Bozeman, Jackson, Yellowstone and Grand Teton

So Bozeman was starting to grow on me when I left. Both of the CSers I was trying to meet for a beer weren't able to make it out so I was left to chat it up with random locals. I wound up staying at the Bozeman Backpacker's Hostel, which was a pretty neat place. The two kids "managing" the place weren't very friendly and it wasn't much of a social experience since it's the off-season. There was a really strange 40 something guy staying there who clearly needed treatment for depression. There were apparently some girls from Alaska staying there also, but the only signs of them I saw were all the empty wine bottles laying around downstairs when I left in the morning. I was the only one staying in my bunk room, so I didn't bother anyone leaving at 6AM.

Bozeman is a pretty cool town. Super bike friendly, perhaps the most bike friendly of the places I've been. There is a huge food coop, so there wouldn't be any food issues. The more I was there the more it felt like Boulder, and the prices seemed like I was in Boulder. Bozeman might have been an option five years ago, but since I would like to own a home again within a year it probably isn't going to do.

The drive from Bozeman to Jackson goes right through Yellowstone and Grand Teton. I hit Yellowstone just as the sun was coming up. I uploaded some pictures from Yellowstone which are worth looking at. This could be a twenty page summary of the day, but I will shorten it to the following highlights:
Elk wandering around in Mammoth Hot Springs
My second Discovery channel experience of the year: A grizzly defending his elk carcass against four wolves. This scene was 100-150 yards away so the pictures aren't great. The pictures of the wildlife paparazzi that had assembled for the scene are even better.
I wanted to do some solo hiking adn the first place I considered was to grizzly lake, which I reconsidered and didn't do. I was warned by two different rangers about hiking alone, so I didn't cover a lot of ground alone.
The Disney-like scene at Old Faithful which I was embarrassed to be a part of.
My shortened hike to Shoshone lake
A short hike to a waterfall near the end of the park.

I drove through Grand Teton without stopping since I knew I would be back the following day. There were clouds cover the Tetons, so I didn't even try to get a picture of them.

I got to Jackson and wandered around a while on my own. I then met my CS host at the gym he worked at, went to his place to shower then went back downtown. He met me later for a beer, but it was an early night. The next morning I ate an an incredible breakfast burrito place (when you're that good you can specialize in one thing). I then met up with another CSer for my hike in Grand Teton. The hike basically went around Genny Lake, partially up a Teton to a place with a terrible name (Inspiration Pt) then back down around the lake with a few detours away to some waterfalls. It snowed most of the time which made it that much better. Unfortunately I also never got a really good shot of the Tetons because of the weather, but there are some attempts. On the way out we saw a couple of moose. We then hit happy hour at the Cadillac in Jackson before I met back up with my host and turned in early again.

I didn't have a lot of hope for Jackson before getting there, but I think it's a possibility now. There are some problems with finding rental housing because of all the seasonal people coming through. It is pretty expensive, but there are some things that aren't that bad. It is also isolated, but that is part of the charm. There is nothing but the great outdoors around and it's all right there. The people are really friendly, laid back and open-minded. I can't think of too many towns I have been in and able to look around from the middle of town and be amazed at the beauty that is still in sight. If my criteria were strictly outdoor related Jackson would win hands down. I'm still giving it some thought.

I left Jackson pretty early for Ft. Collins which was about a 6 hour drive. There was some snow in Wyoming which had me concerned intermittently. The drive was beatiful though. There are parts of WY which seem like relatively flat plains, but they're 7000 feet above sea level and cold. I think WY might be colder than MT, but I'm not sure. It seemed like it today.

I've been thinking about all these pictures and whether there is any point in taking them. Luke (Missoula CS host's boyfriend) and I talked about picture taking. He pretty much doesn't do it because the pictures don't really convey the experience. This is definitely true. I go back and forth between whether or not I take them to help me remember the experience or if I think I'm remembering what I saw. These pictures clearly fail at the latter because they leave out so many details critical to what made the moment picture-worthy in the first place. I'm also a little concerned that I ruin the experience by interrupting it to take a picture, which might be a better reason to stop it.

Anyway, I've got two days in Ft. Collins then I'm staying in Denver for two days. I'll be checking out Lyons and Golden in that time also. I will probably sneak in a hike on Friday as well. I will try to update before I leave CO Sunday, but worst-case I'll catch up when I get back to SC.


For some reason I can't insert pictures so here you go:
Yellowstone pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryon.leggett/Yellowstone#
Grand Teton pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryon.leggett/GrandTetonNP#

Boise, Spokane and Missoula

I'm in Bozeman now and don't have a lot of time here so this may be brief. I also haven't gotten any pictures off the camera so I will have to add them later.

Boise is definitely a town I could live in. It reminds me a lot of Greenville. I couchsurfed within 1/2 mile of downtown and spent a lot of time wandering around. The downtown seems relatively new, much like Greenville. It does have a section of new upscale chain stores and restaraunts, but is mostly local things. There are bike lanes everywhere and a lot of people getting around on bikes. There is also a great greenway along the river that apparently runs for longer than I can run. My first night there I spent some time at a pizza and beer place called Reef. They only had about 12 taps, but all were quality and they had a beer engine with a firkin of a local IPA. I was able to have some local harvest ales while I was there. The bartender really knew his beer which I can't say is generally the case. I talked to a few locals there who all had great things to say about Boise. There are a couple of drawbacks. There is a large Mormon population there, which doesn't seem to be a problem now but it's a concern. They also have some air and water quality issues, although I couldn't tell. It's also pretty isolated.

The drive from Boise to Spokane was pretty, but not like it was driving through CO and eastern UT. I did stop in a very strange town in Oregon, but that's a long story.

Spokane was originally going to be a 2 day stop, but it got shortened to one day for a few reasons. I didn't get a great response from the couch surfing population in Spokane so I wound up in a hotel on the river. I did meet up with a couple of CSers for dinner and a beer (in Spokane the CSers apparently hang out with each other, but don't actually host anyone). Before that I dropped in the best beer bar according to beeradvocate where I talked with the owner for a while. He had moved around the country before settling in Spokane and had been there a long time. He said it was a great city for someone my age, but as I looked around the restaurant I didn't see anyone under the age of 50. The median age for Spokane is 34, but that's because of all the colleges there. It's really a town with a bunch of old people and college kids. There were also a lot of homeless people and I was told there was quite a meth problem. They also have a system of trails along the river which I ran along in the afternoon. At one point I stopped to watch these guys who were floating some kind of instrument down the river with ropes and someone walking by asked if "they were pulling another body out of the river." Welcome to Spokane. I'm not sure if Spokane really got a fair evaluation from me, but at this point it's not a contender.

I left Spokane for Missoula where I added the extra day from Spokane. The drive from Spokane to Missoula was incredible. I went through Coeur D'Alene which was on my list orginally before I found out how expensive it was. The lake there is unbelievably beautiful. I took a lot of pictures from the car on this drive and I will try to post them soon.

Since planning this trip the more I learned about Missoula the more I liked it. My CS host sent me on a hike when I first got into town. I went to the Pattee Canyon trailhead, whcih is a great system of trails for hiking and mtn biking right outside of town. One of the trails goes up Mt. Sentinel which overlooks the city. There was also a slightly higher mountain (these are not mtns in the CO sense, but more so in the NC sense) next to it that I went up since it was there. I think they were both in the upper 5000 ft range and Missoula is around 3200 ft. I looked at guide to the trails around Missoula and what I saw seems to be the norm and not the exception. I was really wishing I had my mtn bike while I was out hiking. I think I uploaded something to Facebook from my phone, but there are a lot of pictures to come.

That night we went out, walked around and hit a few bars, then went back and had a few beers on the back porch. The mix of people in the bars was interesting. I'm used to a bar having a certain type of people in it with very little intermixing, but just about everywhere we went had the entire cross section of the town. We also went to a really cool place called the Oxford that was part bar, part diner and part casino. The beer in MT is unusally inexpensive, and everywhere had a selection of local stuff. The south seems to be well-represented in Missoula. I met a girl who graduated from Clemson in 2005 and moved to Missoula, a girl from Sylva, NC, a girl from Johnson City, TN (who also shares my birthday) and also met up with Andrea's friend Michel from Greenville a former Barley's employee.

Saturday we went to a UMT Grizzlies football game. They don't seem to start tailgating as early as in the south, but otherwise it seemed much the same just on a smaller scale. It was nice going to a football game and seeing the home team win. Afterwards was more walking around, a couple more bars and lots of conversations.

I saw a sticker in Missoula that said "Keep Missoula Weird" which I think was a good summary of Missoula. I really enjoyed the time I spent there. I met a lot of great people in Missoula and it's a very serious contender. My host and her boyfriend were also really great people. Very easy going and generous and always an interesting conversation. CS continues to restore my faith in people.

I got an early start out of Missoula for Bozeman. Another beautiful drive and a gorgeous town surrounded by snow covered peaks. So far Bozeman strikes me a like a new Boulder. It seems like the rich hippies have found the place and started moving in. I am leaving here early tomorrow to spend the day in Yellowstone on the way to Jackson, WY. I will be in Jackson for two nights and will spend part of Tuesday working and part hiking in Grand Teton. I'm meeting up with two CSers other than the one I'm staying with so I'm looking forward to meeting people there before heading back to CO (Ft. Collins is coming PRJ).

Salida, Gunnison and Shavano

I'm taking suggestions for a blog title. I'm also not promising to keep up with this, but I will try. I will not return to the days of bryonleggett.com (sorry Kelly) where I actually kept people up to date on the minutia of my day to day existence, but if something interesting is happening (like this trip out west) I will give it a try.

Day 1: I drove to Salida. Salida is a really cool small town and I think I could see myself living there. I stayed at the Simple Lodge and Hostel, which is a really cool place if you find yourself in Salida. Unfortunately I was the only one there, but did get to spend some time talking to Jon, the owner. I met up with a couch surfer Kyle at a great little brewpub called Amicus. Emily had recommended Amicus and the beer was great, but the people were better. Kyle was a really friendly guy who struck me as being about 10 years more mature than his age. He had offered to host me, but since I was getting up so early I didn't want to bother him. I talked to a few different people at the bar about Salida all of whom had great things to say. A waitress, Ashley and the bartender, Renee were both really great as well. I felt like I already had three friends in Salida. Everyone was a lot more friendly that I had expected and all were willing to learn about my trip and evangelize for Salida.

Day 2: I woke up at 0430 and met Andrew, an Army SF guy from Ft. Carson for the climb up Shavano. Andrew is also into a lot of different endurance sports with great success. He's been to the world duathlon championships a few times. Anyway, he had done all the work planning this climb, which I didn't have time to do and wouldn't have gotten far without him. We left the trailhead at 0600 and 9800 feet. There had been a lot of snow in the Sawatch range the previous two days and we weren't sure what we were in for. For the most part the 70mph wind had kept most of the snow off the side we were climbing from, but there were still some snowy and icy areas. To make a long story short, it was cold (that's ice stuck to my hair and beard), we still had 30mph winds to deal with and 21 hours is not long enough to acclimate from 700 feet above sea level to climbing a 14er. However, it was gorgeous. We got above the treeline in time to see the sunrise over the clouds below us with snow covered peaks all around. When we reached the summit (14,229 feet) we were in real snow and had to deal with the full force of the wind. We had discussed going over to Tabeguache Peak, another 14er just a saddle away but I wasn't so sure once we were up there. We started a little ways down the traverse and were in waist deep snow. I wasn't up for going down through that when I was going to have to climb back up, particularly the way I felt. Andrew said he would give it a go and I took off for the trailhead on my own. It was a fun hike back and I could enjoy a slower pace and take things in. All told it was 10 miles and 4429 feet of climb. Andrew made it over to Tabeguache despite the snow, so now I'm a little mad I didn't tough it out. Next summer I'm going to do the double, just to say I did it. I also missed out on a free beer at Amicus by not getting the double. Here are a couple more photos from the day. You can see the rest here.


After the climb I went back into Salida for a shower and some lunch then took off for Gunnison. The folks in Salida didn't think I would care for Gunnison too much and they were right. It was half college town and half cowboy town. Everything seemed pretty run down to me and despite having the college there it seemed to only have college bars and none of the other things you expect with a college town. Gunnison is not on the list anymore.

I left for Boise the next day, where I'm at now. I will post on Boise another day, but so far it's lived up to what the spreadsheet said it would. The drive on all the rural highways through CO was amazing. It is definitely the most beautiful state I've been to outside of Alaska, but we will wait and see how MT and WY fit into that mix. I will try to post about Boise tomorrow when I get settled into Spokane.