Camping with Blue - The Trek Home, Final episode

After a not-particularly-restful sleep punctuated by wolves howling and Blue snuggling in closer and whining softly, I got up before sunrise. The rest of the late night party tent people in the group camp area were still sleeping off whatever had fueled their revelry. I packed up the tent as quietly as I could and Blue and I headed east out of the park.

I was right in thinking that trying to drive out of the park after sunset wasn't a good idea for me. Granted, the roads are huge and thanks to the stone walls there aren't really any drop offs, but it is high up and a still a little bit scary. The East Entrance Road is closed winters for good reason, I should think. The pass through the mountains was up around 8500 feet, then we went down, down, down to about 5000 feet. The first signs you see along the scenic Buffalo Bill Highway warn you about grizzlies.

We didn't get out of the car until Cody, where we stopped for refueling and snacks. The scenic highway was really scenic, though. It looked more like a movie set than something that actually existed in real life. There were quite a few national forest campgrounds along the road (well, along the Shoshone River) that looked nice and not terribly populated (perhaps because the grizzlies ate everyone, who knows?). The drive after Cody was mostly flat with ranches and cows. It wasn't terribly interesting again until we hit the Bighorn National Forest.

Another set of mountains and valleys and driving up, up, up only to eventually go down, down, down again. It was very beautiful and there weren't many other drivers, so my driving 20 mph didn't make anyone too angry. I wasn't driving slowly because I was scared, though, it was just too much to look at to drive fast. Blue decided she needed to get out of the car, so we had a little walk near a scenic overlook. She got closer to the edge than I did, and of course I pulled her back when she got too close for my comfort level. Never mind the fact that the four-footed beast had happily gamboled up and down a mountain for days that week. It's all about me. "Don't fall!" Ack.

 

We went back up over 9000 ft through this set of mountains. Our next destination was Devil's Tower. Between the Bighorn National Forest and the Black Hills National Forest is the Thunder Basin National Grassland. Lots of grass. Lots of cattle. Not a whole lot to see. We weren't too sure about Devil's Tower, either. There wasn't any thing to see for miles and miles, then suddenly, off this little highway that was off the big highway, there it was. This thing, sticking up out of nowhere for no reason.

We stopped to take a picture of it along the highway. It is just really weird. Volcano? Rocky protuberance? Well, geologists don't agree, so I have no idea. Geologists agree that Devils Tower was formed by the intrusion of igneous material, but they cannot agree on exactly how that process took place. Some geologists studying the Devils Tower in the late 19th century came to the conclusion that the Tower was formed by an igneous intrusion. Later geologists searched for further explanations. Several geologists believe the molten rock comprising the Tower might not have surfaced; other researchers are convinced the tower is all that remains of what once was a large explosive volcano. Other theories have suggested that Devils Tower is a volcanic plug or that it is the neck of an extinct volcano. Presumably, if Devils Tower was a volcanic plug, any volcanics created by it — volcanic ash, lava flows, volcanic debris — would have been eroded away long ago.

The park was overrun with tourists. Blue & I couldn't really get out of the car anyway, because dogs aren't allowed on the walking trails. It would be fun to come here again (should I ever be in the area) to hike around and actually look at this weird thing sticking up out of the ground. The Tower is very strange, the rocks are very beautiful. There's not much else around. Blue did finally notice prairie dogs on this stop.

Back on the road, headed toward Rapid City and our Dairy Queen cone of the day. Signs for Sundance, Starfish, Lead, Deadwood and Sturgis were entertaining, if not terribly informative. Looking at the map now, I see that I could have taken 385 through Deadwood and Lead to get to Mount Rushmore. I wasn't that coordinated while driving, though, so the interstate it was.

All the way through Rapid City and then backtracking southwest to Mount Rushmore. Black Hills National Forest... somehow not as exciting as the two other national forests I'd already driven through that day. I wanted to get to see the Crazy Horse monument, but daylight was fading fast. I just got to Mount Rushmore, once again a really weird thing just sticking up out of the ground, and then turned around to continue driving east.

The plan was to get to Chamberlain and the Missouri River to camp for the night. Instead, I made it 115 miles to the Belvidere KOA just off the highway. KOA's cost a lot more than national forest campsites, but they have WiFi. I was able to send out an email that I was still alive (no cell service since Idaho) and check to see how long it would take me to get home. It was HOT, still in the high 80s at 10:30pm. The manager said it had been 100 that day. I'd left Yellowstone in the morning and the temp was in the low 40s. After I set up the tent and looked through my food, I realized that I'd left my last ziploc of chili with A back in Utah. Sad. I ate the last of my tvp, tried to read some, then just fell asleep. There were thunderstorms overnight, but it's so drought-stricken there that the tent and the ground were dry when we got up.

The next morning we packed up, I put on a clean shirt and we headed east for Minnesota. There were some hills and the Missouri River looks big. Once you're past that, though, driving through SoDak is not very interesting. Southwestern Minnesota isn't much better. This day, though the shortest of all the driving days (just over 7 hours) felt the longest and was the least interesting. Probably because I just wanted it to be over.

