Rockies... Moose and Elk and Grizzly, oh my.

 I was able to summit Longs Peak.  Not last time we were in Rocky Mountain National Park, but this time I did!  

We started at 3:00 am to summit before the afternoon storms set in.  More people are killed on Longs by lightning than by falls or rock strikes.  So this precaution is paramount.  I love hiking in the dark; it makes the a.m. miles go so fast and magically makes trails seem flatter and easier.  It is a trick that I often used on the AT.  I could often get three tough miles in before sun-up.  I'd see sunset on one mountain and sunrise on another.  

This morning we saw the sun come up just after the turnoff to Chasm Lake.  On the way up the main trail we saw more people than I expected.  In fact three large groups started up just before we did.  In the end we found out that the 2 groups of girls were going to do Mt. Meeker, a 13,900+ peak, and most of the other people were going to see sunrise at Chasm Lake.  

Once you get above the tree line you can really see some amazing wildlife.  We saw two elk, this White-Tailed Ptarmigan, and a Sharp-Tailed Grouse.  

Now the easy miles are over.  You cross this boulder field and then climb up the pass that I am pointing at to get to Longs Peak's iconic Keyhole.  

At the far end of the boulder field, just before you start your scramble to the keyhole, you can camp, with a permit, or just use the amazing solar toilets that the park has put in and somehow survive the annual avalanches.  

The doors don't really work but that's OK because the rocks don't mind.  

For some reason, hikers who come to Longs Peak are super-excited to get to the keyhole.  The reason I say, for some reason, is because now the hard work begins.  After you get to the top you still have to walk a narrowish path, climb up a really long and tough class 3 scramble called the Trough, cross the narrows, and then get up the homestretch to get to the top... here we go!

Here is a photo of us half-way to the keyhole.   In the back behind us is the last shelter before the summit.  Many an unwary hiker has had to hunker down in there waiting for the thunderstorms to pass.  We are determined to get back to the tree line before the predicted storms at 2:00 pm.  

Here is a shot of Mike coming up the trough section.  Yes it is steeper than it looks.  That bullseye mark that you see on his right are the markers that we need to follow on our way up.  They are just the suggested route and we often made our own way... not that you can really get lost.  

Here is another shot of the very top of the trough.  As you can see, we put our poles away long ago because you need both hands, feet and often your butt to make this climb work.  

Here is a picture of me standing on the narrows section of the hike.  In this section you have to traverse a 1,000 ft long section that is, at times, only 3 ft wide with a 2,000 ft drop-off on one side.  

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If you are interested you can see me walk two small sections of it.  There is one here and one on YouTube.   Click here for both.

Now this is the last push to the summit.  The narrows were much easier than I thought they would be but this, the homestretch, was much tougher.  So tough I didn't take a photo but poached this one offline.  This 200 ft section is at a steady 82% grade... yes that makes it practically vertical.  In fact it is about as steep as you can go without ropes.  This is a class 4 scramble.  That means you had better have three points of contact with the rock at all times.  

Maybe its oxygen deprivation, but I love summiting mountains.  It's so amazing when you get a 360° view, and today I am the highest thing in Rocky Mountain National Park.   

The even better part is now I get to do everything you just saw in reverse.  I know that it seems like down would be a dream but it's not, especially on this hike.  Remember I'm wearing a helmet for a reason.  There is a real possibility that a rock could hit one of us from hikers above or just an unlucky twist of nature.  

Above the tree line in the Arctic Tundra the wildflowers are astounding.  They blanket the ground and we got to see so many animals feasting on them... 

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Especially this guy.  I just love Pikas!  

So Mike and I made it down safely.  We started at 3:30 am and were down by 2:30; not a bad run at 11 hours!  Once we were done we went to the visitors center to do Junior Ranger.  We love Junior Ranger!!

In Estes Park, the town outside Rocky Mountain National Park, we ran into a rodeo queen parade on our way out of town.   

We stayed to watch a bit of it.  I am amazed by the handle these young ladies have on their horses while looking lovely and glamorous.   I also had no idea how many rodeo groups Colorado has.  It seems that each county has more than a few.  

When I was here in 2012 we zoomed through Jackson Hole, Wyoming and I didn't get to really see anything in the town.  This time we walked around.  Clearly they have good laws on which businesses can and can't set up shop.  No CVS or Walmart here which does 

In one section of town they had a farmers market.  Mike was eating his heart out for a slice of blueberry pie but they only sold it in full pies.  

