Our last day in the tetons

Here are some of the pictures from our last morning in the Tetons. These first two shots were taken from Colter Bay, near our campsite. Wonderful morning! These next two were from Jackson Lake Dam. Which one do you like better?This one was taken from Willow Flats. One the way home we decided to drive though Yellowstone. We had never been in the southern part of Yellowstone. Each area of Yellowstone is so different. We had to stop at Old Faithful and have our lunch there. While we were waiting a huge buffalo decided to run through the parking lot! Boy, did that set the rangers to scrambling and yelling for people to get out of the way. The old boy was just passing through, no trouble at all!Do you see me?Then Old Failthful faithfully spouted off it's excitement.

Then we drove home! Thanks for stopping by!

Where have we been????

Well, most of you probably know that this fall was pretty busy for us as we decided to move yet again. We are now located in Seattle WA and Erik got a good job working for King County there. Me? Well, I'm at home right now, getting us unpacked and settled in. I'll be looking for a job soon enough! We'd like to wrap up this blog since we really aren't the Montana Peters anymore and start a new blog. But I don't want to forget to share about our last few months in Missoula! I think Erik left off on our trip in the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. So, I'll continue there and hopefully over the next week or so bring this blog back into the present and get you all updated!

We left off with day 2 of our trip and the Cascade Canyon trail hike. Now we're onto Day 3 and the Garnet Canyon hike. You can check out a map if your interested here. Click on maps and look in the area near Jenny Lake.

This morning we got up early because our goal was to climb Middle Teton and we knew it would be a long day. So we were up and out of the campground by 6am. On the way we saw a ton of elk, our first sightings of elk in the wild. We even heard the males bugle it was pretty awesome. No picture because the camera happened to be out of batteries at the time! Here's Erik eating his breakfast at the trailhead.

So off we went into the wild blue yonder! I can't remember all the details like the miles or exact time hiked but I know we started around 6:30am and got back to the car around 4:30pm.

It took us about and hour or so to get here. The peak on the left is Nez Pierce and the peak in the center that's a little washed out is Middle Teton.Awwww, So cute and smiley!Tonya on the trail. Middle Teton continues to loom large!Tonya just about the enter the non-trail portion of the trail. We're headed into the south col and over our first small snow field. See the little snow field in this picutre. That's where I was standing in the last picture. It's hard to get perspective, just remember everything is WAY bigger than it appears on screen. Here's a view of the next part of our climb. Ahh, to climb the snowfield or climb the boulders??? Well the ranger recommended ice axes which we don't have, so we went without. Smart, not ro sure but at least we didn't die. Although I thought I was going to at one point during this portion of the climb! We took the left side of the snow field for a while but it was too icy so we "jumped" off (over scary boulder crevices!) and tried the boulders instead but ended up way off the unofficial trail in a loose boulder field. Even Erik got a little nervous, I think. So here I am thanking Jesus that I didn't die yet! Although heaven will be wonderful, I just wasn't ready to go there that day! This was our lunch spot and my get the feeling back in my legs spot. After this it was a steep climb but we found the "trail" again for it was easier going. Here is a picture that Erik took from the saddle of Middle Teton. I didn't make it, I was about 200 ft lower sitting on a rock shedding a few tears cux my legs were too woobly to go on and be safe on the descent. Erik also took this panoramic shot below from the saddle looking west. I'm not sure the name of the lake. Looking back down the way we came from my resting spot. See how far down the valley is?All smiles on the way down. It was getting warm again (it was cold up near the top). Se the people behind me on the snow field to the right? Goofing off!We did enjoy some pretty views!And pretty flowers!Almost down. I love this shot for some reason!Here's a shot of two lakes at the "mouth" of the Canyon. You can see where they were carved by glaciers long ago by the berms built up all round them. The darker line out int he distance is the Jackson river or the tree growing up around it. Down the valley to the right is where Jackson Hole is.

