Backpacking

Wyoming Wandering

Sheraya Smith2 Comments

Hello all! I’m really behind on these blog posts – hoping to crank a couple out in the near future!

September of 2022 I decided to celebrate my 25th birthday by – you guessed it – booking a rental car without any underage fees! What a glorious day. Day was made even better by subsequently driving to Yellowstone National Park, which was also conveniently celebrating a birthday (plus or minus six months) of 150 years! This was a pretty big deal, as Yellowstone was America’s first National Park AND the world’s first National Park.

Yellowstone is probably most known for its amazing geothermal features. For better or for worse, this wasn’t an entirely new experience for me, as I had visited Rotarua in New Zealand, a similarly geothermally wacky place. The biggest difference? Size – Yellowstone is massive, especially in comparison with Rotorua. Rotorua can be sufficiently explored in probably less than a day, while it took me three days to get a proper taste of Yellowstone.

After making the usual Walmart run, I drove to West Yellowstone and entered the park from the west. This was really my only (convenient) option, as historic flooding earlier in the year had closed the northwest entrance. Thankfully, the park rebounded very quickly, and it didn’t end up having a huge impact on my trip!

Views were pretty awesome from the get-go:

I headed to Madison Campground and checked in…

…then set out for Gibbon Falls. I didn’t catch it in the best light, but it was still really pretty!

Next up was Artist’s Paintpots. These were pretty neat! Lots of boiling and bubbling. Here’s a bird’s eye view:

And finally was Norris Geyser Basin, which had a couple options for loop trails. I was THRILLED to catch the fumaroles (steam vents) at golden hour!

The sun was quickly setting, so it was back to my campsite for a birthday dinner of spam and mashed potatoes. What a good day!

Sunday morning I hoofed it out of camp back out to West Yellowstone, as I had neglected to pick up my backpacking permit the day before. With that taken care of, I re-entered the park…

…and set my course north for Mammoth Hot Springs, all the way near the Northwest Entrance. This was a really cool spot, and I spent a couple hours exploring the many terraces and other spicy-hot features.

I had quite the distance to travel that day, so I soon made my way down to the Canyon Village area – but not without stopping for this great view of the Yellowstone River!

After renting the necessary can of bear spray at Canyon Village, I headed to my trailhead – Artist’s Point. This happens to be an extremely popular spot, and for good reason:

What most people don’t know, however, is that you can get equally as stunning (I would argue more stunning!) views if you just hike a little further in:

My destination for the night was just a couple miles down the trail, at Ribbon Lake Site #2, but the number of large downed logs across the trail slowed my pace. I ended up having the site all to myself, which I’m normally fine with, but that night I found it a little creepy – I guess I had bears on the mind, and the eerie wailing noise I kept hearing echoing through the woods didn’t exactly help matters. (I later learned that this was an elk’s mating call – pretty common since it was rut season!)

I was up a decent hour and hiking back out. I took some time exploring the Grand Canyon’s rims, then headed to Dunraven Pass to hike Mount Washburn, one of the highest peaks in the park. It’s a pretty popular hike – I had to circle around the parking lot a couple of times until a spot opened up!

I honestly had mixed feelings about this hike. I’m glad I did it, but I wouldn’t do it again – 6.8 miles and 1400 feet elevation gain was kind of a lot for so-so views. Granted, visibility was lowered by wildfire smoke, and the elevation was kicking my butt, so that didn’t help. There is kind of a neat fire tower at the top though!

Once I reached the summit, it was a bit of a mad dash back down, as I had booked a kayaking trip on Yellowstone Lake. I made it, a little late, but thankfully before they had pushed off. I ended up going in a single kayak and stuck pretty close to the guide, who was a cool guy and a wealth of information.

I wouldn’t classify it as a must-do activity at Yellowstone, but I appreciated getting to experience the lake, and it was neat to see the West Thumb Geyser Basin area from the water, especially since land access was closed to the public.

Dark was closing in, so I was off to my home for the next two nights at Lewis Lake Campground (with a quick stop at the lake for a moonlight photo!). I ended up with a really nice walk-in site for that first night.

Tuesday morning, it was time to hit the more touristy areas of the park. My first stop was probably the most famous: Old Faithful. She didn’t disappoint!

