USA Chapter 2: Good Snow and National Parks

Dejected, we drove from Seattle to western Washington, where we spent a nice afternoon at Ancient Lakes, a beautiful valley with some unique geology but little information about it. The next day we went skiing at Schweitzer Ski Resort in northern Idaho. It had finally snowed overnight, and so I experienced my first “powder day”, skiing on new, fresh snow. It was a whole new skillset to learn how to turn in soft powder, which is luckily quite soft if you fall. Unfortunately, a thick cloud rolled in around lunch time, bringing the visibility to around 20 meters/yards, which is not very far when you’re skiing quite quickly. Luckily, the next day was better visibility-wise, although there was no new snow. Nevertheless, we did find some unskied snow in the trees and discovered just how fun weaving in and out of the trees is. Travis had two bigger crashes that day, during the first one doing a summersault and landing with skies vertical in the snow, and in the second managing to eject from both skies and sliding several meters while skiing on a relatively flat slope. Although fine he had pulled a muscle in his hip, and we took a little break from skiing after this.

From Idaho we drove south to Bozeman, Montana. Annika’s organization is based in Bozeman, and she had reached out to her colleagues on our behalf and asked if we could stay somewhere, and one of her colleagues, Abigail, had generously offered for us to stay in a spare room on an air mattress. Oh how nice it felt to be in a house again! We cooked meals that were not gnocchi or pasta and had easy acess to a toilet and shower. We also went with her to see a documentary called Remaining Native about a Paiute teenage runner who organized a run tracing the path his grandfather took while running away from an Catholic “reeducation” school for Indians. Travis and I both enjoyed it, and would recommend the film if you ever have a chance to see it.

Travis had a charming moment driving in Bozeman – we’ve been doing some license plate spotting, and Montana has lots of different plates, many with natural scenes and animals. We saw one plate with a yellow background and a snake, and Travis said “That looks like a cool one, it has a snake and says ‘Don’t step on me!'” I had to explain to him that it is actually a modern far-right symbol – a lot less cool.

After a night in Bozeman we decided to go to Yellowstone and camp there a night. Abigail had lent us two pairs of nice binoculars, which really made our visit incredible. While picking a campsite we encountered elk, and saw bison on our drive down the road, with some even wandering up onto the road in front of us and going right by our car.

We got going early the next morning and drove back to the other end of the park (only one road is open in the winter), where we saw moose! I had never seen moose in my life so this was quite exciting. We did a walk in the snow where we walked right by some bison and saw a coyote, but walking in the snow is quite challenging without skis or snowshoes so we did not go all that far even over the course of two hours.

There was a spot on the road where people had seen an otter, and there was quite a crowd gathered there at all times waiting for him to emerge. We stopped there three times, and although we never saw the otter, during our last stop/lunch there, a group of bighorn sheep meandered along the slope above us. They’re such cool animals, and it was very neat to watch them so relaxed above us. However, when they wanted to come down the slope and go to the river to drink, the group of photographers kept following them and blocking their path. For the most part humans seem to not bother the wildlife in the national park and the animals just go about their lives. This however was a clear infringement on the animals’ freedom of movement, and thank goodness a park ranger showed up just as we were about to leave – hopefully they knocked some sense into the animal lover photographers, who in their love for the animals have forgotten that loving them also means giving them space.

After another night at Abigail’s we drove to Big Sky, the local ski super-resort. Abigail had told us how Big Sky had turned Bozeman from a unique small town into the service hub for all the rich people who fly in to spend a week there in their vacation homes once a year. To their credit, Big Sky seems to be making an effort to reduce their impact, with a goal of net-zero emissions by 2030.

The first day was OK – the snow was pretty thin but it’s a big ski resort so there were still nice pockets. Bozeman itself had no snow and was very warm, which is very unusual for this time of year – the snow shovel looked a bit out of place on Abigail’s porch. Again with the weird weather. That night, however, it began to snow, and as we said goodbye and left Bozeman, there was snow falling and sticking. That second day at Big Sky was very nice snow.

Although usually Travis is very patient and skis with me even though I’m slower, that day he got carried away with the powder. There’s also a bit of a toxic saying among skiers – “no friends on powder day” – basically that if the snow is good it’s every man for himself. I call it toxic because although it’s a common attitude it seems to me that good conditions should mean shared joy, not individualistic behavior. But that seems to be an unpopular opinion. After Travis called me a hinderance we skied separately for the rest of the day – no fun being around someone who is impatient. It turned out to be quite a nice day, and I could really take my time skiing through the trees which was nice.

Note from Travis: It was my bad calling Ronja a hinderance. I was very eager to ski at my own fast pace and should have used other nicer words to express this desire to ski apart.

From Big Sky we did a bit of a mission of a drive that evening, driving to Jackson, Wyoming with the hope of getting there before the local athletic club closed so we could take a shower. It had snowed all day so the roads were still icy in places, and there were snow plows going 20mph to get stuck behind. Finally, we went over a mountain pass going from Idaho into Wyoming. As we went up the pass it got snowier and snowier, and the road looked less like a road and more like just another expanse of snow. We never stopped to put on chains (although maybe we should have), and we were so glad about the fact that the car had all wheel drive. We made it down without incident, but in town found the roads to be solid ice, with greatly increased stopping distances necessary, as we learned when Travis accidentally slid us through a red traffic light – thank goodness the other cars saw us coming and let us go through. We did in fact make it to the pool in time (just), and spent the night at a trailhead, where the snowplow woke us up at 5am but plowed around us.

That day we went to Grand Teton National Park. On the drive in we saw so many moose! We did a snowy walk to a lake in the morning and saw eight Ruffed Grouse. The weather was gorgeous and clear – a nice contrast to the snow storm the day before. I had seen an ad for a free snowshoe walk with a park ranger. I had called in and signed us up, and so after lunch we showed up and were given old-school snowshoes. The ranger was very knowledgeable and told us lots about the animals, the National Park system, and the area. He was quite funny, and notable quotes included “Look there comes my brother!” anytime a private jet flew over (happened 3 or 4 times) and “The billionaires are running the millionaires out of town!”

Upon the ranger’s recommendation we went to a specific spot to see a beaver. We waited for quite a while, but our patience paid off and we saw the beaver in the water – twice! He had also told us where to spot wolves, and we went there to cook our dinner. Although we never could have seen them with our eyes, other people there had spotting scopes and we did see a family of wolves through the scopes – truly an incredible end to a great day.

From Jackson we drove down to Salt Lake City. It had snowed overnight and we made it to Brighton Ski Resort in time to do a couple hours of skiing in the afternoon. That night we slept at a trailhead just off the road in the valley with no problems. The next day we skied at Solitude, and I started having cramps partway through the day and took the afternoon off skiing to rest and work on my blog. In the evening we went up the other valley and set up camp at a trailhead a bit off the road. Around 9pm a set of incredibly bright headlights came and shone at our car. After 5 minutes the Sheriff came and knocked at our window. “You can’t sleep here or in any of these canyons – it’s where Salt Lake City gets its water and their rules are very strict.” He said he would give us a warning, and that a fine would be about $700. When we asked him where we could sleep, he said “Give me a minute”, turned to the side, and turned off his body camera. “I’m not supposed to say this, but there’s a parking lot we call the ‘Swamp Lot’ where you’re not technically supposed to park, but no one ever checks.” We drove down to the Swamp Lot and parked for the night without issue.

We skied a day at Snowbird ski resort, and then wanted to be law-abiding citizens and sleep in a campground. Once we drove there, however, we learned that the gates were locked at 6pm (it was 9pm), so we drove around looking for a parking lot to sleep in that didn’t have explicit signs saying we couldn’t. Salt Lake City is incredibly difficult to be homeless in. Eventually we found a parking lot we could sleep in, and joined the other car where two people were obviously having sex.

The next day was Valentine’s Day, and we celebrated by going to the classic American IHOP (International House of Pancakes). Travis put it well: “I enjoyed that but wouldn’t do it again.” We did a dayhike at Antelope Island which offered nice views of a (very low) Salt Lake and a (smoggy) City. We heard Chukar and saw some Bison at the end of the hike.

Travis’s skis are constructed in such a way that the top sheet gets cut open every now and then, so he glued it after the hike. While doing so he noticed that one of the bindings was loose, which is NOT good. That evening we took the skis to a ski shop where they rushed the repair and we were able to drive out of Salt Lake City that evening.

We went to Dinosaur National Monument the next day. It is home to an impressive array of dinosaur fossils in a certain layer of the rock. Although many skeletons have been moved to other museums, there are still some that have been exposed and left for people to see inside a large building that protects them from the elements. There are also some impressive petroglyphs in the park, which we took ourbtime looking at. There were many cool canyons and the river looked fun to raft on – it would have been nice to spend more time there; maybe we’ll come back someday.

From Dinosaur we drove to the town of Steamboat Springs and went skiing there. We had heard rumors of the terrible Colorado snow this year and this confirmed it – we left early, disappointed, and spent the afternoon at a public pool with a nice hot tub and sauna.

We camped up a BLM road that turned out to be much steeper and snowier than anticipated. It was bitingly cold overnight, and started snowing heavily in the morning. At one point Travis got out of the car to pee only to leap back in: a runner had come up the road, the only other crazy soul to come up the road in these conditions. Gave us quite the fright though – nothing like a big adrenaline rush first thing in the morning.

We went to ski at Winter Park in the bitter cold that morning and split up because we were both frustrated with each other. At lunch we met up again and decided the skiing was not good enough to justify continuing. We drove to Dinosaur Ridge near Boulder and looked at some very impressive dinosaur footprints, as well as some rather cryptic fossils. I don’t know how anyone is able to recognize that something like rounded bulges are spots where a large dinosaur stepped in mud and made the whole layer of soil bulge out, which is now visible from underneath.

That evening we stayed at Ostara, the co-op where my long-time uni roommate Summer lives. It had been a while since we’d seen each other and it was very nice to catch up. It was also nice to finally be in a house and a bed again.

I’ll leave this blog here – I’m way behind but stay tuned for Chapter 3: The Texas Detour.