A few years ago, my friend Anne went to Glacier and told me I would love it. She was right. There is something about forests, water, and snowy peaks all in one place that is breathtaking. I probably also said that Badlands and Yellowstone were breathtaking, but Glacier was even more breathtaking than them.

At Yellowstone, I had decided not to hike because I was terrified of running into a bear. That was fine for Yellowstone because there’s a lot you can see from lookout points that you can get to from your car, but it’s not the case for Glacier. I was determined to face my fear of bears. It didn’t help that as soon as I arrived, I heard that a man who had been missing at Glacier for a few days, was just found dead from bear wounds. I told myself that since I would only be doing popular hikes, I was less likely to run into a bear, because there would be more people around. If I got to the trailhead and there were no other cars there, I wouldn’t do the hike.

On Saturday, I did a short 2 mi hike to Rocky Point. I chose a short one to reduce the time I had to run into a bear and ease myself into hiking. I let my parents know what hike I was doing so that they could send someone to look for me if they didn’t hear from me by the end of the day. Armed with my bear spray, I started the hike. The whole walk to the top, I was either praying that I wouldn’t see a bear or clapping and singing the children’s book “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” to alert potential bears of my presence.

We’re going on a bear hunt.

We’re going to catch a big one.

What a beautiful day!

We’re not scared!

Oh-oh! Grass!

Long, wavy grass.

We can’t go over it.

We can’t go under it.

We’ll have to go through it.

We’re going on a bear hunt.

We’re going to catch a big one.

…

I kept making up the obstacles because I could only remember the grass. I made sure not to sing the part about getting to a dark cave, because that’s when the kids find the bear in the book and I did not want to find one.

As I ran into people on the hike, I asked them if they had seen a bear and they all said they hadn’t. That was a relief. The view at the top was beautiful! I was so glad I faced my fear and didn’t miss out on the view. Since there were no bears in sight, I sat there for a while, looking out at the lake and the mountains. At one point, a couple came up. They live in the area and told me about their favorite hikes that would be accessible at this time of year. They also told me where I could find harlequin ducks. They’re beautiful ducks that are only around this time of year. They told me not to tell anyone where they were so there wouldn’t be too many people there to scare them away. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to look for the ducks as I had to drive to a nearby city to get a tire rotation.

Since Saturday went well, I did a longer hike to Avalanche Lake on Sunday. There were a lot of people there, so I wasn’t very worried. There were a few deer on the trail and they couldn’t care less about the humans. One of them walked the trail ahead of me for a few seconds and others were eating a few feet away from where I was walking. The lake was beautiful! I’m going to say that things were beautiful a lot in this post. As I was sitting at the lake, I was thinking about how happy I felt in that moment. I thought back to the last time I wrote in a post that I was happy. It was when I was in Asheville and the Blue Ridge Mountains. I might need to move to the mountains.

As I was hiking back from the lake, I passed some people who said a mama bear and 2 cubs were up in the trees near the trail. Someone had seen the bears cross the trail earlier and said the mom was a bit aggressive, but she had shepherded the cubs across and up into the trees. When I got there, I could see something that looked black and furry way up in a tree, but I’m not sure if it was a bear or not. While I was looking for the bears in the trees, I met Calvin, a retired Floridian who is a on a 3 week road trip. I ended up walking the rest of the way back to the trailhead with him.

Monday was a rest day. I drove to Lake McDonald and sat there for a while with a book. Then I drove to the East side of the park. I had been staying in the West side, but my last 2 nights would be at the East side. My cabin was almost in the middle of nowhere. Nights were pitch black and very quiet. I could see so many stars! I thought about going out to see the stars, but then I realized that if I sat out there in the dark, I wouldn’t be able to see if I bear walked up to me. I decided to look at the stars from my window instead.