Here’s what you don’t see in that picture:

To be fair, I had slept in some, so this was kind of prime time of the day. But still!! For this being shoulder season in the middle of the week, I was still struggling to find a good spot to sit – I can’t imagine coming to Yellowstone in-season. Don’t do it if you can help it, folks! I will say, I had to contend with some pretty large daily temperature swings: think highs in the 70s and lows in the 30s. But as long as you come prepared, it’s worth it to avoid the huge throngs of people!

I spent the next couple of hours exploring the various geothermal features near Old Faithful. There were some neat ones.

One of my favorite features of that area actually wasn’t a geological one, but an archaeological one: the Old Faithful Inn.

It was just so neat and quaint: they had a violinist playing music in the background, and a massive fireplace with logs blazing. You can see one of my favorite parts in this picture at the very top – the Crow’s Nest. Before an earthquake caused it to be deemed unsafe for heavy traffic, musicians used to play up there while crowds danced the night away on the floor below. Can you imagine??

Afterwards, it was time to visit probably the second most-famous feature in Yellowstone, the Grand Prismatic Spring – or so I thought. The parking lot was completely full, so I bode some time at this really pretty river drive.

Unfortunately, the parking lots were still full after this, so I followed the crowds, parked on the shoulder of the road, and hiked to the board walk. Honestly, I was a little disappointed with the board walk – you couldn’t really see much of the spring, though I did get a cool shot with some bison footprints.

Things got a lot more interesting from the perspective of the overlook hike – highly recommend, as it’s only about a mile round-trip!

I do have to say, Yellowstone is probably the most accessible National Park I’ve visited. I’m not sure whether this is an affect of the huge crowds, or the fact that they have to elevate so many paths so that people aren’t walking among boiling pools of water, but particularly the more touristy areas are very accessible.

I hit a couple more stops along the way back to Lewis Lake Campground, some of which were really colorful.

I was feeling kind of geysered-out at this point, and it was getting close to dark, so I returned to camp for the night. Wednesday morning I was up very early on the road to my second national park of the trip: Grand Teton, just a little south of Yellowstone. I wanted to make it to the visitor’s center as soon as they opened to try and score some ideal backpacking permits at Holly Lake, a spot along the Paintbrush-Cascade loop trail.

Unfortunately, Holly Lake was booked up, so I was forced to take a site further along the loop, higher up in the mountains. The ranger started to warn me about afternoon thunderstorms high up in the peaks, but then stopped when she checked the weather forecast and then informed me that I actually shouldn’t have to worry about weather. Oh, how wrong she was… *Cue foreshadowing music*

It was a pretty gloomy morning, so I decided to drive around and stop at all the points of interest.

One of the more famous places in the area is Mormon Row, a string of old houses and barns left over from a Mormon community. Photographers flock here to get an iconic shot of one particular barn with the Tetons in the background. Unfortunately for this amateur, the clouds were blocking the mountains, but I was still relatively satisfied with the photos I did get.

Next I stopped at the Chapel of the Transfiguration, which ended up one of my favorite spots in the park. I was more impressed with this shot than any of mine at Mormon Row!

Next up was a hike around Taggart Lake, which was gorgeous. My fears that I wouldn’t even be able to see the Tetons due to cloud cover were slowly being allayed!

Finally, after I made it back to my car and started driving again, I got to see the Tetons in their full splendor!

Reader, I had never cried before while gazing upon a corner of creation. This day, I did. I cried, and danced for joy.

One of the theories on why the Tetons are so iconic and instantly recognizable is that they don’t really have foothills, giving them the appearance of suddenly jutting straight up from the ground. Whatever the reason, they are stunning. Make sure you add them to your bucket list.

I continued driving around, stopping at a few more places, but mostly ogling the Tetons whenever they were in sight. When it got close to sunset, I found a nice pullout to watch the show and “cook” a yummy dinner of corned beef hash. Lucky for me, a group of gentlemen had chosen the same pullout to watch some wildlife, and they eagerly pointed out animals and loaned me their binoculars for a few minutes.

