After our busy spring schedule, I made the conscious decision to not blog over the summer and it was such a relief! We’ve had a fabulous couple of months back in the Airstream and thoroughly enjoyed spending quite a bit of time with family and friends as we’ve explored. At some point, I hope to be able to do detailed blog posts on the places we’ve been, but for now I thought I’d do a quick summary and also let you guys know what our plans are for this fall.

Canadian Rockies Loop

Last summer as we were hanging out with my brother’s family in Grand Teton National Park, we started scheming about a great Canadian Road Trip. They had always wanted to rent an RV and do some extended traveling, so we tossed out the idea of going up to the Canadian Rocky National Parks. It stuck. We reserved campsites as soon as they went online (somewhere around March) and generally had our path planned in advance. Totally different for us as we usually fly by the seat of our pants, but we really enjoyed it! I had a few moments where I was frustrated we couldn’t stay longer at one park or another but overall our schedule was pretty spot on.

We started at Glacier National Park, and then drove up through the parks to the Canadian sister site of Waterton Lakes National Park. Both parks definitely had a similar feel, and of all the National Park townsites (towns right in the National Parks) Waterton was my favorite. Just a super cute, not crazy busy downtown area with shops and restaurants. We hiked, we canoed (all the things!) and generally kept ourselves WAY too busy. I feel like we were in “go” mode all the time but we definitely got to see quite a bit of the parks!

Paddling St. Mary Lake – Glacier National Park, MT

Hiking to Iceberg Lake – Glacier National Park, MT

Hiking Red Rock Canyon – Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta

Next stop was Banff National Park where we camped at Two Jack Lakeside. It was gorgeous! Banff was definitely a busier park, but we tried to get out early and since it was light until at least 10pm we were out late most days as well.

Lake Moraine – Banff National Park, Alberta

We parted ways with my brother as they headed up to Jasper and we joined Tanya Koob from (www.rockiesfamilyadventures.com) on a 2 night backpacking trip in Yoho National Park. This was our first hut experience and it was a blast! We loved having a dry place to hang out (it poured rain the first night), a full kitchen, and a roof over our heads at night. Next time I’d bring pancakes instead of our normal freeze dried meals, but that’s about the only thing I would change. We met some amazing Canadians and all had a blast with our Back Country Olympics.

Stanley-Mitchell Hut – Yoho National Park, British Colombia

We rejoined my brother up in Jasper for two nights, and after they left we had another 4 days to just chill and enjoy the park. It was incredibly relaxing! After our backpacking trip, the kids were all hiked out so we went ice skating at the local rink, and did a white water rafting trip with Maligne Adventures on the Athabasca River. Sam and I also snuck in a date night up the Jasper Tramway and hiked to the peak. The views up there were incredible and I always love doing outdoor adventures with Sam!

We drove down the Icefields Parkway on our way south. The views along this drive are amazing. We stopped at the Athabasca Glacier, but you can’t really get too close to the glacier, and after scrambling on one during our Yoho backpacking trip it really wasn’t all that exciting. We also managed to squeeze into a road side parking area and do the short hike up to see Peyto Lake. All of the stops along the Parkway were super crowded so we didn’t stop to see much else. Totally worth the drive though!

We then spent 5 days in Fernie, B.C. I had heard years ago that it was a good mountain biking town, and it definitely did not disappoint! We also met up with Leanne and her family (www.borntoadventure.com) and the kids had a blast hanging out for a few hours. We learned that Canada really does have difficult trails – everything feels like its straight up without switchbacks. The kids did great though when we finally realized everyone does better when we split up. Cara still struggles and needs easier trails, and the other two like rides a bit more advanced.

Our trip into Canada was surprisingly not stressful. We have a credit card with no foreign transaction fees, and with our T-mobile plans we were able to hotspot and get work done. The only painful part was that we didn’t exchange cash from the beginning which made doing laundry complicated.

Oregon Coast, Camp Noyo & the Eclipse

We crossed the border north of Sandpoint Idaho, and spent an evening hanging out with the McCartie’s at their homestead. We met them on their RV trip a few years ago and loved to see them happily settled on their gorgeous property. I’ve always said that meeting people is one of my favorite parts about traveling and having friends all over the country is a bonus!