Mike and the grizzly posed together in front of one of the shops... we have to hope that this is the closest encounter we have with one.  Remember there are over 400 brown bears in the Tetons and Yellowstone.   

Welcome to vertical farming with Vertical Harvest.  Mike and I randomly walked past this operation in Jackson and magically they were giving a tour later that afternoon so we hung around to go on it.  

This is the mission statement from their website: Vertical Harvest is dedicated to growing fresh local food and jobs in urban communities around the world. The first of these is a state-of-the-art, three-story hydroponic farm that provides inclusive, competitive employment to people with different abilities in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This community impact model is significant on a local, national, and indeed, global scale.

As you can see above they grow several kinds of lettuce, but the real money-maker is their micro greens operation that you can see here.   If you don't know what micro greens are, they are essentially the baby or sprout of different plants.   Radish and broccoli are common micro greens varieties.  Also pound for pound they sell for a lot more than lettuce but have a very specific niche market.  

 On the very top floor they grow tomatoes.  This room was magical to see because these plants are 50' long and have been very specifically trimmed to maximize tomato production and minimize leaves.  

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 Amazingly this group is setting up their second operation near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.   As soon as I saw this place I had a dream of helping them make an educational video and worksheet so that they can outreach to their local high schools.  We'll have to see if this is one of those projects that comes to fruition.  

 Now we come to a part of the trip that I've been looking forward to for months.  It's finally our time to blaze the Continental Divide Trail!  One of the reasons that we went to Jackson Hole was because we needed to pick up different marking devices for our assigned section.  Luckily we partnered with the National Forest service because they told us that the metal markers we had were not ideal for much of the area and so we requested about 200 stickers.  Here you can see Mike putting up our first blaze.  

 Here is a photograph that shows what the majority of our section of the CDT looked like.   The wildflowers here were also astounding.  What you can't see is the apocalyptic level of mosquitoes.  Let me just tell you that mosquitoes can really motivate you to walk faster and faster than you ever thought possible.

 We had hoped to be able to drive all the way up to where we were going to blaze our second section of the CDT, but unfortunately the forest road stopped us about 2 miles before that.   Luckily we have the CDT app for our phones so we simply navigated ourselves to the trail.

I know I said before that the wildflowers were pretty astounding, but I wanted to give you an up-close idea of what I meant.   Take a look and see how many species you can count in this one photograph.  This is what a healthy sub-Alpine Meadow should look like.  I just haven't seen too many of them!  

 Here is an example of the metal markings that we were originally sent.  This area is almost exclusively pine trees and so these markings are impossible to see once pinned on the trunk.  That's why the vast majority of this section of trail has posts and stickers instead.  Take another look at the CDT marker above.  It's very specifically designed to be useful on the trail; I'll show you how in the next photograph.

I know it's a little bit hard to see, but I turned this CDT marker to the left to indicate that the trail goes in that direction.  If you look back again, and you notice that the key is shaped more like an arrow, that was on purpose.  I also gathered some wood and put it on the right-hand side of the trail to indicate that that's the wrong direction.  You can't see it but there's a fence with an opening to the right.  Often the trail will go through openings such as this, but not this time.   Putting up the actual markers is only part of our job.  We're also supposed to make the trail easy to navigate for those who are coming.

One of the other parts of our job was to mark downed trees and if possible remove them.   Here is a shot of what the trail looked like before I came along.  There are actually 3 downed trees on this section of trail.  We're not allowed to carry any mechanized equipment so the only thing I can do is pull them out of the way.

Here is what the trail looked like after I was finished.  You can see that this section would be much easier for a hiker to traverse now.  Trust me, after a 30-mile day the last thing you want to be doing is stepping over downed objects.

After blazing the trail we worked out where to sleep for the evening.  Remember we're in the National Forest, which is open to logging and grazing, so we had to share the bathroom with some large neighbors.  Amazingly Mike had service in this parking lot so it was easy to relax for the afternoon.   

In the evening we drove down by the river to sleep.  There were two fly fishermen making use of the evening to catch trout.  Saddly they did not have any luck as we watched.  I keep hoping that I'll be lucky enough to see a green or cutthrought trout before we leave the Rockies.  

 One thing that I haven't exactly touched on is the biblical plagues like quantity of mosquitoes in this area!   It's a very creepy feeling to be hunted in your own van.   We would lie down at night and with in five minutes there would be 30 mosquitos on each window pushing there proboscis through the screens.  Let me just tell you you needed to be pretty desperate to want to get out and use the toilet in this area!

