Glacier National Park, MT | Part 4 (plus videos!)

This is our final post on Glacier, basically just to show a couple quick videos and for us to write down some of the memories that didn't fit into the other posts.

We found Glacier to be the perfect-sized National Park - a lot to do and see, but in a manageable, not overwhelming way. Since we stayed at the Park for a few days, we were able to recognize people from a trail or the lodge as we were out adventuring through the park or on another trial. It was a nice sort of familiarity in the scope of our fast-paced road trip that was anything but familiar.

As I mentioned in Part 1, we stayed at Glacier longer than we had planned. It was so nice (and much needed) to stay put for a few days. We camped at Sprague Creek Camprgound, down the road from the Lake McDonald Lodge, and would sometimes have deer visitors make their way through the site. It was fun to really set up camp and enjoy it... cooking meals on the campfire, and making friends with our camping neighbors. We even met a duo from New England that were on a road trip of their own and we had them over to our campsite for fire-roasted kale chips, beers, and good conversation.

We would go hang out at Lake McDonald Lodge once a day or so, getting provisions from the general store, or just enjoying the back porch of the lodge, with its perfect lake views. One evening there was even a wedding right on a piece of land that jolts out into the lake, talk about a gorgeous wedding location (you can see the chairs set up in the photo below). We were happy to find a Sunday chapel service at the lodge on our last night. It's pretty awe-inspiring to come into a worship service when you're already feeling grateful and blessed by having spent the prior few days amongst such beauty. We definitely sang a little louder and prayed much more thankfully that evening.

On that last night, we had a mostly miserable but very dry (thanks to Taras putting up extra tarp coverage over the tent) night's sleep as it stormed through the night. Come morning, we had the pleasure of packing up camp in the rain, while all the gear was soaked and muddy. Since we had no patience to try and cook a campfire breakfast, we decided to stop for grub at Apgar Village, on the way out of the Park. It was only then, once we were warm and dry inside the restaurant, that I realized it'd been a solid five days since we showered and, wow, what was I doing in public?! That was probably the longest stretch of non-showering on the trip so, yeah, we stayed in a hotel later that night!

-Amanda

Campfire kale chips are pretty fantastic:

Our normal campfire dinner - grilled vegetables and stewed lentils:

The most beautiful wedding location:

On that last night, between rain showers, this double rainbow showed its face:

Taras making a new friend:


From our hike to Avalanche Lake:


The mountain goats:
 
Find more Glacier posts here.

Find more Montana posts here.

Glacier National Park on Dwellable

Thanks for reading! Find more of us here: all the things blog, facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest, and on the new vine app for the iPhone (search for: amanda bouzakine).

Hot Springs, MT (plus a video!)

 

After leaving the Up Up Lookout fire tower, we drove to Hot Springs, MT. The name of the town drew us in, and we thoroughly enjoyed the drive there. As I mentioned before, Montana is one of our favorite states because of all the natural beauty, and we saw tons of wilderness along this drive. The people were pleasant too - we bumped into an older traveling couple at a visitor center, and ended up walking away with a gift of homemade salted & roasted sunflower seeds!

Onto the hot springs - we've soaked in natural springs in Costa Rica and were excited to repeat the experience... and we quickly learned that not all hot springs are created equal. We expected a set of interconnected pools, surrounded by beautiful greenery, and maybe with an adjacent bar (based on our Costa Rican experience). What we got this time was a typical cement pool - not quite a tropical paradise! Even though the ambiance left a bit to be desired, we did had a good time in the pool and hot tub and even met a Russian family who often go there to vacation from 3 hrs away.

It was really cool, though, to stay at Symes Hotel, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. The hotel has a cult following of locals and visitors from afar who have been coming for decades to soak in the healing mineral waters. The hotel is one of the last remaining resort hotels in the area (read more about the history here) and has a definitive hippie vibe - just see our pictures below.

On our drive over we popped into another hot springs hotel just to get some lunch (Yelp led us there for good food), and we were pleasantly surprised to find a whole flock of humming birds feeding outside. Apparently they always come out here in the summer and the staff even put up a bunch of sugar-water bird feeders for them (see the video at the bottom of the post).

-Taras

See more Montana posts here.

Thanks for reading! Find more of us here: all the things blog, facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest, and on the new vine app for the iPhone (search for: amanda bouzakine).

Up Up Lookout, MT (plus a video!)

Montana ended up in the top list of our favorite states. We had high expectations based on recommendations from a friend who goes on MAN-cations to MAN-tana. We fell in love with the vast, untouched, and pristine wilderness, and our first stop in the state definitely set the stage for the rest of our time in Montana.

Gearing up for our six month adventure, we learned that the US Forest Service rents out unused Fire Towers to visitors. We also learned that these fire towers are very popular and typically sell out at the beginning of the season for the entire summer. We were shocked and thrilled to find out that a fire tower called Up Up Lookout in Montana's Lolo National Forrest was available for one night in-between other reservations, and that one night matched up perfectly with our arrival to Montana.

