After our big adventure in the snow hiking Gray's Peak I thought I had probably seen my last snow of the year...I should have known better!
I completed my final day of working at Children's Outreach Project on Wednesday, May 23rd. It was a wonderful semester and a great opportunity for me. To celebrate the end of the school year and Memorial Day weekend, Katy and I headed up north for a long weekend to visit Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.
We left Thursday morning and drove six hours to a cabin we had rented at the Togwotee Mountain Lodge. The lodge is known for being a first class snow mobiling spot and sits about one mile south of the continental divide. So, Togwotee Mountain gets lots of snow throughout the year, but we assumed since it was Memorial Day Weekend, the kickoff to summer, that we would not see any of the white stuff. Well, we started running into snow about 15 miles from our cabin and it snowed harder and harder as we continued up the mountain. We were driving about 10 miles per hour as we pulled into the lodge and had over a foot of snow on the ground around us! We spent the evening taking Colby and Barlow hiking (despite the posted warning of Grizzly Bears in the area) and then cooked dinner at our cabin.
Our cabin was a great location because we were situated 14 miles from the entrance to Grand Teton National Park, 45 miles to Jackson Hole, and about 50 miles to the south entrance to Yellowstone National Park. Friday we decided to spend all day in Yellowstone. We were up early and at the entrance to the park by 8am. Once we entered the park we decided to head first for Old Faithful, one of the park's most famous and iconic features. All of the National Parks we have visited during our travels are deceiving because once you enter the park you usually still have miles and miles to travel before reaching the different attractions. To get to Old Faithful from the south entrance was a 39 mile trip!
We made it to Old Faithful with perfect timing as we only stood around for several minutes before seeing the geyser erupt. Old Faithful is one of over 500 geysers found in Yellowstone, but is so well known (and named) because of the consistency if its eruptions as well as its easy access to visitors. There was a light snow falling as we watched Old Faithful, which was very cool, although it made it hard to take pictures because it did not provide a sharp contrast of the boiling water shooting into the snowy sky.
We explored around Old Faithful for a little while checking out the visitor's center and visiting several of the other geysers in the area. We then continued north through the park, but did not make it far before we stopped off the side of the road to admire a Moose off in the distance. Once we got back in the car we only made it about two miles before stopping again, this time to check out a herd of Buffalo.
 |
| Mud Pots |
After our quick roadside stops to admire the different wildlife, we went to the Fountain Paint Pots, a short hike where you can catch the four geothermal structures found in Yellowstone:
geysers,
hot springs,
mud pots, and
fumaroles. We knew Yellowstone was so famous because it was the first National Park to be formed, but we did not realize that it was home to over half of the world's geysers and has over 10,000 thermal features, making it the world's most concentrated area for geothermal activity.
 |
| View from the top of the Fountain Paint Pots |
 |
| Gibbon Falls |
After our hike we continued to head north, stopping at the Gibbon Falls (we did not stay long since the snow had switched to sleet) and then headed into the Montana portion of the park going to the
Mammoth Hot Springs and to the northern entrance, a 95 mile drive from the South entrance.
 |
| Mammoth Hot Springs |
 |
| Yellowstone Falls |
After driving all the way to the northern most part of the park we wanted to head east, but portions of the road were closed in that direction due to heavy snow, so we backtracked south and then headed east making our way to the Yellowstone Falls. There we did a two mile hike that took us to different overlooks of the falls. The falls were gorgeous and we could have kept hiking around the area as the weather had cleared up, but dogs are not allowed in many parts of the park and so we decided to make our walk short for the dogs' sake.
 |
| Yellowstone Lake |
After exploring around the Yellowstone Falls we started heading south, this time going a different route that took us beside Yellowstone Lake. We stopped several times during this stretch of the trip to take in the many incredible views of the mountains, wildlife, the rivers and lake. When the days was all said and done we had driven 192 miles through Yellowstone, spending over nine hours exploring and hitting some of the major highlights of the park.We both agreed that we could have easily spent a week in Yellowstone, but we felt good about taking advantage of the one day we had.
We finished our full day by stopping in Grand Teton National Park to grab dinner. On our way back to our cabin we once again ran into heavy snow driving up the mountain. Once back at the cabin we got a fire going and then welcomed our good friends, Matt and Brittany, to spend the rest of the weekend with us. Matt and Brittany staid a night with us recently in Boulder and are doing travel therapy with their first stop in Idaho, not far from Yellowstone. We spent the night enjoying some drinks and catching up with each other's adventures.
