Sulpher has never smelled so...

I suppose I have always assumed, perhaps without much thought, that the closer you are to the equator the warmer the weather ought to be. Clearly the void in my reasoning was elevation, for even in my travels to Central America I have encountered near freezing temperatures atop high mountains. And so to my bewildered surprise, we traveled from Glacier south to Yellowstone National Park seeking a summery setting only to be confronted with the coldest weather we have yet to encounter on the Beerandtrees excursion. Yellowstone, globally famous as it is, was without a doubt the most crowded park we have been to. Even in the winter of summer, hordes of humans heap into the vast and diverse park seeking their own tales of viewed vistas and photographed fauna, clogging up the roadways as dozens upon dozens of visitors pile out of their vehicles to take their “own” pictures of...


Yellowstone, so named for the hue of the rocks bordering the central river in the region (Yellowstone River)


Though seemingly at peace, this stag had about 50 lenses pointing at him from the roadway. Not quite the desolate wilderness the image conveys.


This was actually my second trip to Yellowstone within the last 5 months (I went in February), and I was quite keen to see what the park was like when the wintry white was replaced by green grassy meadows. When I went in February, it was with a guide, as the only way you could enter the park was in a large snow vehicle. Todd, the guide, mentioned that you could usually tell what animal was lurking beyond the road based simply off of the quantity of cars that were piled up to see it. A true statement, as the more rare animals were met with herds of hopefuls wishing to capture in an image their trip to the wild. The obvious unfortunateness of this is that when a worthy animal stumbles out of the forest, traffic gets backed up as though you were trying to purge New York City at 5 o’clock on a Friday.


As though the car traffic wasn't enough, bison occasionally clog up the roadways as well.

We arrived at the park towards the dying hours of the night as we had driven the height of the state of Montana earlier that day, and were relieved to discover that there were two empty sites left in our chosen campground, if not the entire park. We pitched camp, made our famous rice, beans, veggies and chicken and commandeered our neighbor’s campfire as to avoid having to build our own. Despite the cluster ____ that was our campground, beyond the 40’ RVs and 12 person tents we found a small trail that led off into the woods culminating at a small river, overlooking a pristine meadow. There in the meadow we sat and watched bison and elk graze, away from the noise of tourists and the sights of power lines. The second time we came to visit this spot we noticed a small group of elk, who unlike many of the other elk in the park seemed to fear us, seemed to treat us as though they had never seen people before. For me, the time we passed in this area was a reversion to the 17th century, and it was not hard to fool myself into believing that these animals were living, breathing and behaving as they were meant to, as though to them humans were the unknown. It felt so much more real then driving passed bison and elk on the roads, animals to whom people were an afterthought, not a threat. Then we pulled out our rifles and shot all of the elk (kidding, but how appropriate would that have been).


Empty in the moment, this is the meadow

The following day we ventured out seeking a hike that we decided was located in a different section of the park from our domicile. After a couple of hours of driving around, unable to locate the trail we stopped at one of the hotel/lodge places and asked a very courteous concierge where the trail was. After posing the question, she began to laugh not with us, but at us, as the trail was located about 2 miles from our campground, now about 50 miles away. Rationalizing our aimless drive as a chance to see the park we drove back towards the correct area of the park, now some 6 chapters further in the 5th installment of HP (Harry Potter). We located and completed a quiet hike through some meadows and mountains and returned to our tent for a final night in Yellowstone.


Notice the mule deer about 30 paces in front of me, he led the way for a few minutes, not all that concerned that we were tailing him.



The following morning we woke to some pleasant sun shining down on us, scraped the ice off the windshield, packed up and drove south through Yellowstone directly into Grand Teton NP. Though just below Yellowstone, the temperature as we stepped out of the car was warm enough to warrant a shirts off camp set up, a pleasant change from the freezing formula of the previous few days. GTNP, a further extension of the Continental divide, is really a mix of Yellowstone and Glacier, and having just been through both of those we spent our only day in the area driving to Grand Teton Brewing. Visually a barn, Grand Teton Brewing is the perfect place to spend a sunny day sipping suds and playing a variety of outdoor games, namely horseshoes, corn hole and Bacci ball (Sp?). If ever you find yourself in the area, they are rumored to be adding a few disc golf holes, completing a plethora of social beer friendly activities. Though our trip to GTB was now a couple of weeks ago, their double IPA was to quote Tyler, “Real good, with good citrus hops supported by a malt backbone and a nice slightly funky dry finish” At long last, after perhaps a month in the official Northwest, we continued south towards what could now be called the home stretch of Beerandtrees.