Let's set the stage here: to get to Up Up Lookout, we had to drive 14 miles on a narrow, twisty, unpaved forest road - I think it took us almost an hour. At one point, we had to unlock a gate with a combination lock, drive through, and lock up behind us. This is true wilderness. Of course, no cell reception for miles. The 40-foot tower was built on a hilltop (elevation 5,969 ft) allowing for incredible 360-degree views. In the olden days, firemen would use this tower to identify the locations of forest fires and coordinate containment efforts. Modern technology leaves these types of fire towers almost permanently vacant, and travelers like ourselves take advantage of the very unique lodging opportunities.

We arrived a bit before sunset and had time to lug our gear and supplies up to the tower, cook a simple dinner, and enjoy a beer while dangling our feet over the balcony's edge and taking in the views. It was the last week of June and the sun didn't set until after 10:30 - so awesome! We had some deer and elk come visit our house, and heard rumbling in the bushes later from an unidentified beast. Bear warnings were all over the tower, so we were a bit anxious.

A bit more about the tower - it was retrofitted with a gas line running from the tanks downstairs all the way up to the top. We had a gas heater and two gas lanterns to keep comfortable. In the center of the tower, there was a gadget used to locate and pinpoint locations of fires visible from the tower. There were instructions not to mess with the equipment, which is still used in rare emergencies by the Forest Rangers. If such an emergency were to occur, the Rangers would take over the tower and would ask the occupants to leave. The only bathroom was an outhouse on the ground and about 50 yards away from the tower. Needless to say, there was no way we'd be climbing up and down the stairs and wading through the woods in the middle of the night. That's where a collapsible camping bucket comes in handy. Enough said. Last, I'll mention the gusty winds overnight rattling the windows and swaying the tower side to side. Makes for a VERY restless night of barely staying asleep. But the cool-factor was totally worth it!

One of the coolest things in the tower was a visitor book. Amanda called it a "paper blog." Tons of people sleeping here for the last few years would write notes, stories, share their thoughts and feelings, etc. We read the whole thing cover to cover. Some entries were funny (9-year old's recap of the visit) and others were hard to decipher (stoner weekend in the tower). People wrote about hiking to pick huckleberries nearby for breakfast and of bears trying to climb up the tower - we didn't have the pleasure of either experience. And almost everyone had a story to tell about the packrat... I guess you'll have to go stay at Up Up to understand this one for yourself.

Tip: if you ever sleep over in a tower, keep your car keys on you while making trips up and down. I totally ran all the way down the stairs and to the car before I realized the keys are on the kitchen table, 40-feet up. I'm not the only fool to do this, as evident from the poetry in the visitor book (see below).

-Taras

PS - check out the video at the end of the post for a little tour of the fire tower and to see the panoramic views!

See other camping posts here and read about more adventures here. 

Thanks for reading! Find more of us here: all the things blog, facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest, and on the new vine app for the iPhone (search for: amanda bouzakine).

Antelope Island, UT

Antelope Island is near Salt Lake City and a friend told us that he'd been there before and had an epic time, swimming on the beaches and camping. We trust this guy and his travel suggestions so we made sure to carve out a night to camp here. Now, Savage, if you're reading this, we're just going to assume you went a different time of year? Or maybe 2012 was an off time for this place of paradise? I don't know...

You may look at these pictures and think, "wow, what a beautiful place!" And, while that is true, these pictures are also a little deceiving. Here's how it was for us:

We got to the island right as the sun was setting and it was gorgeous. I mean, did you see those photos up there? It was beautiful.  And the birds. There were so many of them! But then there was this awful smell... I guess from the mud that had formed on the shoreline from the low water levels? Ick.

We got to our campsite and we were racing against the sun to get our tent up. And, apparently, we were also racing against strong gusts of wind that kept whipping away all our supplies. And then there were these little gnat-like bugs that attached themselves to everything we took out of the car. We gathered rocks to keep our stuff from flying away, but there was nothing we could do about the bugs. I hardly slept that night, between the loud, strong winds and feeling like bugs were crawling all over me. I get goose bumps just thinking about it.

We were ready to get out of there by morning, and as we were packing up camp we were joined by a buffalo friend. He walked right into our campsite and found a giant rock where he proceeded to scratch his side for... 10 minutes? That was cool, once we got over the initial concern that we would scare him and he would attack us, haha! (Ed. note: this is one of my favorite moments from the whole trip! And Amanda's "Uhm... there is a BUFFALO in our campsite!" remark that morning was just priceless. -Taras) I still want to know how the buffalo got on the island... anyone?? Then we saw some jackrabbits on our drive off the island - those are some creepy-looking dudes!

Before we left we gave an honest effort at going for a swim in Salt Lake but, seriously, the smell and bugs on the shoreline were just too bad.

So, yeah, the beautiful sunset and close encounters with wildlife were awesome, but I hope if we were ever to go back there, the winds, insects, and smells would be kinder to us.

Have you ever been to Antelope Island? Did we just have an off experience?

-Amanda

See other Utah posts here.

Thanks for reading! Find more of us here: all the things blog, facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest, and on the new vine app for the iPhone (search for: amanda bouzakine).