After a long day, it was time to set up camp and bed down at Colter Bay Campground. Thursday morning I packed up and hit the road, attempting to head back to Mormon Row for another shot (or 20) at the barn with the Tetons in the background. As it turns out, clouds foiled me again, so I didn’t make it all the way back out there, but I did get a neat shot of the Tetons with a huge cloud at the base.

I moseyed my way over to the String Lake trailhead, taking my sweet old time. I packed up my pack and finally hit the trail sometime after 10. It was a beautiful day, and all I had to do was just hike – easy, right?

The further I trudged uphill, however, the more the clouds seemed to roll in and look almost ominous. I had foolishly not checked the weather for myself that morning, depending solely on the ranger’s forecast from the day before. My uneasiness continued to grow when an older man coming down the mountain asked if I had knew the forecast, clearly concerned about my itinerary and timing. Sure enough, it started to drizzle, then rain, and the wind picked up. Before long, I was soaked through. I told myself I would push through the next mile or two to Holly Lake (about 6 miles in), where I would stop and take a lunch break.

I finally made it to Holly Lake and found a place to hunker down and try to figure out what to do. There was some sporadic lightning happening, and I was pretty concerned about heading any further up the pass, which I was (correctly) guessing would be significantly more exposed. At the same time, I didn’t have permits for Holly Lake, and it was supposed to be all filled up for the night.

After about half an hour, the lightning had died down some, and I had just anxiously decided to try continuing on when two men bounded into camp. I quickly learned that they had just come down the pass and had an extremely harrowing experience doing so. They soon talked me out of going further, so I began to look for a non-puddled spot to bed down. Thankfully, my clothes inside my pack were still dry, so I was soon pretty comfortable. After a couple of hours, the rain had cleared out, so I decided to explore a bit and make dinner.

It was really quite pretty, when you weren’t worried about hypothermia or getting struck by lightning! I got quite a kick out of the fact that I ended up staying at the place that I had originally intended, and the fact that we ended up being the only three people to camp there on a night it was supposed to be fully booked. Oh, the irony…

The next morning, I was faced with another choice: continue up the pass to finish out the loop, or go back down the way I had came. After weighing numerous factors, including some blisters that had cropped up on my feet, the uncertainty of that day’s weather, and the fact that I had a flight to catch the following morning, I ultimately decided to go with my two new friends back down the mountain. I learned that they had been hiking the Teton Crest Trail, and that this was the last leg for them. They were quite anxious for a good burger and soon had me salivating with them. After a couple of hours, we had reached the trailhead. Whether you’ve backpacked 12 or 50 miles, it’s such a relief to reach your car, and these guys were no exception!

We parted ways with the intent of meeting back up to grab a meal, but unfortunately our timing was off and it just didn’t happen. I went to go get a hot shower at one of the campgrounds (oh glory be!), then headed for the National Museum of Wildlife Art. I quickly learned that I quite enjoy this art style and was a little bummed I hadn’t allowed myself more time there.

I got the classic picture by the park sign…

…then headed into nearby Jackson Hole for some real food. I found a neat burger joint in what looked like an old drug store, and dug into a bacon jam burger and a huckleberry milkshake, washed down with a Moscow Mule. Man, it tasted so good, but I definitely had to unbutton the pants!

My original plan had been to stake out a free campsite for the night, but I had decided after taking my shower that I didn’t really want to go back to my wet tent, and I start fantasizing about reading Lord of the Rings from somewhere warm and cozy. Lucky for me, I found a hostel just a little ways out of Jackson Hole! To make it even better, I got a pretty sunset on my way out of town.

Doesn’t it look so inviting?

It definitely had its quirks – no 5 star resort here. But it was just the spot a sleepy Sheraya with a full belly was looking for.

And to top it all off, it had a fire sunrise view the next morning!

I hit the road back to Bozeman pretty early so I could catch my flight. Of course, as a software developer, I had to make a stop at the American Computing and Robotics Museum! I didn’t have much time there, but what I did see was pretty neat.

Before long, I was back in the air to Indiana, with parks #25 and 26 crossed off my list!

I’ve got one more post coming featuring park #27, and then a post with a big announcement! Stay tuned!

California Dreamin’

Sheraya Smith2 Comments

…on such a winter’s day. Today’s high is in the 30’s, so this classic song seems especially appropriate as I pen this post.

