Blog

Craters of the moon

Wake up at 5:50AM!!!! It is always as hard, but we are rewarded with a nice sunrise. We are soon on the Red Road going North of Rexburg, towards Dubois. Pretty sand dunes on the side of the road.

A few miles later the road is closed. However there are some tire tracks on the side of the road, so we decide to go anyway. Wonderful views!!! We are a bit scared however to get caught by the police or some ranger, so we don’t have a lot of pictures… Adie doesn’t take pictures when she is scared… There are hundreds of strange birds on the road, like pheasants but with funny fan tails, maybe this is why the road is closed…

Craters of the Moon. We arrive there at around 11AM. It is an old volcanic area. Beautiful. It reminds us of La Reunion. There are even some lava tubes and caves, we explore two of them.

By the way spending time at high elevations is good for the fit!

We finish the pizza from yesterday evening, and take the road again, heading South to Nevada through the road 93. The part around Twins Falls is quite crowded and not really pleasant, except for the canyon at the town entrance.

Nevada! We will try to avoid getting a speed ticket this time… The landscape starts to change along the road, more and more desertic. We cross Great Basin, an immense upland, 300 miles by 100 miles.

After a chinese dinner in Ely, a small casino city, we head to a small campground (14$ fee for self registration at the entrance). The trail to the campground is quite pleasant, lot of black cows and veals in open range. It is dark when we arrive, so we quickly set up the car for the night. This time we manage to pull enough the front seat to allow us to be confortable.

Map of the day:

Grand Teton

Grrr! It was a cold night! We wake up under the snow, Adie had to add many layers during the night, pants, blanket, etc. Pierre was not so warm either as the sleepingbag was crushed between his feet and the door, and was not in the best conditions to retain the warmth. So, at around 5:30 we decide to go.

We plan to sleep in a motel in Yellowstone tonight.

After a few hours, we cross the I-80, and enter a no-man’s land around Eden and Farson. The landscape is beautiful, sometimes in the sun, sometimes in a thick fog.

We arrive at Gros Ventre Wilderness and Grand Teton Natl Park. These are pretty funny names for french speaking people… Big Belly and Great Teat… Anyway very nice canyons and rivers.

After eating in Jackson we head towards the heart of Grand Teton Park, just to learn that the road towards Yellowstone is closed…We decide however to have a look at the wildlife of Grand Teton. Bisons!!! Bears!!! Mama Bear with baby bears! A park ranger is there to ensure humans and bears don’t get mixed up…

We stop around the Jackson lake, fully iced.

We then decide to go sleeping in Rexburg, in a Super 8 motel. The road is nice but not amazing, common crop fields. After getting the room we have a pizza at Pizza Hut, and prepare the path for tomorrow. 9:30PM we are asleep!

Map of the day:

Western USA – Feb 2012

We wake up at 6:30 to take the airport shuttle from the hotel at 7AM. Good news there is a free breakfast in the hotel! Even some waffles to cook yourself… the dought is ready, just need to put it in the pan! So gooood!

Anyway… at 7:30AM we are at the car rental office, do all the paperwork and then the guy tells us to go choose our car between the SUVs, ‘keys are on the contact’ he tells us. Strange way to do it but it is all for the best, we can choose the best car! And that’s what we do…White Jeep Liberty, only 2000 miles, 4WD.

The first milestone is the Rockies Natl Park, North-West of Denver. We first need to exit Denver, highways, factories, etc… the usual big city…

First gas & coffee stop before entering the Rockies.

A few pictures of the road between Denver and the park.

Entering the park, we see a big sign flashing, ‘Road Closed’. Ahem, the road we planned to take to cross the park towards Granby is closed for the season. Not an issue, we will go South, then West, then North to Granby! But first it is time to make a hike in the park. We park near the Bear Lake, lot of snow around us, we are at 9500 feet!

We start towards the Nymph Lake, and then push to the Dream Lake, at almost 10,000 feet! Never been so high, and we feel it when hiking… The lakes are icy, we think this is the first time we ever saw icy lakes… On the way down we have a lot of snow falling. All in all, beautiful!

Choose your campfire!!!!

We meet some elks on the way out of the park.

Then the long road towards Yellowstone starts. We encounter some strange yellow rocks on the I-70 near Idaho Springs, then we cross the Berthoud Pass, at 11,315 feet! Our road leads us to great grassy plains with small canyons. We stop at Steamboats Spring to eat a burger at around 5:30PM.

We decide to try sleeping in the car. Bewteen Craig and Bragg we take the CO Rd 73, which is non paved, and we park the car after a few miles, in the middle of nowhere! The good news is that we can fold down the back seats to make kind of a bed using the rear seats and the trunk. The bad one is that Pierre is too long to be really confortable.

Map of the day: