A brief report from your correspondent recently in the Rockies.
Ok, not so brief.
Joanne and I flew into Salt Lake City and stayed a couple of days to get
over the jet lag. As it was the Labor Day weekend, SLC seemed to be shut so
we looked at but not around the sights it had to offer. SLC has some
ridiculous conditions over getting a beer that require you to pay membership
fees, but happily brew pubs are immune. If you're ever in town, Squatters
does good food and a very nice pale ale. We also experienced the culture
shock of Walmart to pick up some food - the view from the car park is easily
the best of any supermarket I've ever been to - and went to the REI store.
This was another retail phenomenon that would set the credit card of any
climber, walker, camper, mountain biker or other outdoors person itching,
with a vast array of gear on display, plus an in-store climbing wall about
the height of parts of the NW Face in Warrington. We only went to get some
stove fuel - gas (that is, propane/butane) seems to be much more readily
available in the US these days - but you know how it is. We also got some
wide-brimmed hats (Australian, not merkin) as the sun was strong and the
weather set fair, and a few other bits and pieces.
Despite the religious image problem it has, SLC struck me as a good place to
live; set next to some impressive hills there's lots of climbing and walking
in the summer right on your doorstep, and there'd be great skiing and
snow/ice climbing in winter. The humidity was also very low - 10%ish in the
daytime - which we don't see in the UK. This brings its own problems; if
you end up there, take or buy some moisturiser.
Time to hit the road and head for Jackson, Wyoming. We didn't push it and
it took about seven hours though some lovely looking country. Hills and
crags that would each have names, routes and a history in the UK were here
just apparently anonymous hills and crags (I wonder how this would be if so
much of native American culture hadn't been erased?), with little obvious
signs of recreational use other than a few trails. Pulling into Jackson,
you get one brief, tantalising glimpse of the tops of the Tetons before
you're in town and then nothing. Very frustrating. I'd been recommended to
try the ribs at Bubba's, which was on the road we'd come in on, so we ate
there and the ribs were very good indeed. Should you ever go, you can get
smaller portions than a whole rack, which is the minimum listed on the menu
and would have defeated the pair of us.
A word on cars. We'd originally indulged ourselves and booked and SUV, but
when we got it the boot space was quite small and there was no cover;
whatever you put in the back stayed on display. So we swapped for a Chevy
impala saloon which had a very big boot and was easier to drive. Having had
one of these on a previous trip, they seem to have started to sort out the
suspension which, though not as firm as on a UK car, is a whole lot less
like a sofa than it used to be. If you head out to the US with a load of
gear, it's a good choice.
And so to the Tetons. Apparently Grand Teton is the third most photographed
hill in the world, behind Mount Fuji and the Matterhorn, though who compiles
these statistics I don't know. And when you get there, it's obvious why so
many shutters are pointed and clicked at it. It's a handsome hill, with
tempting lines.I hadn't heard of Mount Moran before, but this looks good
value too with an obvious and tempting couloir. When we got here, and for
most of the rest of the trip, the landscape began to look like a geology
classroom; that was a fault scarp, that an intrusive feature (no sniggering
at the back, now) - you can look at photographs and explanatory drawings all
you like, but you don't really understand until you've seen them. We
pitched the tent at the organised campground at Colter Bay early on and then
meandered round in a happy daze of scenery. Because of the lack of humidity
I'd been wanting some lip salve and found something called Lip-Schitt. No,
really; it comes in three flavours (vanilla, cherry and one I've forgotten
but I'm sure you can make one up to suit your sense of humour) and a schitty
stick was to accompany me for the rest of the trip.
Now, bears. Being British we're unused to camping where there's anything
more dangerous than annoyed sheep or teenagers out on the pop, so Joanne was
more than a mite concerned about not attracting the attention of bears.
