August 12, 2008

After the Beartooth Highway we camped by Cooke City in what would turn out to be one of my favorite campsites of the trip. The next day we drove across the northern part of the park to the Boiling River, which was open to the public (Unlike when I was there with my sister Rebecca a few weeks earlier) They were doing some work on it though as the Boiling River had apparently “changed course” a little bit.

From Mammoth we went south to one of my favorite spots, the Old Faithful area, where we spent a decent amount of time making fun of how big of a deal Old Faithful is made up to be. We skipped waiting for Old Faithful in order to see the more interesting features nearby.

My old friends the geothermal features were still looking good, as always. I am a big fan of the concept of revisiting places. I’m specifically talking about the natural world but as I sit here in Asheville for the first time in 8 months I think this idea applies to cities as well.

Things are constantly changing with the day to day weather, the seasons, and just the random changes that constantly occur in the universe on any given number of levels.

One of the first things we did on the drive back to Asheville was head east on I-90 for a short while, then turn south onto the Beartooth Highway down to the northeast corner of Yellowstone National Park.

From north to south the road goes from the small town of Red Lodge, Montana, to the way smaller town of Cook City, Wyoming.

I had heard a lot about this road but living in Bozeman it isn’t on the way anywhere so I hadn’t been on it yet. It was an amazing way to begin what would be a fairly epic 3000 mile journey back home.

Davy and I did some rock climbing during his brief stay in Bozeman. We climbed Gallatin Tower, 3 fun pitches in the Gallatin Canyon. It was only Davy’s second time climbing outside (the first being when we went the day before) and he handled it like an old pro.