It would be bonkers to visit USA’s most popular national parks in peak summer season, wouldn’t it? Well, yes it would. But it’s a matter of timing, you see. We have to be somewhere for the summer. In 2022 that somewhere turns out to be the epic Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Sure, there will be crowds. But, as the saying goes, we’ll just have to ‘suck it up, princess!’ 😉 We learned that even in peak season, overlanding national parks is still a good idea, and we learned some tips on bagging a camp-spot at the parks. But in-between the parks we visited a State Fair, saw a big-time rodeo and a real-life mermaid!
Overlanding National Parks
First, before we get into the nitty-gritty, bear with us whilst we do a bit of gushing. We just can’t gush enough about the awesome US National Parks Service. An annual family pass to this network of fabulous parks is, by a country mile, the best money you can spend in the USA. For just $80 the whole family gets unlimited access across the whole USA to some of the world’s finest nature, to the impressive infrastructure, and to the remarkable team of dedicated rangers who go out of their way to welcome and educate visitors. There’s nothing close to this is in UK or Europe. People of America… we hope you know how lucky you are to be able to go overlanding national parks on your doorstep!
Glacier National Park: Pass Palaver
Okay… gushing done… back to the trip. We entered USA into Montana on the west side of Glacier NP. After a speedy blast through Canada, we’re slowing down the pace now. We have the rest of the summer to explore the epic parks of Montana and Wyoming and we’re ready for a break from driving. First night, we find an awesome wild-camp spot, down a rough trail to the North Fork river just outside Glacier NP… ahhhh… a few days of no driving and time to plan our overlanding national parks.
You need to do at least a small amount of planning for Glacier NP in peak season. The park has become so popular that most of it is only accessible with a pre-acquired pass. The main attraction is the ‘Going to the Sun’ road. It was an extraordinary feat of engineering in the 1930s to carve the road into the mountainside, but for some reason they failed to anticipate the 21st Century volume of traffic. The numbers now need to be controlled. So even if you only want to access the park to drive the route (without parking or stopping to hike etc) you still need a pass. If you’re the plan-ahead kind of traveller, you can book a pass when the first batch is released months in advance. If you’re not the plan-ahead kind of person, you’ll be at the mercy of the the last-minute palaver.
Around Glacier National Park
Here’s how it works: the last-minute passes are released on-line daily at 08:00 hrs. If you’re both snappy and lucky, you’ll bag a three-day pass. Not everyone is successful, but there we were… 07:57 hrs… logged-in to the booking service, poised, finger hovering over the mouse, ready to pounce at exactly 08:00hrs. Hurrah! We got it! Next day, we were in the park to enjoy the fabulous Going-to-the Sun road, kayaking, and hiking.
When that pass expired we tried, but failed miserably to get another. By then we had realised that the pass-palaver isn’t enforced on the ground quite as strictly as we had thought. First, the entry pass hours are 06:00-16:00hrs. So if you go in very early, you can stay for the whole day and no pass is required. Also, you can get a pass-free entry if you have camping booked in the park. The snaggette here is that getting a last-minute camp-spot can be even harder than getting a last-minute pass. We managed once to secure a camp-spot, giving us another day in the park. Then to get more days, we just had to arrive at OMG-o’clock before the pass is required at 06:00hrs.
There are a couple of sectors of the park that don’t require a pass. Many Glacier sector was hideously overcrowded (a likely candidate for a pass system next year, me thinks). So we moved swiftly on to Two Medicines sector – still very beautiful and far fewer peeps around.
Anyway… after the pass-palaver we thoroughly enjoyed our time in Glacier NP. The story is probably best told with the piccies…
Great Falls: A Mermaid and a Rodeo
After Glacier, the next park on the agenda is Yellowstone. Due to extensive flood damage a few weeks ago, it’s not possible to enter Yellowstone from the north this year. So we take a roundabout route across Montana to the eastern entrance. On the way, stop off in the city of Great Falls.
Flick through the pics and see what happened to this cowboy!
Not wanting to insult the good people of Great Falls, but it probably wouldn’t be on many peoples list of USA’s Top 10 tourist attractions. But ooooh… what’s this? A lucky bit of timing… the Montana State Fair just happens to be on this weekend! That’s got to be worth an afternoon. We’ve done a State Fair before a couple of years ago in Texas. It was great fun, so we were keen to see another example of this wonderful All-American culture.
All forms of life attend a State Fair. There are colourful games/rides for kids, displays of local crafts, music, a bit of politics, a good dose of national pride, and lots of deep-fried food. Deep-fried cookies, deep-fried cheese-curds, even deep-fried butter sticks! And how about the food-truck: “You ain’t been to Montana ‘til you’ve tried a cow pie”? Yummm! We Brits do love a classic beef pie… juicy chunks of steak, stewed in a meaty gravy, encased in a light puff-pastry, so we went to investigate the Montana version. Turns out… the Montana cowpie is essentially a burger-in-a-bun, dipped in batter and deep-fried. Not quite so appetising to our English tastes.
Another main attraction for us was the big-time rodeo! Not just a few local guys horsing-around, but a serious ‘big dollar’ competition event with riders from all around western USA and Canada. How exciting!!
The rodeo was great fun, but seeing cowboys in Montana is no great-shakes is it? The ranch is what Montana is all about. What landlocked Montana is definitely not all about, is the ocean. So how come then, we saw a mermaid right there, in Montana? There, in a very 1960s-era hotel downtown Great Falls, is the Sip ‘n Dip Bar. It’s one of those ‘tiki themed’ bars sitting alongside a swimming pool with a window to the water. Just as you’re ordering a drink, a mermaid… yes a real live mermaid… swims past and waves! It’s a weird kind of thing to have in Montana, but its claim to fame is to have once been listed by GQ Magasine as the ‘No.1 Bar worth flying for’ no less! Once we’d heard about it, we couldn’t not go could we?
Yellowstone
Next, it’s on to Yellowstone. Or is it Jellystone? We were certainly hoping to be greeted by the ‘smarter than the average bear’ Yogi and Booboo, but they must have been busy that day. Nevertheless, we had a wonderful week touring the huge, fabulous geological park. In addition to the iconic attractions such as the ‘Old Faithful’ geyser, the Yellowstone Canyon and the Grand Prismatic pool, Yellowstone Park has a never-ending supply of stunningly beautiful geysers, mud-pools and deeply coloured spring-pools. Of course, not planning ahead we couldn’t get a camp-spot in the park (many are closed this year due to the flood damage anyway), but if you don’t mind driving a bit, there is plenty of wild-camping in the National Forest just outside the west side of the park.
Making an OMG o’clock start in the morning (well 06:00hrs is ‘OMG early’ for us) is by far the best way to see most wildlife and get to the main attractions before the crowds. It’s tough when the alarm goes off, but believe us… it’s worth it!! There’s not much else we can say really… just check out the pics and see for yourself!
Around Yellowstone National Park
Grand Teton
Almost joined to Yellowstone, just to the south is yet another fabulous national park: Grand Teton. Here is a summer hiker’s and winter skiier’s paradise. Spectacular mountains, fabulously blue rivers and lakes – just jaw-dropping views everywhere you look. Don’t worry about the seriously challenging and extraordinarily rewarding multi-day hikes… there’s something for everyone here! Short hikes if you want them. But no hiking is necessary if you don’t want to. You don’t even have to get out of your car to see the splendid scenery.
The weather-fairy smiled kindly on us. In fact she’s smiled kindly on us for our whole time doing this overlanding national parks. We spent a wonderful week doing the shorter hiking trails, kayaking in our Boaty McBoatface (on the lakes and a great day paddling down a 25km stretch of Snake River through the park) and generally picking up our jaws after gawping at the breath-taking environment all around us.
Around Grand Teton National Park
Bagging a spot: Camp-Life
Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton Parks have mostly (but not totally) done away with first-come-first-served camp sites. If you want to camp in the parks, you mostly need to pre-book. If you have neglected to do so, it’s a case of ‘you snooze you lose‘. But the news isn’t all bad. Nearby outside the park entrances to the west of Glacier, on both sides of Yellowstone, and to the east of Grant Teton, there are some National Forest free-camp spots. If you’re heading there to bag one of these spots, you might want to note some ‘tricks of the trade’ that we picked-up there: how to bag a camp-spot and keep it!
Here’s an analogy: although we tend not to frequent resort hotels, we’ve heard that in many parts of the world, some guests go out early, lay their towels on the sun-loungers to bag their pool-side location, then return after a leisurely breakfast to enjoy the ‘best spot’. Campers in the National Forest first-come-first-served free camp-spots do a similar thing: arrive early, find a spot, dump a couple of $20 Walmart camp-chairs, then disappear off to enjoy the park for the day. At the end of the day, when less-well prepared campers (i.e. yours truly!!) are driving around in circles getting frustrated at the number of spots that have been pre-bagged with a couple of cheap chairs, the pre-planners can just go back to their pre-bagged space and chill-out with an amazing view! Ingenious.
Unfortunately, we invested some years ago in expensive Kermit camp-chairs which we are not prepared to leave unattended just to bag a camp-spot. Lesson learned. Nevertheless, with perseverance, we did manage to bag the occasional great spot with spectacular views – worth the effort we think!
Camp-spot views… worth the effort!
Moving on…
As is always the case with our life… even from the wonderful places, we move on. Just west over the Teton Pass from Grand Teton Park, we visit our lovely friend from our time in Doha, Margi and her husband Jon. Margi and Jon are wonderful hosts and we really enjoy some time with them and their friends before heading off to explore our State No. 31 – Idaho! Stay tuned for some tales from potato land!
More pics in our Instagram account if you want a peek…