Yesterday, I hiked to Baring, St Mary, and Virginia Falls. At the parking lot of the visitor center, I met Beth. Her daughter lives in the area and is moving to a new apartment, so she’s here for a few days to help her move. Since she was also at the park alone, we decided to hike together. It was really fun having company for the whole hike and it made me forget about the bears. The waterfalls and the mountain views were amazing! Beth invited me to visit her in Lake Placid sometime. I might need to plan another road trip to visit the people I meet on this one.

Today, I drove to Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. On my way, I took a detour to drive through a part of Glacier I hadn’t gotten to see. It was rainy, windy, and foggy, but the views were still, you guessed it, beautiful.

When I got to the border, the officer asked me if I had any weapons in my car. When I said no, he said “So you’re not a real Texan?” What is it with these Canadian officers thinking that I’d be stupid enough to bring a weapon to Canada if I owned one? The officer at the border near Toronto said a similar thing in February.

The first few hours driving in Alberta were hard. It was all flat and boring, though seeing the Rockies far away in the distance gave me hope. The closer the mountains got, the more excited I felt. They started out on my left and then, all of a sudden, they were in front of me like a giant wall. I few minutes later, I was driving among them, dwarfed by their giant peaks and awed by their beauty. For the next few days, I’ll get to see them outside my window. That makes me very happy.

On Tuesday, I drove to Gardiner, Montana, which is just outside the Northeast entrance to Yellowstone National Park. When I arrived, I realized that one of the fender liners on my car had fallen off during my drive. It’s the one that’s right above the tire that I had to replace in Chicago. That section of my car might be cursed. There was so much wind during my drive that my mpg was awful and my mirror squeaked and drove me crazy most of the drive, so I’m guessing the liner was loose and the wind was a little too strong for it. I’ll have to deal with it once I’m done with the next few weeks of touring national parks and another short stint in Canada.

I had two days to see Yellowstone. The drive up the mountains into the park, is gorgeous. I kept wanting to look to the side instead of keeping my eyes on the road. 

My first stop was Mammoth Hot Springs. It was there that I learned that nature can be beautiful and smell like fart at the same time. The colors and shapes of the terraces and hot springs are amazing, but if you get too close, the smell of the sulphur can be a little too much. I had to cover my nose and mouth at one point so I wouldn’t gag.

After the hot springs, I explored the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Initially, I was planning to hike the canyon, but after learning that there had been a bear attack on Monday and two hikers had to be airlifted out, I got scared of hiking. I know that bear attacks are rare and I had bear spray with me, but it still scared me. I’ve never been close to a bear before and I don’t want my first time to be when I’m hiking alone. Instead, I drove along the canyon and stopped at a bunch of lookouts to see it from different perspectives. At one of the lookouts, I saw a yellow-bellied marmot.

When I had looked at the canyon from all angles, I drove to Lamar Valley, known for all the wildlife you can see there. The animals are most active at dawn and dusk and it was still a few hours before dusk, but I was already in the park, so I went anyway. There were bison everywhere. So many bison. Everywhere. They even caused traffic jams a few times when they started crossing the street, but then couldn’t make up their minds about whether they wanted to fully cross or stay in the middle of the road. I also saw a lonely antelope in the valley. 

When I was driving back to my cabin, I noticed a bunch of cars parked, so I stopped to see why everyone was there. They said that high up on the mountain there was a wolf den and that the wolves usually start coming out near dusk. People with powerful binoculars saw one come out. If I was looking at the place the wolf was, but I couldn’t make it out because human vision isn’t good enough for that, does that count as seeing a wolf? It was in my field of vision after all. I thought about staying a while in case I could see a wolf for real, but I was hungry and I chose food over wolves, so I drove home. On my way out of the park, I saw a few deer crossing the street.  

I was exhausted at the end of that day. The 3 days of driving to Yellowstone were a lot. I guess there’s something about sitting in one position for that long without doing much that is tiring. I was sore after the drive too. Luckily, I don’t have to drive 3 days in a row for the rest of my road trip. That first day in Yellowstone, I drove 6 hours because the park is so big. So I basically drove all day for 4 days in a row. I decided to take the next day easy.