At the last minute we made a decision to divert to the Oregon Coast instead of continuing on to Bend, OR as planned. The temperatures were projected to be in the 100’s and that just didn’t sound fun at all. We found out our friends the Bareneckers were settled in a quaint state park and that sealed the deal. We enjoyed hanging with them for few days, and the kids had a blast playing together!

Sam’s family does a reunion at Camp Noyo every summer, and even though the scout camps are no longer running, we are still able to go in for a week every summer. Its really our happy place. Bridge jumping, paddling, outdoor movie nights, shooting range, lots of games, good food and family. Definitely my idea of a vacation.

On our way back to Idaho for the solar eclipse, we stopped at Lake Tahoe for the weekend to see our friends the Erickson’s. They are our outdoor adventure friends from Utah but had been spending the month in Tahoe renting a house. They also has just purchased an Airstream and were about to set out north for their first extended trip! We have kids pretty much exactly the same gender and ages and they get along really well. Movie nights, beach time, and bike rides. It was a great weekend!

After a quick stop in Salt Lake City to see my family and for Sam and I to escape for a night to celebrate our anniversary we made it back home to Driggs, ID! We had rented out the condo, so we camped for the week in my brother-in-law’s backyard. A bunch of the Curren side came up for the weekend as well as a lot of my sister-in-law’s family. We had a great weekend hanging out, and the eclipse on Monday morning was absolutely one of my favorite experiences ever. Being on the line of totality was incredible and something I will never forget!

Fall Plans

In less than a week we will be on Oahu, HI. I still can’t wrap my brain around that. We are pretty much packed, and now just need to winterize and store the Airstream, and make the trek out to San Francisco to catch our flight on August 30th.

We are still ironing out school for the 2017-2018 year, and while everyone else seems to be starting the new school year this week, we are still finishing up last year! It seems we take quite a bit of time off during the year to play.

Sam is teaching a computer science class at BYU-H, and we are renting the townhouse of a friend. I waffle between being incredibly excited to experience a new part of our country, and trepidation for having to sit still for 4 months. It will definitely be a challenge, but overall I think we will grow in ways that we haven’t been able to experience for the last 4 years on the road. I have so many plans to get caught up on ALL the projects, but realistically you’ll probably find us at the beach.

Aloha!

Thinking of visiting Glacier National park with your family? The park is so huge we broke our visit into two - check out our top 5 activities for the west side!

Glacier National Park is a favorite for quite a few people. Its always been high on my list, but we just hadn’t quite had the time to visit. This fall I was feeling spontaneous and ready for adventure so we drove a few extra hours in late September to spend six days on the west side.

It was magical. Every National Park should be visited in every season, but since that is unrealistic, let’s just say that Glacier is spectacular in the fall. Crisp air, changing leaves, and fewer crowds are just three of the perks for visiting in the off season.

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Amid school, work, and church we managed to keep ourselves busy for almost a week and definitely left plenty to do the next time we visit! While this isn’t an exhaustive list of activities on the west side of this park, here are some of our favorites:

1. Go on a Hike

The park newspaper is fabulous for planning hikes! There are detailed maps, one-way mileage, elevation and locations for the trail heads. All valuable information when you are planning activities with kids. Three hikes we did on this side were Avalanche Lake, Hidden Lake, and Rocky Point. There were a few other hike recommendations, but we really just didn’t have time to do everything (as much as I wanted to!).

I noticed that many of the hikes in the park require some serious effort. When I asked a ranger for an 8-10 mile loop hike, she gave me a blank stare. “We have more like 3-4 day loops hikes here,” was her comment. She went on to suggest some easier 3-4 mile hikes, but that’s about as difficult as we got.

While we didn’t venture out in to the back country due to cold night time temperatures, we did keep ourselves busy by strolling along the shore of Lake McDonald and driving to the summit via Going to the Sun Road.