I pulled into the garage around 4pm. Blue was happy to see her yard again and delighted that her trees were all present and accounted for. I spent an hour unpacking the car, starting laundry and setting the tent & tarps up to dry. All in all it was a fun trip. I'd do it again. But I think I'd skip South Dakota.

Camping with Blue - The Trek Home, Yellowstone edition

We left A and Paige pretty much on schedule Thursday morning. The plan was to get all the way to West Yellowstone, then into the park to camp for the first night. The drive was pretty uneventful, I talked to mom for a long time and got text updates on things from the boy and A.

I was making decent time despite our stops and my one weird trick to conserve the diesel fuel (driving the speed limit). It started cooling off once we started our climb into the mountains. We finally arrived at the west entrance to Yellowstone about half an hour before sunset.  Protip: ignore the full/free campground sign on the way into the park at your peril. I figured there'd be another sign once I got further in. Uh, no.

It starts to get dark fast once the sun sets

Madison was the closest campground to the west entrance. It was full. Well ok, it is the closest one. I tried Norris next, but that was also full. Sunset. Canyon Village was next. Also full, but still staffed. I went in and asked if there was anything free anywhere in the park. Yes, at Grant, way south in the park. OK. Back in the car. More driving.

A word on driving. I was worried, as I always am, that there would be mountains and scary dropoffs that would result in me driving 15mph and breaking out into a cold sweat while having an asthma attack. Let me tell you this: Yellowstone, whatever it was in the 60s or 70s when you were a kid and went there with your parents, is now an RV paradise. The speed limit is 45, unless it is 35 or 20 or 15. The roads are wide and perfectly paved. There are sturdy rock walls with 8ft high orange reflector rods every ten feet wherever there is a dropoff. There are pullouts everywhere, all the better to stop and stare at all the enormous nature things that are just all over the place. The park, while undeniably beautiful, even majestic in places, looks like it was built for 90year old ladies driving massive self-contained air conditioned RVs.

Finally, finally arrived at Grant Village. It was full dark. There were four deer grazing near the turn off. They just looked at us. We stopped at the service center to get a campsite, but the nice boy sent us off on the pitch dark road to the campground. By now it was 10 and no staff was working there. There was a sheet and you signed up. There were two tent sites left. Not knowing any better, I signed up for a group site and drove off. It was close at least. Got Blue out of the car and put her on the long line (boy and A: I accidentally made off with two of your carabiniers). Headlamp on, unload camping box, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, water. Feed and water Blue. Set up tent. Boil water, mix with food substance. Wait and try to read book despite incoherency. Mindlessly eat food. Lock up food, water, dog bowls, people bowls, stove & gas in the bear box. Ponder the bear box. Crawl into tent with dog. Sleep.

Ah, sleep. Until the wolves started howling. That woke us both up. Blue stayed very quiet. I'm glad she had the sense not to start barking. It was hard to tell how far away the wolves were, but they did the howling routine multiple times during the night.

Lat N 44°23'47.344"
Lon W 110°33'56.755"
Alt 7870 ft

Almost sunrise over Yellowstone Lake

Sunrise

Heading out of the park

Burned stand of pines

Camping with Blue - Backpacking with A & Paige The Dog

Our mountain. Well, the left half is where we were hiking.

All packed up, but we slept in a bit, so we didn't get on the road until a bit after 10. We parked the car outside Pine Valley, put the packs on the dogs and ourselves, put the dogs on long lines and headed up.

Start:
Lat N 37º22'59.265"
Lon W 113º30'25.269"
Alt 6695 ft


Of course, the dogs kept getting their lines tangled and after the beginning where the trail was pretty flat, it wasn't possible for me and A to walk side by side. After a while, we gave up and I harnessed both dogs to me. Dangerous, yes, with 80+ lbs of excited dog giving me a power assist up the mountain. But they got less tangled after they decided between themselves that Blue would mostly walk on the left and Paige would walk mostly on the right. They were very excited at all the new smells and jumping in the creek and drinking wild water and generally being galavanting fools.

Camping dogs on long lines.

The boy had said that we should go up until the Summit trail turned off to our right (to the SE on the second topo map toward Burger Peak) and then continue on toward Further Water (where there would be water) and back down the mountain on another trail. We passed one very nice campsite at about 8000 ft, but after consulting the map, we figured we had to keep going up, because we weren't nearly to the turn off yet. We also still hadn't found water. Some of the spots got a little crazy and after quite a long while, we decided to experiment with letting the dogs off leash. They were unbelievably awesome animals. They went even more crazy, but stayed mostly together and either came back down the trail to check in with us or came back when we called or I whistled.

Start of the trail at Pine Valley, top middle of this topo map.

Campsite 1 just north of the trail split in the middle of the map.

One of the very exciting things that we figured out was how to set our GPS so that the map actually provided information instead of just confusing little numbers. Hint: it helps to read the map key. Once we could figure out where we were on the map, we realized that the boy's ambitions for us were more ambitious that we really wanted to be. We decided to stop as soon as we found another campsite. The sky also looked ominous. Luckily we found a site after not too terribly long.

