Wonderland Trail Planning

We are going to apply for a permit to do the Wonderland Trail this summer!

Last summer's adventure will be hard to beat! We have decided to finally do a trail that we have always wanted to do in about 10-12 days. We have a lot of planning left ahead, but below is our current plan.

Day 1 Mowich Lake to Cataract Valley 10.3 miles/gain 2020'/loss 4250'
Day2 Cataract Valley to Mystic Camp 6.7 miles/gain 3380'/loss 300' (hard)
Day 3 Mystic Camp to Sunrise Camp 10.7 miles/ gain 2570'/loss1990'
Day 4 Sunrise Camp to Summerland 9.7 miles/gain 1900'/loss 2443'
Day 5 Summerland to Nickle Creek 11.3 miles/gain 2350'/loss 3335'
Day 6 Nickle Creek to Paradise 7.8 miles/gain 2020'/loss 460'
Day 7 Paradise to Longmire 5.5 miles/gain 0'/loss 1875' (easy)
Day 8 Longmire to Devil's Dream 5.9 miles/gain 2400'/loss 200
Day 9 Devil's Dream to Klapatche Park 10.2 miles/gain 3786'/loss 3386 (super hard!)
Day 10 Klapatche Park to Golden Lakes 7.8 miles/gain 1800'/loss 2150'
Day 11 Golden Lakes to Lake Mowich 10.2 miles/gain 70'/loss 2420'

Snow Lake

Rattlesnake Ledge

Almost Home Again

Friends, we have to tell you it was bittersweet today as we crossed the border from Idaho into Washington state. We are staying the night in one of our favorite places, Leavenworth, and will head home tomorrow. We are expecting our cats to be furious at us...either ignore us for a few days, or let out that hell-possessed yowl that could wake the dead. We are looking forward to spending some time in our own house, cooking with our own dishes, eatting food we make, and relaxing in our space.

Tomorrow we plan on picking up 40 lbs of apples to bring home with us so we can make some applesauce again like last year...homemade sauce is so good!

Glacier National Park

Our original plan was to camp at Glacier National Park, but when we found out that it had been down in the 20's at night we changed our minds and booked a hotel in Whitefish instead.

We headed to the West side of the park and nearly immediately saw a huge black bear trying to get berries out of a tree right by the road! We tried to get a picture but couldn't get the lens on the camera fast enough before it ran into the woods on the other side of the road. We headed up the road to Avalanche Creek and stopped for a beautiful hike to Avalanche Lake. We were inspired not only by the hike's beauty, but also by how much the lake itself reminded us of our own familiar alpine lakes in the Cascades. We are so looking forward to seeing them again soon!

On our way back down we stopped by the Lake McDonald Lodge to catch a boat ride, only to find it was booked for the last two trips. So instead we decided to have a late lunch on the shoreside. We attemped to skip rocks on the water...turns out we aren't so very good at that...especially Margaret, so instead we just threw rocks in the water...tried to skip some again, and went back to just throwing them in.

On Monday we went through the East side of the park and saw a mountain goat! We went through Many Glacier, up to Logan's Pass and hiked up to the Hidden Lake Outlook, stunning!

For dinner we went to Pescado Blanco, which means "Whitefish" in spanish. I don't know what it is about Mexican food, but when done with 'fusion' cuisine, it always turns out so well! This was "Gourmet Mountain Mexican", so they had elk tacos, and bison enchilladas. It was SO SO good, truely the tastiest meal that we have had in a restaurant on our entire trip.

Yellowstone National Park

We had a lovely time in Yellowstone National Park! We camped for three nights at Grants campground. We were there just as the campsites were closing down for the year, most of the families with school aged children and retirees had headed for warmer climates. The first day we arrived we didn't have much time for exploring, and spent our evening setting up our camp and trying to stay warm (it was pretty cold at night!). The first full day we were there we went to see Old Faithful. We were rained out in the afternoon and retreated to our campsite to relax and do the crossword in the local newspaper.

The next day we set off to explore the Geisers of the Upper, Lower and Mid basins near old faithful. The colors of the pools were phenominal, as were beauty of the geysers. We saw hundreds of buffalo, and found this one hiding behind some bushes...note to self...don't pee behind a bush, you may not know what is on the other side!

We enjoyed a ranger-lead program at the fishing bridge and learned about the drama of the Yellowstone Cutthroat trout. Seriously, Desperate Housewives could learn a thing or two about drama from this little fish and it's fight for survival!

On our way out of the park the next day we went and saw Canyon and Mammoth on our way to Whitefish. Our drive was mostly uneventful (minus the high-winds and unbanked crappiness of Montana's poor excuse for I-90), and beautiful with the rolling waves of grasses, and high mountains.

Sunday September 13 - A Day on the Farm

Today was surely one of the highlights of our trip. We started off the day being so lucky, Grandma made us buttermilk biscuits and gravy for breakfast, it was SO good.

We powered up Grandma and Grandpa's four wheel drive, and went for a drive around the farm. The farm is separated into four areas, the hay meadow, the house part, the pasture with the pond, and then a third pasture has all the farming equipment. We drove through the part of the pasture with the pond, and then wound our way through the hay meadow. We decided to 'hunt' cows, and found about a dozen of them spending the warm morning in the cool shade. Unlike Grandma's previous cows, these particular bovines don't chase ATV's (One of the creapiest experiences of my life the last time I was here on an ATV was being chased by 8 cows thinking I had food for them!), and instead just kind of stared at us. We didn't get too close as many of them had calves, and we didn't want to make them mad! We then went through to the house part of the farm, and Sean tried to see how fast he could make the ATV go. I thought we were going to die. Sean used to have ATV's and needless to say is much more comfortable on them.

Uncle David and his wife Angie, and their two daughters arrived just after 3 pm. Uncle David is actually closer to my age than my dad's, just 11 years older than me, so we had a lot of fun catching up about issues that we are both experiencing, home improvements, going back to school, buying a house, etc. Grandma made a GIGANTIC dinner (I can see where Aunt Debbie gets it!), we had pulled pork, potato salad, coleslaw, and about 5 different kinds of BBQ sauce including the one Grandpa made last night (Whoo Hoo!). Dinner was absolutely wonderful!

After dinner Uncle David, his 3 year old daughter Jessie, Sean and I went out to the fishing pond to see what was there. And by fishing I really mean that Uncle David taught Sean and I how things were done, and could barely fish himself because he was so busy helping out Sean, Jessie and I. We had a wonderful time catching blue fin, big mouth bass, Croppie and cat fish. Two fish actually broke the line because they were SO big, approximatly 28 inches, our little lines couldn't handle it. Uncle David even hooked one that was more than 36 inches long, and it broke the line above the bobber. We laughed as the bobber went around the whole pond, being dragged by the one that got away. We could see the bobber go around from one side of the pond to the other for over an hour =).

Uncle David and family headed home, and Grandma, Grandpa, Sean and I rounded out the evening with some wonderful peach cobbler and the Lord of the Rings.