Though it was an organised campsite run along merkin lines (a designated
pitch with firegrate and table separated from other pitches by a distance
that anyone who's camped in the Lake District or Snowdonia in summer would
regard as immense) we followed the book; ate early and downwind from the
tent, packed everything with any scent at all into the car and didn't wear
anything in the tent we'd worn while cooking or eating. We even didn't drink
beer, and weren't to be dissuaded from these precautions even though our
neighbours were apparently killing, cooking and eating fatted calves on the
next pitch. You see, our pitch was on the edge of the campsite, by a trail
through the woods, and we'd foolishly looked a little too closely at
scratchings on a fallen log. There aren't many things with claws big enough
to make marks like the ones we'd seen, and they weren't that old, either.
Anyway, the night passed uneventfully apart from the squeals of slaughter
and feasting from the neighbours and our being woken up at 4.30 by a wolf
calling three times in the middle distance. There's something about that
sound...
To Yellowstone next, and after an early check in at the Grant Village
campground (at 7,700' things got chilly in the evening) we first did the
tourist trail around the south west part of the park. Old faithful was
impressive, but pretty much what you've been conditioned to expect; the real
surprises came as we visited some of the other spots nearby. There is a
tremendous variety in the way the different hot springs and smaller geysers
appear and the colour, size, smell, muddiness and steaminess of them gives
them each their own character. I was grinning, fascinated and deeply
impressed by it all in a way that I can't properly articulate except to say
that if you can go, you really should. Really. Trust me, it's worth every
penny and every last note of tiredness and aggravation. It's one of those
places like Yosemite or, I guess (I haven't been) the Grand Canyon that are
so very much more impressive when you get there than anything prepares you
for, except that here you've got a full on sensory experience as well. The
ground really is boiling, you can smell and hear it and, should you catch a
face full of spurt as you pass downwind, feel and taste it as well. It
truly is a captivating, magical place.
I'll not detail all the places we saw while we were there, but the grand
canyon of the yellowstone river (it's very odd to think that the water from
this ends up in the gulf of Mexico) is another place well worth visiting.
You wouldn't want to climb there, but it's a mightly impressive sight.
And a few words about wildlife. We didn't see any bears, thankfully
perhaps, but did see lots of other things; osprey, bison, elk, deer. The
elk were very noisy at night bugling, a strangely high pitched noise, and
aren't shy about people either. As we were leaving the campsite and I was
putting the chit in the box, Joanne called from the car. I was busy looking
for the right place to put the piece of paper and didn't turn round
immediately but when I did, it was to see a full grown male elk not fifteen
feet away; about my height, and with an wide spread of antlers, we looked at
each other for a moment before it seemed to dismiss me as not being a
threat, edible or a potential mate and ambled off into the trees, leaving me
both impressed and relieved.
Driving north out of the park the hills of the Absaroka-Beartooth wilderness
on the right looked more good walking, scrambling and climbing country with
the main peak (over 11,000 feet) looking well worth a visit. As, heading
north through Montana the day after, did Crazy mountain. So many hills, so
little time...
By the time we got to Glacier National Park the weather had turned and the
clag was down. What we could see was tremendous, but the mist and rain
covered the last few hundred feet to the top of the going-to-the-sun road
and most of the western descent, so we didn't linger, as the forecast was
that the weather would. Instead we turned south to Idaho and eventually
drove down the Salmon valley (there's probably more exposed rock along the
sides of this one, admittedly long, valley than there is is Snowdonia and
the Lake District combined) and the Sawtooth hills, staying the night at
Stanley. The hills just south of Stanley were another unexpected delight,
alpine in look and feel and surely covered with lots of tremendous routes.
One day, I'll come back with a rope and axes, one day... But the clag came
down again and we ended by heading slowly back to SLC, stopping at the
Craters of the Moon national monument in southern Idaho. If you've ever
been to Lanzarote you'll have some idea about what lava fields look like,
but I thought these were a whole lot better than anything Lanzarote has to
offer. If you do go, take a torch as the descent into the lava tubes at the
end of the circuit is worth doing.
And then more slowly still back home, thanks to our flight from Chicago to
Manchester being cancelled as British Midland couldn't get the software that
flew their Airbus to work. Well, at least they found out while it was on
the ground, for which I'm grateful. All that remains, now our luggage has
caught up with us, is to get the photos developed...
T.