Adventures and Rocks: Wyoming Roadtrip

Distance: ~4000 km (total)

Crew: Bennett

Dates: Thursday June 28 - Sunday July 8, 2018

Itinerary:
Day 1: Calgary to Fort MacLeod, AB
Day 2: Fort MacLeod to Jackson, WY
Day 3: Hike in Grand Teton National Park, drive to Pinedale, WY

Day 4-5: Cirque of the Towers (backpacking trip), back to Jackson WY on Day 5

Day 6: Hike Blacktail Butte, drive to Dubois (cue weird Westy noises), drive to Lander

Day 7: 4th of July in Lander

Day 8: Riverton to fix Wesy & back to Lander to drive up Sinks Canyon, hike to Popo Agie Natural Water Slide, drive to Thermopolis

Day 9: Thermopolis to Tensleep, hike in Cloud Peak Wilderness to waterfall, drive to Billings, MT

Day 10: Billings to Great Falls, MT

Day 11: Great Falls to Calgary

Bennett and I took the Westy out for its first official road trip! It had been on a few smaller outings previously but this is the first time we really tested living in it & driving it for 1000s of kms. Needless to say we had an absolutely amazing time. We went to Bennett's dad's for dinner on the Thursday and left directly from there, sleeping at a truck stop at Fort MacLeod. Exactly how we pictured starting off our roady in the Westy.. It was fine and we woke up early to keep heading south and cross the border into the States. Funny how the border guys never cease to amaze you with their kindhearted wit...

We decided to drive all the way to Jackson, stopping in a few towns along the way - Choteau for a nice coffee (and troubleshooting of our inverter - WE ARE NOW SELF-PROCLAIMED ELECTRICIANS!!), Helena for an amazing Cajun meal at Cafe Zydeco, somewhere in Idaho for a propane top-up then a Westy pop-up dinner... Finally around 10:30PM (getting dark already?? Obviously this isn't Canada anymore!) we were ready to go over the pass into Wyoming & into Jackson. We decided to pull over at a treed trailhead and park to sleep. It was a gem of a find and we got up the next day, cooked breakfast, made coffee, played crib.... this became our road trip morning routine... so relaxing!!

We then drove through Jackson and into Grand Teton National Park to hike up to Surprise & Amphitheatre Lake. We really wanted to do the Death Canyon Shelf hike (and Static Peak Divide + Peak), but heard from many people that there was a lot of snow up there ... understandably so, I guess, as it was still June and 3000+m high. We decided that we could no longer camp on the Shelf and debated making a day-hike out of it. We added up how long it would be and it came to a grand total of 43km! So, possible. But.... we're on vacation. Would that actually be enjoyable? We decided to ponder it over a night in the backcountry so we drove towards Pinedale & Boulder to do Cirque of the Towers after finishing the hike in the Tetons.

After finish the Cirque, we drove back to Jackson, nixing our plans to do the Death Canyon Shelf (we WILL be back!!!) due to the snow that was still lingering and would make post-holing a nightmare.. not something you want or need slowing you down on a 42km day-hike.... so to enjoy a view of the Tetons one last time we hiked up Blacktail Butte, a small well... butte across from the Tetons.

We continued North to head towards the Badlands of Wyoming and hike to Ross Lake & Whiskey Mountain, which is into the mountains just past Dubois, WY. Unfortunately, after gassing up in Dubois, our Westy started sounding very strange and even though we assumed it was just the muffler/exhaust, we wanted to get it checked out (we are always on the safe side with this thing). We decided to skip Ross Lake & Whiskey Mountain & drove straight to Lander - where there is free camping in the City Park, PLUS we were able to be in a town for the 4th of July - which turned out being an awesome choice!

Let me tell you about Lander. The best choice of our entire roadtrip was going to this town. While we were sitting in Calcutta Cricket Club (a bar in Calgary), we chatted with a couple from Colorado who told us we HAD to go to Lander when we were in Wyoming. As we were driving towards Lander from Dubois, we came to a fork in the road - Riverton or Lander? Both had auto shops... but because of that couple's suggestion we picked Lander. We went out to a patio at the brewery that had live music and met a couple guys who invited us to their parade tailgate the next day & their barbecue. The next day was open-container in the whole town and free reign on fireworks as well - so needless to say we had a hell of a day with our new friends! It was insane listening to the fireworks going off for 12 hours straight - sounded like artillery...

Long story short, we also found out that we had a mouse while we were in Lander which we spent a few days getting rid of....

Anyways, the next day we fixed our Westy in Riverton (only $40 USD for some welding), we decided that we just couldn't miss the chance to swim in the much-talked-up swimming spot, and drove back to Lander to enjoy a hike&swim in the sun. After the hike, we decided to head to Tensleep & Cloud Peak Wilderness. We ended up back in Riverton for some delicious BBQ from a family-run restaurant. We kept driving after dinner and slept at a truck-stop in Thermopolis, leaving for Cloud Peak Wilderness the next morning.

We hiked to a waterfall in the Cloud Peak Wilderness and stopped at the Ten Sleep brewery afterwards for a thirst-quenching beer. It was in such a cool location surrounded by red rocks (badlands), and was actually.. far... far.... too hot for us to bear. So we hopped in the Westy and started our drive north. It was so hot and we have no A/C in the Westy.. opening the window, the wind (at 100kmph) was HOTTER than inside the vehicle... needless to say the poor Canadians bought a bag of ice at the next gas station and stood in the beer cooler for 15 minutes before continuing on.... to Billings, MT. We drove to Great Falls the next day, stopping at 2Basset (!!!) brewery along the way, then drove the remainder of the road to Calgary on Sunday. Just in time for Sarah & Praveen's engagement party!