TEAM RUFF: Daddy/Daughter 2010 (part 4)

After the hike from String Lake we decide that its time for showers. Today is the 5th day in the woods so maybe it's time. We head over to Colter Village. Showers are $3.75 each...geez. At least they're clean.

When we get out of there it's about lunch time. We decide to park at the dam by Jackson Lake and hike the shoreline trail south until we find a good spot for lunch. The girls would like to get in the water here too. So we go in a little ways and find a nice spot where you get get down to the water with only a little climbing. The girls get busy in the lake while I make lunch. This is one of the great things about camping/hiking with them, they want to do stuff I would never consider. Like going into a freezing lake.

Emmy and Jori looking for cool rocks in Jackson Lake

During lunch, while we are sitting looking at the mountains, Jori says "Dad, those mountains are awesome, they are sooo Tetony"
Ya they are.

We had back to camp in the early afternoon. We have decided that we have been remiss in spending time by the fire and just enjoying camping. It has been more work than usual to camp. The bear rules require that everything that has a smell has to be put away whenever you're away from it. So we get up in the morning and take out the food box and cooler, take out the stove and put it together, make breakfast and eat and then after we do dishes, everything has to be put away again. The same goes for dinner time. Kind of a pain in the butt. We have also stayed out late looking for animals more than we usually do. All this has led to a shortage of fire gazing and that is unacceptable. As this is where we generally solve the world's problems.

So we formulate a plan. I'm going to do the mid-trip deep cleaning and reorganization of truck and gear. The girls are going to hang out in camp and do whatever they want. At this point it appears that they each have a sketchbook in hand and are designing dresses. I guess we can't be mountain men all the time. Then we are going to have an early dinner, we have decided that the canned chicken chow mien is great camp food. You know that stuff with the big can and the little can attached to the top? Add two bags of boil-in-the-bag rice and we're rockin. Once dinner is put away we are going for a quick safari then back to camp for a fire.

Here's our camp at Signal Mountain.

Signal Mountain Campground site 67

While I'm making dinner, a couple of bikers move into the campsite just behind us. They were probably 20 feet behind the picnic table in the picture above. Hmm. These guys are some grizzled, hard core looking bikers...like me, but with better mustaches. Any way, Em notices that one of the guys, I think his name was Ax, was having difficulty getting a tent stake in the ground. Before I know it, she has grabbed our hatchet and gone next door to ask if she can help this guy get his tent staked. Uh-oh.

I thought that they might eat her.

Apparently all was well, she returned a minute later and reported that they were "sweet" and had figured it out on their own. I was proud of her and kind of embarrassed of myself. I don't think I would have gone over there.

We have dinner and head back to the Oxbend Bow area. We found a gravel road that goes back aways that I had never noticed before and gets you away from the parking lot. The road runs along the river and ends at a bend in the river which affords good view in both directions. There are only about five people hanging out here.

We watch for a while and of course, don't see any moose. A women comes over to show us where a black bear came out of the woods last night to go for a swim. So we hang out here for a little bit. We don't see any bears, but we do see two bald eagles glide down stream about 20 feet up. Very impressive. Then, as they pass by us and continue downstream an osprey comes out of the woods at about a gazillion miles an hour and attacks the eagles. I assume these eagles passed a little too close to the osprey nest and mama was POed. She chased them down the river until they perched in a dead pine tree. She told them off loudly and then she headed back.

We get back to camp a little before dark for a change and get a good fire going, make an improvised version of s'mores (Chips Ahoy with marshmallow in between) and get down to some serious talk. There is the appropriate amount of skygazing (everyone got to see a shooting star), and then to bed.

One night every trip the girls insist on story night once we are in our bags for the night and tonight was that night. The good news is that it's always the same story so I don't have to try to invent anything. They want to hear the story of my proposal to Amy when we went out to Colorado in '96.
They are very particular. They want the story to begin when I went to Grammy and Pumpa to ask permission, and then has to include the whole trip we took. They have heard this story every time we camp, and they remind me if I miss a part-they know it as well as me. Fun.

In the morning we make oat meal, hot chocolate and another fire. When we got up it was 28*. We take our time getting camp down, today is moving day. We are heading north from Grand Teton to Glacier National Park. It's a shade over 600 miles so we'll take our time and see how much of it we feel like doing today. We get camp all cleaned up and are heading to Jackson by 9:45

We go over the Teton Pass and go through the Swan Valley. We stop in Idaho Falls for lunch. It's getting hot. Kind of a shame that the air conditioner bonked out in Billings a week ago. When I check later on I learn that the high temp for this area today was 102* No wonder.

We drive until late afternoon when a really spectacular thunderstorm hits us near Butte. We are getting blown all over the highway and it is stifling with the windows rolled up. We stop in Butte and decide to have dinner at a Perkins. The power in the restaurant goes out and comes back on three times while we're in there. Then the storm goes bashing off to the east and the sun comes out. And the temps dropped about 15* Good time to boogie on.

The drive from Butte to Great Falls is through intermittent rain and smoke from a forest fire. The interstate here is very curvy and with a lot of elevation changes. It would be alot of fun in a sports car. Not so much in an aged Durango with bad tires and a luggage carrier on top.

We make it to Great Falls so we only leave about 2 hours of driving for the morning to get to the park. Good plan.

In the morning we drive through Browning on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and then up into the park. As we go through the St. Mary entrance and head for the visitor's center we notice the wind, crazy wind. Like a lot of miles per hour. There are white caps on St. Mary Lake.

St. Mary entrance

White caps on St Mary Lake near Sun Point

It is beautiful though. We stop at the visitor center and get our books stamped. The is the centennial of the park so they have a special stamp which is kind of neat. After talking with a ranger, we decide to stay at the Rising Sun campground near St. Mary. One of the nice things is that it's in a forest and pretty protected from this wind. There is also a great view of the mountains right from our tent.

Rising Sun Campground site 56

We head out on Going to the Sun Road in search of a hike or two that would be in a canyon to avoid the wind. Out of the wind is nice, sunny and about 55*

Our first stop is the Sunrift Gorge. This isn't a big hike, but there's some nice scenery here.