Hiking the USA: July 2007

Very remote the majority of the park beyond highway 20 is wilderness and only accessible by hiking. The highway itself isn't in the national park as it is too developed including three hydroelectric dams which helps power Seattle, so the road area is a National Recreation area, and the park begins to the North and South. This means that there is no entrance station that you find in all other parks. The park itself boosts more glaciers then Glacier NP and is not busy at all, the lakes too are even more turquoise blue.

After all the go of Glacier we decided to rest here and didn't do much, only here for 3 nights too so time was limited. The 13 hour drive from Glacier took a lot out of us too, very long!

There is a great visitor centre here and the North Cascades Learning Centre is really worth a visit and also boosts so cool programs if you book in advance. The building is really cool and has internet access in the Library too which they allowed us to use for a few minutes.

we also went to the Global Warming ranger talk which was the most disappointing ranger programme we went to of the trip. The ranger was obviously conscience that he didn't want to offend anyone or the administration who still think it's a myth, and didn't communicate global warming as fact more as a theory!

Labels: North Cascades National Park

Hello all, found some wifi at last. So our week at Glacier is almost over and it is by far the most spectacular park we have visited. It has also been extremely hot here, it won't be cold Glacier for much longer. Temp today is 36c, and Yellowstone was even hotter, but a swim in the lakes here cools you off quickly.

We popped up to Canada during the week to do a hike called the International Peace Hike which starts in the Canadian side of the park and ends in the US side, we then got a boat back across the lake, a 8.7 mile hike.

We have also been up to see hidden lake which was gorgeous, very 'sound of music', and lots of mountain goats too.

Onto Washington state next, should be cooler over there, we hope can't take much more of this heat. Although I hear that it's been raining for 50 or so days solid at home.

Will post some new photos up today too.

Labels: Glacier National Park

No Internet access at the parks, so stopped outside a Best Western hotel for some WiFi to give quick update. Great places lots to see. Will upload some photos when we get a chance.

Labels: Yellowstone National Park

Grand Teton was amazing, the mountain peaks just appear as you drive into the park and they are amazing to see. You enter the park via the town of Jackson, the same as the Johny Cash song. A really nice town with great art galleries, antique stores and restaurants, there is also wifi dotted about the town which is extremely handy, visit the Harddrive Cafe for free wifi and Internet kiosks.

The heat was unreal when we were there in the mid 30s so we decided to relax and not stress ourselves too much so we passed the few days by swimming in Jackson Lake. We also visited Teton Village which is more of a Winter skiing town but we got to ride the Bridger Gondola up to Bridger Bar & Restaurant where Lou got some very nice cocktails, but I was driving.

Onto Yellowstone, Grand Teteon is to it's very south.

Labels: Grand Teton National Park

Oh what fun it is to ride on the I80 interstate, 740miles (1,200km) in one day, shared between us every 200miles or so, a long day, made longer by an accident east of Elko that held us up for over an hour, but we got to Salt Lake City after all, late at night.

It's hot here today, 37c or "triple digits" as they say on US television, in fahrenheit about 101f. It was so hot it wasn't possible to do much here today so we walked around for as long as we could in the heat and saw downtown, the temple area and the Family History Library, although the Irish family records are extremely limited due to the damage to the Four Courts during the Irish Civil War that wiped out the National Archives. So there wasn't much to do there for me, the Mormons (now called Latter Day Saints) have nothing on our family anyway.

The temple area was interesting to walk around, it's to Mormons what Vatican City is to Catholics. The surrounding gardens were beautiful and well maintained but we kept moving due to the heat. Also I now know why Americans shop at Shopping Malls, they are air conditioned!

Due to recent fire forests and dust from the hot, dry weather, visibility was extremely low and we couldn't see the mountains that surround the city, which was disappointing.

So that was our day, we also got the tram out to the University for a look and that was our day in Salt Lake City. There is more to see here but we didn't have enough time, and the heat was killer. It is the off season here too, the snow has all long melted, but I'd say it's really nice here in the snow.

Labels: Salt Lake City

Two nights at the DL Bliss campground at Lake Tahoe, amazing, truly bliss and a welcomed break after the 220 mile (355km) drive from San Francisco. The weather was great, the sun was intense, in the late 20s, early 30s, lovely.

There were intense forest fires around South Lake Tahoe in late June so we thought we might have to abandon our plans, but a quick check online informed us that the DL Bliss campground wasn't affected.

The lake is huge and the water is crystal clear and a lovely turquoise blue color, with little fishing swimming around your feet. So we spent all day Monday swimming and lounging around the rocks reading. We would have liked to stay longer, but it was time to move onto Salt Lake City, which is another crazy long drive all day across northern Nevada on i80, straight all the way.

Labels: Lake Tahoe

We arrived to San Francisco in one piece and we're really enjoying city life after almost four weeks of tenting it.

City is really cool and we're only a few blocks from Union Square so great location and within walking distance of most areas.

Labels: San Francisco