Avalanche Lake Hike: 2.3 miles one way, 500 ft elevation gain

This is a well used trail. Luckily for us Avalanche Creek campground was already closed for the season, otherwise I think the trail would have been packed. The trail begins in conjunction with the Trail of the Cedars boardwalk and is a nice meander through some beautiful cedar trees.

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Just past the most amazing glacier waterfall (the water is SO blue) you take a turn to head up to the lake. The trail is not necessarily steep, but it is a pretty constant uphill. We did see a black bear WAY across the lake from us once we got there, but not close enough to even worry about the bear spray we had forgotten to bring.

Bonus: There is an outhouse just before you get to the lake. Hallelujah.

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Hidden Lake: 2.6 miles one way, 460 ft elevation + dropping 780 ft down to the lake

The temperature steadily dropped as we drove Going to the Sun Road up to the top of the pass. Once we got the top it was actually really cold and we quickly put on ALL our layers. The trail to Hidden Lake starts behind the Logan Pass visitor center. It is mostly paved or a boardwalk until you get to the overlook about 1.4 miles down the trail.

While the overlook was nice, continuing on the trail down to the lake was GORGEOUS. Even if you don’t hike all the way down, go out on the trail a bit. I promise its totally worth going past the overlook. While the goats were not out in abundance (perhaps they don’t like cold wind?) we did see a fat marmot. Much more exciting than goats anyway.

We had a nice lunch down by the shore of the lake, and I was amazed that not just one, but TWO guys jumped in the water to swim. They were out quickly, but apparently its a thing? Wow. I was not tempted to get in.

Bonus: There is an outhouse down by this lake as well. Hooray for an easy place for kids to go to the bathroom!

Rocky Point Hike: 1.1 mile, gains 85 ft elevation

This is an easy 2 mile lollipop loop with a great overlook of Lake McDonald. We drove from the campground over to Fish Creek Campground and the trail head was pretty obvious from there. While the trail itself wasn’t anything spectacular, this was a great “we just need to get out in the evening” type trail.

2. Drive Going to the Sun Road

This road is famous for a reason. It twists and turns and gains some serious elevation on the way up to Logan Pass. We were so excited to be on it that you would have thought we won the lottery. There are a few pull outs to get out of the way and take photos and we used more than a few. We also had some great clouds moving across the valley below us which helped shape the already dynamic landscape. Even if you aren’t going hiking up at the top, its definitely worth the drive!

3. Eat ice cream and watch the sunset on Lake McDonald

In Apgar village there’s a little ice cream shop that was open until 8pm. We each grabbed some ice cream (my flavor was huckleberry! yum!) and took them out to sit on the dock and watch night settle over Lake McDonald.

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You can also rent boats on the lake, but we opted out of that for the time being as we’d rather have canoes not kayaks. The outfitter only had the latter this late in the season. Bummer. It would’ve been a good time.

4. Camp in Apgar Campground

There’s a lot of turn over in the campground, so even though many of the sites were first come, first served we didn’t have trouble snagging one on a Wednesday night.We did notice that things filled up over the weekend, and then magically emptied again on Sunday night. Typical campground behavior.

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For trailers many of the sites put the door on the wrong side, so maybe just be a little picky. There’s a trail that you can walk/bike to the Apgar Ranger Station, or even just walk to Apgar village or down to the lake.

5. Attend a Ranger Program & Earn Jr. Ranger Badge

Naturally, we earned our Jr. Ranger Badges while we were there. I felt the book was well put together and easy enough for the kids to figure out on their own. There are A LOT of ranger programs in all areas of the park but we chose an easy one about animals getting ready for the winter at the Apgar Visitor Center. We learned about mountain goats, pikas, bears, and the marmots. Score one for road school.

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I would have loved to visit Bowman Lake but it was a long drive out there on a dirt road, and we were unsure of boat rentals and/or the status of the road that late in the year. We’ll make sure we make it up there next time as I’ve heard its gorgeous.

We’ll be visiting the east side – Two Medicine, Grinnell Glacier, Many Glacier next summer. We plan to hit some of the back country sites (possibly even from the Canada side!) so stay tuned!