The Promised Land (in the summer)

Summer is coming at me a mile a minute, so I will keep this mini-report brief. BG hates making personal decisions, and so he hates presents, both giving them and receiving them. To relieve him of that stress and to save us both the embarrassment of eventually forgetting we decided that we would go on fun little trips for our anniversary each year. This year we wrangled tickets for Hamilton in SF before realizing that our anniversary coincided with the meeting of the National Association of Attorneys and Solicitors General (s?) in Big Sky, MT.  We figured that the OR SG had best attend this meeting where plans would be made, especially in the era of Trump, so we found some takers for our Hamilton tickets and headed to Montana!

The trip was brief-- 1.5 days in and around Big Sky and one day in Yellowstone-- but at the end I was checking to see if there were any vacancies at MSU! Montana is stunning and rural, and Yellowstone is like five great parks in one. High expectations tend to result in disappointment so I am going to try not to sell the area too hard, and instead I will tell you about the logistics and then JUST GO!  But first I’ll tell you just a little bit about why you should go.  

The area around Big Sky, MT is beautiful and has great trail running.  Big Sky is a ski town in the winter, and I really like these one-purpose towns in the off-season when they are quiet and peaceful with lots of cheap vacancies!  We did a few fun things in Big Sky that I recommend if you are in the neighborhood.

1. Trail run by Ousel Falls and on First Yellow Mule and Second Yellow Mule trails.

BG at Ousel Falls

2. Take the ski lift up and scramble around above treeline.  It would be possible to get to the top of Lone Peak, but we didn’t.

BG headed up the ridge

3. Hike Beehive Basin.

Us in Beehive Basin

4. Eat a frickin amazing meal at Bucks-T4 (a little expensive, but DANG!).
5. Run the Porcupine Creek Trail while singing and clapping your hands so you don't sneak up on any bears. If you had more time I think there is a real cool ~20-mile loop you could do here.

The sort of trail that dreams are made from

In Yellowstone there is so much to see it’s a little overwhelming.  Here are the essential parts of the park:

1. The wildlife.  Get there early, bring binoculars, and go to Hayden or Lamar Valleys. There are so many bison and elk that it is almost annoying.

2. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.  OK, Artist’s Point is touristy, but it’s so pretty!  Think of it like Tunnel View in Yosemite.

3. The thermal features. The earth is boiling, bubbling, and sulfurous. Pictures really don't do it justice-- you have to see it!

One of many boiling pits

4. The mountains.  The park contains parts of four different mountain ranges, and they are little used-- I think there’s a lot of opportunity for exploration.
5. The huge backcountry.  You can get further from a road than you can anywhere else in the lower 48.  I think that Yellowstone is a backpacker’s park and I am looking forward to getting back out there and exploring it.  One big downside is that the rangers really discouraged me from running due to the large grizzly population. Apparently grizzlies have a chase instinct and will run down runners? This does sound terrifying, but I wonder if it's true?

Which brings us to the logistics. I'm sure there are many ways to approach the park, but here is one easy way to do it:

There are direct flights to Bozeman from SFO, DEN, PDX, PHX, SLC, and SEA at least.  You pick up your rental car right outside the terminal and then it’s a 1.5 hour drive from Bozeman to the West Yellowstone entrance.  On this drive you will go through Big Sky, if you are inclined to sample any of its pleasures. It can be tough to get camping reservations in Yellowstone, but as you drive Hwy 191 from Bozeman to West Yellowstone you will pass ~10 different Forest Service campgrounds as well as driving through a lot of forest service land where you can camp wherever!  You might like having a home base outside the park anyway.

Get up early and get in the park early if you want to see anything that you can drive to, like a lot of the thermal features.  People are lazy, and the only parts of the park that were annoying were parking lots where you could drive up, walk less than a mile, and see a notable feature, and they really didn’t get busy until after 11AM.  I think that we are snobby and are turned off by the idea that Yellowstone is full of buses of tourists feeding Yogi Bear. There are a lot of people that visit the park but they are mostly very very lazy and easy to avoid, and once you get up early or hike more than a mile you are in a wild paradise. Wait, I wasn’t supposed to oversell it.  Yellowstone sucks, but you should visit anyway.  Maybe you’ll be able to meet me there once I move to Bozeman, which is also a terrible place.

PS. I wrote this before a friend of mine warned me that the winters here are no joke. She described it as, "the absolute nastiest of winter climates you will ever experience." And she is from Vermont and loves snow!  So I might need to hold off on buying a ranch just yet.