee and some snacks before heading on to the next area in the park known as Two Medicine. It’s a drive, but seems to be off the beaten path so we’re obviously in. When we get there, we ask a ranger what her favorite hike is, and she answers with an area known as aster meadow. It’s exactly as it sounds, an awesome open meadow with tons of asters blooming. We suit up and head out, looking for whatever is to come. We see beaver, Junco nests, and a sweet waterfall. FiFi decides to get in the water and I initially decide to join in. Fuck it’s cold…. I back out immediately.
Hiking back we hear a western screech owl calling from some spruce trees… We spend way too long trying to call it out with an iPhone app. It doesn’t work. Walking back to the car, FiFi gets an email saying her time sheet was not entered correctly. Shit. We have limited service and have no ability to submit a new time sheet here at the park. We need to drive to a city to get this crap done. We decide to drive to the town of Hungry Horse to get dinner and allow FiFi to get her crap submitted. The drive was scenic, but long. I was excited to get back into real civilization for a bit, I won’t lie. We pull into a restaurant named Gun Sight and settle in for food, beer and internet access. She gets her stuff done, I talk to my amazing wife for a bit and then we’re off to find a campsite.
It’s dark at this point, so we’re trusting a GPS point off freecampsites.net to lead us to camping victory near the Hungry Horse Dam. The point ended up being shit. But we soldiered on through the woods and still found a decent site to camp with and area overlooking the water. It’s just a gravel pit but it’ll do the job of housing us for the night. The next morning we wake up, check out the dam, and head on to Missoula, MT. I need to pick up my new solar panel from Ellen’s house, plus I’m down to hit some cool breweries while we’re there.
We pull up to Ellen’s adorable house around lunchtime and are greeted by a cat outside with a tiny harness, bell, and a name tag sporting “Meeko.” I miss my cats so much, so I love being able to get some pets in with Meeko. Ellen is not in town, but a guy watching the animals for Ellen is there and shows us where the solar panel is being housed. I decide to test the panel with the multi-meter and find that she’s running perfect voltage!
FiFi and I struggle to figure out just how in the heck we’re going to affix this new hard panel to the roof. The previous one was mailable and skinny, being affixed with an adhesive. This one either needs to be drilled in, or somehow tied to the roof rack. No matter, we shall figure this out later. We throw the panel in the back of the truck and head off to a place named James Bar (another recommendation from Ellen). I had the most amazing mac and cheese pulled pork sandwich with great beer. Dammit it’s making me hungry now just writing about it…
After lunch we head off the Drought House, a brewery in town that I hear Ellen likes. We grab a beer, a gift card for Ellen for helping me so much with this panel, and go to drop off the card at her house. As we go into her house, the guy watching her animals is gone, and her dog is out and on the couch. The dog is apparently afraid of people, and stares at us with bugged out, worried eyes. I give it a treat in hopes of calming its nerves, but it just growls at me… Never breaking eye contact. We plant the card in the fridge and quickly leave the house to head towards Yellowstone.
We get to the Yellowstone area pretty late, so we head straight to a camp spot within the nearby National Forest. Everything is wet as it has just rained, but we still decide to scrounge up some wood and try to have a fire. Our dinner plans require us to have a fire, so we’re really hoping we can make this work. We find tons of wood, but it’s large and wet. I pull out a hatchet my sister gave before the trip me and start to hack away at a log, when all of the sudden my wedding wing flies off my wet hand into the grass before me. Fuck. This grass is tall, wet and now covered with wood chipping debris. I throw down the hatchet and start searching for the ring. FiFi follows suit, parting the grass like a chimp looking for fleas or ticks in a neighbor’s fur. I give up in about 10 minutes. Cas and I knew I was going to lose this damn ring. It wasn’t a question of “if” but “when” I would lose it. It’s slightly big when I’m not hiking and easily slips off. I walk over to the fire and start trying to get the wet wood to light. FiFi continues searching, saying she’s not giving up. Well I can’t make her stop, and she claims to be really good at finding lost items…
A couple minutes in of me trying to get this damn fire started, and FiFi announces that she has found my ring! I thought all was lost! But I was wrong! I’m so happy, I don’t even care that the heavens began to unleash a downpour of rain on my crappy little fire. If I can just get it hot enough, it might make it through the rain… FiFi finds a plastic coffee cup in the car, throws it in the fire, and jumps in the car with me. The heat from the plastic burning saved the fire and allows all of our wood to stay somewhat dry. She’s a damn life saver today…
We make dinner, play Farkel (I lost), drink wine, and enjoy the quiet woods. The next morning will be a full Yellowstone exploration day, and I couldn’t be more excited!