We were, however, very tired. We were also short on water, since we hadn't found any. We set up camp and A took Paige on walk when it was her turn to fall down. Not good. But not terribly bad, either. We pulled her shoulder back into place and I pushed ibuprofen and acetaminophen on her. The dogs got cranky with each other because they were exhausted and thirsty. We tied them up to appropriately separate trees and started working on dinner. Since it's not ok to go to sleep before 9pm, we managed to read our books until just past 9 and then went to sleep.

Sleepy Blue dog.

Campsite 1:
Lat N 37º20'05.795"
Lon W 113º30'24.191'
Alt 9008 ft

There was lots of thunder and lightning, but only a few sprinkles overnight. In the morning, however... It was raining very lightly when we got up. The poor dogs were licking the rain fly to get water. We made breakfast under the tarp set up over our kitchen area. We ate and pondered what to do for the day. We decided to day hike up to 10,000 feet, because we were so close, then hike back down to the nice campsite that we saw on our way up. Good thing we decided, because then it started to crazy rain. We were mean and left the wet dogs outside the tent while we hid inside and waited for the rain to stop. When the rain finally stopped, we filtered all the rainwater collected in the tarp and the dog bowls we'd set out. We packed up water and all our food, leaving everything else in the tent.

Screenshot from my GPS

The hike up was hard, but less so than with full packs. A had to work harder because she was carrying her backpack. The dogs didn't have to wear their packs and had a fabulous galavant up and down and up and down and...(you get the idea).

In the second topo map, you can see where we camped the first night, just north of the fork in the trail. We hiked towards Burger Peak. Some of the trail was very narrow with a drop off to the right that just went down the mountain. We decided that we were super smart not to attempt this trail with full packs. One or both of us would have needed to be med-evac'd out of there.

There was a beautiful campsite in a meadow up near the top where the trail really turned off to our left. A dropped the pack here, as we were not quite to 10,000 ft and some of the trail was pretty steep. We hiked up just.a.little.bit.further and suddenly the GPS told us we'd reached our goal. It only took about 2 hours to climb 1000 ft. "Only." We took some pictures at the top and climbed back down to the campsite where we had a snack before heading back down to where we'd left the tent.

By the time we got back to the tent, much faster than we'd climbed up, it was dry. We exploded everything all over the place, packed everything back up again and loaded up to head down to our second night's campsite. Going down the mountain was definitely easier going than up, but with heavy packs on (A's much more so than mine, because she had both sleeping pads AND the tent), it was still an effort. Paige kept coming back around, we thought to check on us, but it turns out that her little puppy paw pads had gotten rubbed raw in a few spots. Compared to climbing up, it took practically no time to get down to the campsite. Both dogs flopped down and fell asleep, though it was only late afternoon.

Blue pretending to be alert. She was mostly asleep.

PTD not pretending to be awake even a little bit.

Given that our water situation was somewhat bleak, A loaded up my pack with the water filter and every water receptacle that we had. She hiked down to the stream, which we could hear but couldn't see, to filter a ton of water and bring it back up. I set up our kitchen for the night and sat still and wandered around. I'm not sure really how I spent that hour she was gone. A said it was only about a third of a mile down to the stream. It was hard going up again, because she was hauling quite a bit of water! We fed and watered the dogs and started a gigantic dinner. There were two sweet rock campfire rings, so we decided to try to light a fire, but sadly we are bad arsonists. We got it going for a bit, but mostly it didn't want to. We retired to the tent with the very sleepy dogs and read for a tiny bit before falling asleep.

Campsite 2 with PTD sleeping on her yellow thermarest. 

This picture doesn't do our excellent camp kitchen justice.

Campsite 2:
Lat N 37º20'55.949"
Lon W 113º30'32.397"
Alt 8160 ft

On our final day we packed up and headed back down to the car. We couldn't believe some of the trail that we'd climbed up. It took us just over 2 hours to get back to the car. That was enough, though. We were tired. So were the dogs, who had to end their adventure back on their long lines because we kept running into other dogs (ok, so that only happened twice, but given that we'd just had two days where we had the mountain to ourselves...). Paige lay down in the parking lot and wouldn't get up. Blue wasn't very frisky, either. We drove back to down and got ice cream cones. Cleaning up was nice. Eating Mexican food was also nice. Scoring a job interview for Monday was especially nice (thanks, voicemail). Cupshakes are the bomb (a yummy cupcake blended with vanilla ice cream - we need this in Minnesota!). Now I can't remember if we went hottubbing before or after the movie we watched - I was that tired. I think before.

Last night in St. George:
Lat N 37°05'33.792"
Lon W 113°37'31.840"
Altitude 2770ft

 

Camping with Blue - Dog Day

Lots of playing for the dogs today. We took them to both dog parks and they did have a good time. It seemed that they had even more fun wrestling in the living room, though. 

We got some food for camping and things to make grilled nachos for dinner. I'm going to be replicating that one at home. Going through all of our stuff to see what we are going to take with us was pretty entertaining. We have big packs. The dogs both have big packs. 

Lat, Lon, altitude: same as yesterday