Grand Teton National Park

Coulter Bay

On a wet Thursday morning we headed south for the short drive to Grand Teton NP. There is a considerable drop in elevation on the drive and to our surprise all of a sudden autumn was in full swing. We pulled into the Colter Bay campground and found a spot, thankfully the campgrounds in Grand Teton rarely fill up, unlike it’s northern NP neighbor That afternoon the rain eased enough to allow a walk around the Lakeshore Trail. We enjoyed the stunning autumn colours and ever changing views of the Teton Range of mountains.

Yellowstone National Park

Our first day in Yellowstone was spent visiting the Old Faithful geyser area. We quickly realised that visiting YNP would involve considerable amounts of driving, particularly as two key roads were closed (a joke in Glacier NP is that there are two seasons, winter and

construction) and many campgrounds were shutting, due to shut or were full. The parking lot at Old Faithful is huge, the day we visited was busy enough, we wondered how busy it is in peak season.

West Yellowstone - Grizzly Bear and Wolf Discovery Centre

This post was originally going to be included in our Yellowstone post (soon to be posted) but as we were going through the photos we realised there was no way we could put the two together.

We booked an RV Park in West Yellowstone after spending one day in Yellowstone National Park, as we wanted to see the Grizzly Bear and Wolf Discovery Center which had been recommended to us by a number of people. The RV Park was located between an Imax theatre and the Discovery Centre (less than 100m to either) it only lacked a hot tub and cable TV to make it nirvana for Symi.

The Cubbyhouse Tree

Symi wrote this a long time ago - just found it in draft - not sure why but better post late than never!

This week my family and I went for a walk to Fern Canyon, through the redwoods in the Redwoods National Park. The coastal redwoods can grow up to 350ft or more. On the walk I found a cubbyhouse tree.

Mum and me climbing into the cubby house tree

Me inside the cubby house tree

Finally a food update

I think I have come to the conclusion I will not be a food blogger. I seem to be more interested in cooking and eating it than remembering to photograph and blog about it.  Take for instance this post. I started it weeks ago when we were still in Canada and have only just got around to completing it.

Since coming to Canada we have definitely been buying less steak to cook on the bbq – it along with everything else is expensive. We are definitely missing the cheap asparagus which had become a regular feature on the BBQ. Cheap summer corn is still in abundance so we are enjoying that instead. Yesterday we went to a farmers market in Rossland. I helped a lady wheel her baguettes across the road for the market and was given a free one which was nice. There was heaps of lovely produce and we spent a pleasant time wandering around tasting and shopping.

Symi at the Dog Show

In Bozeman while Dad was out mountain biking with Corey, Mum and I went to a dog show. We were invited by Jeannie who is the wife of Corey. 

Bozeman: Hidden Gem

Bozeman RV camping with shuttle vehicle. Thanks Corey!

We had never heard of Bozeman before I ran into Corey Biggers in Oakridge, Oregon. We exchanged a few photos we took on the Alpine Trail and he raved about some alpine riding in a place called Lionhead.

Glacier National Park: Part 2

Warning – get your coffee now – this is a long post. We loved Glacier NP. It was extremely hard to narrow down the photos to choose.

On a wet Thursday morning we left Whitefish and drove over the continental divide to the Two medicine area of Glacier National Park. We arrived and easily secured a campsite in the wet conditions. It was also cold, the temperature did not go above 10ᵒC for the next two days! The campsite was next to a beautiful lake and mountains, unfortunately the mountain were to stay behind the clouds. After the usual school work, we set off on a short walk to Appistoki Falls. It was nice to get out of the RV and stretch the legs.

Either get wet or cabin fever!

Next morning the weather had not really changed, but we set off again on a ranger led walk to Aster Falls then onto Aster Park. We shouldn’t have worried no one would turn up, we ended up having a group of over

Bear claw marks on the tree

ten. It’s not just the Wallers’ who walk in the rain!

Map

We are feeling quite pleased today as we have finally managed sort a basic map of our travels to put on the blog, We used a site called Blogabond. We were not able to find all the towns we visited when plotting the map so we have often just used places nearby. There are very few national parks on their list. You can zoom in and out on the map.

Just look right and there it is!

Update: this might not work so well on mobile devices - let us know!

Alpine Slide

Yesterday Mum and I went on an alpine slide at Big Mountain in Montana. We had been working hard doing school work while dad was zipping down the trails on his mountain bike. We decided to reward ourselves with some fun.

After we bought tickets we got in the queue for the slide, which has sleds and is like a luge track. We sat on the sleds and waited at the top with anticipation. I had that funny feeling where you are scared but exited at the same time.

Glacier National Park



Glacier National Park is large and crosses the border into Canada. The Continental Divide runs through the park, as does the Hudson Bay Divide. You could hike to Triple Divide Peak and throw water on the top and it would flow north, west and south. Those with small vehicles are able to drive over the Continental Divide in the park on the spectacular Going to the Sun Road (GTTSR). Those with 29ft RVs have to go around.

We decided to start on the West Glacier side of the park. As we were a little unsure about being able to get a campsite late in the day we spent the night at Whitefish where we were able to get provisions and charge up our electrical items. We left early in the morning and pulled into the Apgar campground before 8am the next morning to a choice of a few campsites. Our neighbours Pat and Alex, who are retired and have put what they own into storage and are travelling around seeing this great country with a tent, very nicely gave us the more level site out of the two they were considering.

Border Crossings and Rollercoasters

RV camping with Rollercoaster view! Aftershock in background.

Leaving Rossland we headed east then south towards the quiet border crossing near the Washington/Idaho borders. We were keen to be granted another 6 month visa so made sure we ate all our food so we did not have any prohibited items. We had no issues with stocking up once we hit the USA as the costs would be so much lower.