Thus ended our hike for the day. It was an amazing experience. Scary and testing of our courage and strength but I think we both passed! I probably could have made it to the saddle or even the top if we hadn't just put in a 14 miles hike the day before and maybe we'd started out earlier.

Watch soon for our last day in the tetons. Adios!

A Visitor!

We had a visitor last weekend! Ginger, Erik's aunt from Arizona, came up for a visit. We had a very good time giving her a tour of some of the best sites in the area.

Her first day we took her to the National Bison Range, which you may remember from here. We had a great day for travelling and sight seeing. Here's a few pics:

Ginger and Erik

Arrowleaf Balsamroot and Mountains

Ginger and Tonya

Buffalo

They just had calving season and this guy was the closest to the road

Yellow headed blackbird:

Pretty view of the mountains:

Stop by later for our trip to Glacier with Ginger!

Visiting Idaho

So I'm finally getting caught up with the blog! I sure hope I can keep it a little more updated.

The weekend on Aug 18th we had to flee town yet again because the smoke was so bad! We were getting right sick of it! So we decided to go to Coure de' Alane, ID for the night. We had a beautiful drive there, it's about 2 hours by I90 but we got off the highway prior to towna nd took some backroads that went around the lake for a more scenic drive. It's a great area and nice to be by a lake again. We got out of the car in the afternoon and did a hike that had some views of the lake here's a picture of us with the lake in the background:

We had a little trouble finding a campsite that night but we finally did and it ended up being really nice and quiet. We even slept with the rain fly off. On Sunday we checked out the town a little bit before we headed back to Missoula. It rained most of the morning but as we drove back home the skies went from cloudy to smoky! Ughh! However, that night the rain came ti Missoula and the smoke went away! It rained off and on for a couple days (you have to realise it only totally about 1/2 and inch that whole time!) but it felt great and with the little bit of water and the cooler temps it brought some of the fires in the area were able to be brought under a little bit more control.

Then this past weekend for the holiday weekend we went back to Idaho, Sandpoint and Lake Pend Oreille. It was GREAT! We did do a dumb thing that actually ended up being to our benefit. We forgot to bring our checkbook and neither of us carry much cash if any at all. WE also haven't memorized our pin numbers of our cards yet so we had NO way of paying for a campsite! DOH! We stopped at the Ranger Station in town to try to figure something out and we got lucky. They had two free campsite areas, they closer one was more of a party place (not for us) and the farther one was pretty far considering it was going on 4:30pm. But she told us we could do low impact camping on any National Forest Service Land! She showed us some good areas to try and we foudn a great spot only 10 min off the highway in the deep woods! It turned out perfect, if you can live without an bathroom for a couple days and we can! Since we brought all our food with us and the hiking was free we only had to pay for gas! Yippee! We also decided that it was a great area to live in if we ever see the need to move again. So Saturday we hiked a new trail that overlooked town and the lake. Here's some shots from the top:

Here's a cool tree/rock on the trail:

Then we went down to the city beach to swim off the grim and hangout since there wasn't much to do at our campsite! Here's some pictures of the sailboats that were practicing racing that day. They are headed around that orange ball you can see in one of the pics. (EJ, we thought of you the whole time and how much you'd like this lake!)

On Sunday I had to work (the holiday) So we got up early and did part of a hike on Scotchman's Peak. It was the steepest hike I've done since New Zealand where they don't believe in switchbacks! We both said we had to go back and do it again so we can make it to the top. Here's picture from our turn around spot. We met a really nice couple who invited us to call them when we're in the area.

Another great weekend hiking and enjoying nature!

Coming up: pics of the dear in our neighborhood from fawns to 6 point bucks! Also a smoky sun and our lovely Rio.

Our second visitor!

