My experience I was strategic about Yosemite. I wanted shoulder season — late enough that the park was open, early enough to miss the crowds. What I was less strategic about was where I would sleep. My spontaneous side doesn’t mesh well with the big parks, and this one is a beast. Everything inside was long gone, so [...]
Black Sandy State Park, located in Helena, MT, is a boaters paradise. With campsites right on the dock, you are always steps away from your boat and great recreation
Black Sandy State Park, located in Helena, MT, is a boaters paradise. With campsites right on the dock, you are always steps away from your boat and great recreation
Pompeys Pillar is a place I keep going back to. When I am in Montana it is one of the stops I end up making, and the reason is simple: it is an easy adventure with a lot of history in it. It sits just off I-94, about twenty-five miles east of Billings — a break in the [...]
I did not choose Death Valley. Death Valley was where I ended up. I had been in Zion and a rogue cold front was coming through. The advice I got was simple: go west. So I went west, and I arrived, and I was surrounded by gray rocks. There were no sites left in the regular campground, so [...]
Yellowstone is my home park when I am out west. I have family close enough that I can pop in for a few hours whenever I want, and that is exactly what I do. In 2021 I used Big Sky, Montana as a base — about an hour from the West Entrance — and I went in over [...]
Bryce Canyon was never going to be the visit. It was a stop. I was on my way to a much bigger trip — the Grand Canyon and Zion — and Bryce got a few hours in the middle of it, in early March. I knew going in that not much would be open. It was still the [...]
I took the detour off I-90 with my fingers crossed that it would even be open. This was January 2021. You could not assume anything was open, and I had no idea what I was going to be up against on access. I lucked out. I was driving west for the first time, on my way to Montana, [...]