On Saturday we headed to the Grand Tetons where we took a ferry ride across Jenny Lake and hiked to a lookout called Inspiration Point. It was a great hike with some incredible views, and best of all there were two
marmots that kept chasing each other all over the trail. When we got to Inspiration Point we decided to keep hiking further up the mountain, but soon ran into snow up to our knees. We had fun playing in the snow, but our fun was cut short as the sky turned pitch black and we decided it would be best to start hiking back. We only bought a one way ticket on the ferry, and so had a 2.5 mile hike back to our car. We had just began our trek back to the car when the skies opened up and let loose. The heavy rain was mixed with sleet and so by the time we made it to the car we were all soaked!
 |
| Town Square of Jackson Hole |
After spending the day exploring the Grand Tetons we headed to the town of Jackson Hole to grab dinner and a few drinks. That night we got snowed on again driving up the mountain and decided that it must be the norm to drive through snow heading to Togwotee Mountain. Sunday we had to clear the snow off our vehicles as it snowed almost half a foot the night before. As we headed down the mountain and back towards Colorado we said goodbye to the snow and into weather that felt more like the beginning of summer. When we left it was snowing and 20 degrees outside and when we pulled into Boulder it was sunny and in the mid 80s! On our way home to Colorado we stopped twice because on two different occasions we spotted bald eagles off the side of the road. Even though it was such an incredible three days exploring Northern Wyoming I would almost have to say that seeing the bald eagles might have been the highlight of the trip!
On Monday, Memorial Day, Katy and I were up early to run in the 34th annual Bolder Boulder. There were close to 50,000 runners participating in the 10k and even more spectators, making this race one of the largest road races in the country. The start line was a five minute walk from our house and the race ended at Folsom Field, the football stadium for the University of Colorado. The race ran all throughout the city with views of the Flat Irons serving as a backdrop. There were live bands performing throughout the course, people who were offering runners keg stands (Katy and I did not participate), people passing out rice krispy treats, Doritos, and homemade cupcakes (I did take a cupcake), there was a slip and slide on the course and lots of people spraying runners with hoses and shooting them with water guns. A lot of runners dressed up in costumes, so it was truly an all around entertaining race. Katy and I finished in an hour and four minutes and then met up with some friends to go grab lunch. That evening we rested up from our long weekend and got ready for our last week in Colorado.
Katy and I spent our last week in Colorado trying to soak up some of our favorite aspects of living in Boulder...we went hiking a couple of evenings at our favorite spot, Chautaugua Park, we enjoyed dinner on the outdoor mall, we took the dogs running around the wonderful trails throughout the city, and most importantly we spent our final weekend with Aunt Cyndi where we helped her do some painting, enjoyed her cooking (we will definitely miss that), and spent one final day in downtown Denver going to the People's Fair and to an amazing dinner at a restaurant called Cholan. 
On Monday morning we were up early again and drove to the Badlands National Park to start off our morning doing some exploring. Since we had a long day of driving ahead of us we only staid in the park for a couple of hours, stopping at several overlooks to enjoy the scenery. The Badlands is the largest protected grass prairie in the United States and is full of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires....it is unlike any terrain we had seen before.
The summer was a busy fun packed summer with time spent at Smith Mountain Lake, Emerald Isle, I worked two weeks at the Massanetta Middle School Conference as Recreation Leader, Katy attended a two week continuing education course in Raleigh to become certified in Neuro-IFRAH (a type of rehabilitative treatment for stroke patients), we moved in to our new house in Chapel Hill, we spent lots of time swimming with the dogs at Jordan Lake and exploring our new area. The biggest event of the summer happened on August 20th when we both officially began our new adventures. I started graduate school to earn a Master's in Public Health and Nutrition at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill and also began a research assistantship working with the Children's Healthy Weight Research Team at the University's Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. Also on the 20th Katy began a new job working at the University Hospital in Inpatient Rehab where she works primarily with spinal cord patients. I want to emphasize, this is not just some job, this is the ONLY job Katy had her sights set on since I found out I got into graduate school and we would be living in Chapel Hill. This is the place she wanted to be because it is the area of therapy that she is the most passionate about and she also knew that UNC had an amazing team of therapists and doctors and would be an incredible place to work. We could not be happier to both be where we are currently and to also live close enough to be able to walk to school and to work....life is good!