I stayed at my cabin on Thursday morning and drove to the park after lunch. On my drive in, I saw an elk, but there was no place to pull over, so I couldn’t take a picture of it. I also saw a big scary black bird. My first stop was Grand Prismatic Spring. It was really cool to see and definitely my favorite spring in the park, at least out of the ones I saw. There are many springs that I didn’t get to see.

Then, I went to see Old Faithful, a geyser that erupts about every 90 minutes. I got really lucky because it erupted 5 minutes after I arrived. After it was done, I went into the visitor center that’s nearby and happened to be there when they announced that Beehive, a geyser that only erupts once a day, would erupt in 15-20 minutes. I headed straight there, which was a good thing because it erupted earlier than expected, 10 minutes later. Beehive was more impressive than Old Faithful because the eruption was taller and lasted longer. The steam coming out of it even formed a rainbow over the river that’s next to the geyser.

After that, I drove back to my cabin and again saw a lot of people parked on the side of the road, so I stopped too. At Yellowstone, you should always stop if there are many cars parked. You are guaranteed to see cool animals. This time, there were 3 grizzly bears up on a hill on the other side of the river. I watched them for a while before heading home.

Yesterday morning, as I was packing my car, I saw an elk on the street. I also met Lauren, who was staying at the same cabins I was. She’s an an Irish American woman living in Portugal and she loves Ecuador. She studied there in the 80s and has been back multiple times, mostly to the Galapagos Islands. I told her I’m in the process of getting Portuguese citizenship and she gave me her number so I can ask her any questions I have about Portugal. Then we both went our separate ways. I drove to Glacier National Park, where I’ll be for the next few days.

As the bartender at Nautical suggested, I drove through Badlands National Park on my way to Keystone. When I visit national parks, I buy a pin and a magnet. In order for a park to count as “visited”, I have to do at least one hike. That’s why I don’t have a pin or magnet for the Smoky Mountains, even though the picture on the home page of this blog was taken there. Since I didn’t have much time, I found the shortest “hike”, which was a 5 minute walk on a boardwalk. Technically, that’s not a hike, but I make the rules and I’m able to bend them as I wish.

After my extremely difficult and exhausting hike, I stopped at a bunch of lookout points throughout the park. The views from all the lookout points were so similar but at the same time so different. I kept looking at the same types of rocks with the same colors, but their shapes, sizes, and arrangements all made for very different breathtaking views at each of my stops. Eventually, I had to convince myself to stop stopping at every lookout point or I’d never make it to Keystone.

I arrived in Keystone at around 6:30 pm. I asked for dinner recommendations at my hotel and they told me that all restaurants in the town were already closed. I was very surprised, but it’s a tiny tourist town and it’s currently the off-season, so it sort of makes sense. But 6:30 pm is still way too early to close, in my opinion. 7 or 8 pm would be a little more reasonable, but no one asked me what I think.

The closest open restaurant was 30 minutes away in Rapid City, so I went to Mt Rushmore first, since it was 5 minutes from my hotel. My original plan was to walk the 0.6 mi trail there, but I was hungry and the altitude had me huffing and puffing just from going up a few stairs, so I quickly looked at the carvings and went to find dinner and get some sleep.

That’s it for my quick drive through South Dakota. Next stop, Yellowstone National Park.

While driving to Asheville today, I stopped at Congaree National Park. I did a hike and had lunch there. It was a great way to break up my drive. Congaree has the largest intact expanse of old-growth floodplain forest in the southeastern US. Since it’s on a floodplain, the forest is constantly changing because of the water. It’s currently not flooded, but I could see areas where the roots of the trees were still underwater. When it floods, the water is so high, that even parts of the boardwalk I walked on today are underwater!

The walk was nice, but it’s definitely not one of the most beautiful national parks in the country. If I ever go back, I’d love to see the park from a kayak to see it from a different perspective.