The Grand Teton's is a lovely park.  The geology is so unlike Yellowstone and once you've visited it's so obvious why it is not one enormous park.  

The park is surrounded by granite mountains that hold snow all summer.   We were there I'm at a very good time of year because all of the snow melt it was still coming down at the rivers and waterfalls.   The only problem was that the warmer weather did bring out the mosquitoes and we did have a spot of rain.  Not that we can really complain because without almost no rain at all.

When we were at Jackson Hole we met a gentleman who loved this park above any other.  He had told us that there was a nice hike to a place called Delta lake .  This is one of those trails that's not on any of the park maps so  Mike and I hoped that there might be less tourists once we got there.  

The hike was pretty cool. You had to go across several Boulder fields to get there.  I can absolutely see why it's not an approved NPS hike.   Sadly people had put up carns all along this social trail. This of course made the trail ridiculously easy to follow. There are so many well marked trails in the park that I felt it my duty to make this one a little more challenging.   I mean seriously if you can't follow a map find an easier trail.

When we got to the lake it wasn't completely unoccupied as I had hoped.  There were of remarkable number of people around it.  The only good thing is that I'm sure that the other Alpine lakes would have been a much more crowded.  Also the way that the mountain reflects in the lake was just as beautiful as the way the gentleman who sent us here expressed it.  It's amazing how after this much travel the sites really have to be extraordinary to make an impact.

 After our hike to Delta Lake we did the most touristy photograph in the park.  

 Here you can see Mount Moraine reflected in an oxbow bend in the river.   This was one of my favorite pictures that I took last trip out west.

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 On our way between Grand Tetons and Yellowstone we ran in to this beautiful Grizzly Bear right on the side of the road.  It's amazing to watch him hunting for roots.  It's amazing to think that over 60% of a grizzlies diet is vegetarian.

The Roosevelt Arch is over my favorite enterance to Yellowstone.  It can be found at the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park in the town of Gardiner, Montana. The cornerstone was laid by President T. Roosevelt in 1903. The arch has an inscription on top For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People. This quote mirrors how I feel about all National Parks, Forests, and BLM land.  It is a quote from the Organic Act of 1872 which is the legislation that originally created Yellowstone and led to our great park system.     

 Since we came into Yellowstone from the South we started our trip in the West Thumb area.   On my last visit here I was particularly entranced with this area because it sits right on the banks of Yellowstone Lake.   The features here were not as dramatic as some that we would see later on but Mike had not been in this area before and i couldn't wait ri share it with him.  

 This area also introduces you to the fact that geysers do not root themselves just on land. This one is called fishing guys are and it's about 10 meters into Yellowstone lake.

 We saw so many beautiful geologic features and I wish that I could share them all with you but here are some of our favorites.  The one on the bottom right that is a creamy blue is 1 of my favorites.  Remember at this park is the oldest one in the National Park system and its amazing to see how these areas have stood the test of time.  

 Here is another view of Lake Yellowstone. When I came here the very 1st time I had no idea how large would be. As you can see you the water is also very clear and it leads the imagination to wonder what kind of thermal features might be hiding just beneath the surface.  While I was taking this photograph two Yellow Bellied Marmots were having a turf war directly behind me.  Some part of me wished that I had gotten that on film instead!

 Mike and  I left West Thumb and headed to a different thermal area.   When we got there we were greeted by a pack of bison. They were happily enjoying the warm Earth and the smelly water. Remember everything here seems to smell like sulfur! I want you to remember this beautifully idyllic scene because less than 12 hours from when when we were there a person was gored and had to be airlifted because they thought it would be fun to take a photo with a bison. They weigh over a ton and run 30 miles an hour I guess we all make our own decisions. 

 This is Prismatic Spring.   The last time I was in Yellowstone it was my favorite feature, interestedly Mike also loved this feature but it was because he went to Fairy Falls  from the same distant parking lot.   Last time I was there you had to climb up a very dangerous hill.  Oh yes keep climbing because if you don't want any branches in your photograph you have to go up almost a 1000 feet.  Dsdly we were warned that the park service had put in a viewing platform.   I'm not saying the photograph isn't lovely but the sense of awe at largest thermal feature in Yellowstone is dramatic diminished.  If I  had a wishes to make I would wish that the National Park Service would increase rease there and tree feat 5 fold and that they would reserve some great things for long hikes.

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