As I travel home from my National Parks adventure of 2017, I can’t stop thinking about memories. I had such an amazing trip, but how can I possibly remember everything I did, saw, felt? I’m running through the days in my head, as I often do at the end of a trip, in efforts to try to cement the memories. Some moments stick out easily – when I finally arrived at the glacial lake midway through a strenuous 13-mile hike; when the car in front of us hit the moose; the endless colors of the hot springs – while others I fear I will lose; that I’ve already lost them. The euphoria I felt at walking into my own hotel room on the last night; the ankle pain that I ignored; navigating fire haze.
Of course, writing things down helps. Since I didn’t write during this trip, I’m going to share my experiences by topic, rather than chronologically, since our minds don’t naturally remember things in the order in which they happen.
I’ll start with an overview of the trip. The logistics, to ground the rest of these posts.
It was a 10-day trip, August 11-20. I spent the first half with my friend Thomas, who is originally from the DC area and who I know from old Ethical Culture conferences, and his friend Ryan. Thomas is currently finishing up an Americorps term in Butte and Bozeman. I’ve wanted to see Glacier National Park since I planned my 2014 cross-country train trip, but ultimately decided on a different route. So Thomas being in Montana was a great excuse to plan this trip.
I left on Friday morning from LaGuardia heading to Great Falls, Montana via Denver. Thomas and Ryan picked me up at the airport, and after a quick meal and grocery store run we drove about 3 hours to our hostel in East Glacier. We spent 3 nights in the hostel and 3 full days in the park. The first day was spent on the 13-mile hike I mentioned earlier, the second day we did two shorter hikes, broken up by a rainstorm, and on the final day we did part of another hike and ended our stay in the park by kayaking in a lake.
That evening we drove to Missoula, stopping to eat at Bigfork Lake, and arrived to Thomas’s friend John’s house, who let all three of us crash in his large living room. The next morning, after some brief car maintenance, we drove on to Butte, where after a lunch break I said goodbye to Thomas and Ryan and rented my own car to continue on alone.
My first solo stop was Yellowstone National Park, which is mostly in Wyoming but crosses into Montana, where I stayed at a hostel in West Yellowstone for two nights. That evening I drove through the park, making one stop to walk through my first hot springs. The second day and morning of the third day were a whirlwind of short walks, seeing colorful hot springs, canyons, and geysers including Old Faithful.
I left the park on Thursday afternoon and drove the short way to Grand Teton National Park, where I did some short hikes and scenic drives to see mountains, forests, and lakes. I stayed in a hostel in Teton Village for two nights. I left the park Saturday afternoon and commenced the 5-hour drive to Salt Lake City, where I stayed in an airport hotel overnight for my 5:30am flight home, again via Denver.
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It was very hard to write the last few paragraphs void of editorializing. I found myself deleting words like “beautiful” and “stunning.” But that’s what it all was. I left the trip feeling very fulfilled, full of happiness, peace, and calm – born out of adventure, nature, and the thrill of being someplace new everyday. I was successful in disconnecting from the world, and I think that helped a lot – I didn’t look at work emails, and I got my news from gossip in the hostels. I know I missed some major world news, but frankly was happy to skip the latest gut-wrenchingly bad thing and just focus on my experience. In the coming posts I’ll share some more stories, details, and best of all, pictures!
travels.of.tara 