Rising Sun

Despite the fact we have visited some absolutely incredible places on this trip so far, the Tetons just blew me away with its jagged peaks and stunning lakes and canyons, not to mention the wildlife (and celebs!). Still, all good things must come to an end and we eventually headed out of the park. We headed north, over some 10% gradient roads which Elvis wasn't too happy about. We're liking this part of the world more and more as we found a beautiful free camp site by a large lake with hardly anyone in it, and managed a few hours fishing before watching the amazing Persides meteor storm with several shooting stars per minute.

Elvis's driver side window has given up the ghost, and I'm amazed how warm it is this high and far north so it's driving me crazy. I have to have the air-con on whilst Jo has her window fully down. So we picked up a replacement part but annoyingly it didn't fit. Along with an oil change we lost a good couple of hours, and spent the rest of the day chewing miles as we headed north. We stopped for a quick lunch at a place called Gates of the Mountains, which is aptly named due to the narrow vertical crack running through the rock and into a gorgeous looking lake. We found another lake to camp by (again free) which allowed a quick run followed by a nice cool down (and de-smell!) before we had a camp fire on the beach.

The next morning we continued our drive north and got close to Glacier NP. It's really popular around here so we struggled with a camp site and ended up in a parking lot next to an official site right outside the park. There was a freight train line not far away so it wasn't our best night's sleep, but that did enforce an early start which meant we got the penultimate spot in an official site in the NP :)

As it was still early we drove up to Many Glaciers, which sounded promising. Even more impressive sounding was Iceberg Lake, but we weren't expecting too much - it is August, it's 30+C and we are only at 5,000 feet. Despite our scepticism, after a couple of hours hike we arrived at this gorgeous turquoise lake ringed by a high vertical ridge so it gets almost no sun, and yes - it was full of icebergs! They were admittedly not Titanic proportions, but were several metres across. As we were noshing down on our sandwiches this unbelievable guttural tearing noise echoed around us, and 20 odd seconds later a big slice carved off the glacier on the far side of the lake. About a minute later a mini tsunami almost pulled our bags into the water! It was such a gorgeous and unique spot that I felt compelled to swim out to one - a decision that was hastily regretted, although a experience I will never forget! Jo decided to have a nice long hot shower at the end of the day instead - what a wimp!Read more