The weekend of July 21-23 we had the joy of having Erik's sister Monika come and visit with us! And what did we do? Of course, we went backpacking! Well, it was over 100 again that weekend and she's from Seattle so we had to get out of the heat a little bit. It sort of worked since where we hiked it was still pretty warm. But we got to pick huckleberries all the way down! I had just seen them at the Farmer's Market in town for $8/lb. and we picked them all for free! There are some pictures on Monika's camera of us enjoying the huckleberry milkshakes so as soon as she send's them I'll update this post.

She arrive early on a Sat morning and we packed up the car and headed out to the Mission Mountain. We travelled about 1 1/2hrs to our trailhead. There were a lot of horse trailers parked at the trailhead and we passed many horse trains on the way. Note: always try to get off the trail on the DOWN side and talk softly so the horses don't get spooked. We hiked in about 5-6 miles that day, mostly uphill and camped at Piper Lake. We were in Wilderness area so there are not any designated campsites so we picked a nice rocky outcropping and pitched our tents there.

Erik napping at the end of the hike:

It got a little smoky the night from some fires burning on the other side of the Missions, but it wasn't too bad. In the morning it was a little hazy. Here's a shot of the campsite (with stuff all over the place!) We swam a couple times right off the rocks there, it was very nice!
On Sunday morning before heading back to our car we hiked up a ridge we could see from our campsite. Here's some pics from the top: Sorry I can't get the pics of Monika and Erik and me and Erik to post. Oh well I'll try another time! Next up Glacier National Park!

More camping!

Do you ever get sick of hearing about all the camping and hiking we do?? I hope not because it is the most interesting stuff we do right now out here! We have been stuck indoors most of the time now with all the fires in the area causing dangerous air quality. So hopefully this weekend we're going to norther Idaho where there is no smoke, we hope any way!

But now to back up just a bit, I am almost caught up with the past adventures. Going back to July 14 and 15 when I was working Erik went on an overnight backpacking trip by himself. Again the temps in Missoula were over 100 and since I work nights and would be sleeping during the day he just wanted to get somewhere cooler where he didn't have to be quiet. So he went back to the Anaconda-Pintler area and did a good loop but he was a little diappointed when he didn't pop out above tree line so he didn't reall get any "grand" views. Anywhere in the wilderness is a great view if you ask me! Oh, and I tried to get him to post but he thinks I do a better job at it! Here's some pics from his trip: (i'm glad he labeled them!)

This is Elephant Head flower. If you look closely you can see the flowers resemble tiny elephant heads:

Erik in front of Lower Carp Lake:

Pretty Beargrass along the trail:Upper Black Bear Meadow:

View from Warren Pass:Well, that's it for the pics. Erik said he had a good time but he would have rather been hiking with me! Awwww! The next post highlights one of our visitors! Check it out.

Storm Lake Pass

Some of you that I have talked to know that July was extremely hot here in Missoula, way above average temps. (Sort of what Like MNis experiencing right now) For 5 weeks we did not go below 90 for the high temp. Over the week of the 4th when I was off in high country visiting with Kirstin and Chris poor Erik was at home with no AC in temps of 101-105! So I got back on Friday night and we left Sat morning for the high country again, some car camping and hiking to try to get away from some of the heat. It worked because we went up a couple thousand feet and the temp went down at least 10-15 degrees. We got to camp by a lake and hike up to Storm Pass in the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness. The trail was nice and there was a lot of free camping in the area so we'll have to remember that. We'd also love to backpack in the area looks really nice. When we were hiking on the trail the weather was turning a little scetchy so I didn't take too many pics and the ones I did take aren't the greatest but here's a few for you to judge for yourself.
On the way up the trail. Notice the flowers beside the trail. Hard to get a good picture of the flowers but in real life they add so much color!

Sign post at the top:

Here's a picture of one of the peaks at the top. The trail you see goes on deeper into the wilderness. After that we heard thunder getting closer as you can tell by the clouds. It rained on our way down but luckily the lightning didn't get too close. Until the next post!