To begin this epic trip to Death Valley, Joshua Tree, and the Channel Islands, I flew into LA early Saturday morning. The flight cruised at pretty low altitude, so I got to see some gorgeous landscapes when I wasn’t asleep.

I picked up my rental car, bought groceries, grabbed a shrimp taco from Del Taco, and headed out for Death Valley that afternoon. It was pretty crazy going from the second largest city in the country to a very isolated desert landscape that tested my 4-wheel drive within just a few hours.

I planned to explore the less developed part of the park in the Panamint range (circled in blue below), then make my way over to the valley and hit several main attractions (circled in purple).

My original plans were to camp at Mahogany Flats Saturday night and hike to Telescope Peak, the highest point in the park, on Sunday, but that idea was dashed when I discovered that the last 1.5 miles of the road to Mahogany Flats was closed. I instead camped at Wildrose Saturday night.

And BRRR, was it chilly! The campground pretty exposed, and since it’s at a higher elevation, it got down in the 30s that night. I’d say it was all worth it, though, for that sunrise view the next morning. Pretty sure I took this from my tent.

Since the 14 miles to Telescope Peak in the snow sounded daunting before adding the 1.5 miles of closed road each way, I ultimately settled for the less intimidating 8.4 mile RT hike to Wildrose Peak. The trailhead is by the Charcoal Kilns, where miners used to burn piñon pines to turn into charcoal.

The hike to Wildrose was gorgeous, though definitely a buttkicker, rising 2200 feet in 4.1 miles.

One of the best parts, however, was the lack of people. I counted fewer than ten people the entire hike, which would prove a stark contrast to the rest of my Death Valley experience.

I did end up meeting an awesome couple near the summit and spent some time with them up there just soaking in the views. You can see Telescope Peak in the bottom photograph.

After lunch, my new friends settled in for a brief nap in the warm sun, but I decided I’d better get going again, so we bid farewell.

I made it back to the trailhead in a little less than 2.5 hours and started towards the main part of the park. That drive was just gorgeous.

I had plans to stay at Stovepipe Wells Campground (green on the map), but I wanted to do some things on the west end of the park first, so I headed that way once I hit 190. First stop was the Father Crowley Vista Point, which overlooks Star Wars Canyon. The name is somewhat ironic because, while some features of Death Valley made it into Star Wars Episode IV, this was not one of them.

The view was beautiful, but to top it off, there was a letterbox nearby! It has to be one of my favorite stamps I’ve found yet.

Since I was so close to the west entrance, I drove there and got a picture with the sign.

I caught sunset on the way back to Stovepipe Wells. What a gorgeous park.

I snagged a campsite and set up for the night. Stovepipe is definitely one of the strangest “campgrounds” I’ve seen – it was essentially a large gravel parking lot with room for tents around the edges.

I can’t really complain though – it had flush toilets and it was cheap! Only $7 a night, since it was off-season.

I packed up early the next morning and hit the road. I filled up first thing and nearly gagged at the price of gas – $5.30. If I only knew…

My first stop was the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. It was neat, but I decided not to stay very long. I had several things I wanted to see, and after experiencing the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado, these dunes seemed rather small.

I made a few quick park-on-the-side-of-the-road-to-run-and-catch-a-great-shot stops along the drive. Sunrise was just too pretty to resist.

I was just amazed at the amount of vegetation on the valley floor. For a place that gets an average of two inches of rain a year, there was so much greenery in little pockets here and there.

Next up was the Harmony Borax Works site. Apparently Death Valley was once primarily used as a mining site. It wasn’t very productive, however, and its owner soon determined it was more profitable as an attraction and started building infrastructure to support tourism. One of the materials most mined was borax, and it was famously hauled out of the valley with 20-mule teams, which went on to become the namesake and symbol of a borax brand.

My third(ish) stop was a short one at Zabriskie Point…

…And my fourth was Dante’s View, which requires a 30 minute drive off the main drag. I thought it was well worth it for the views of the valley floor.

I drove back and stopped at the visitor’s center, which had some pretty neat exhibits and interesting information. Death Valley is many things: the hottest place in the world (134 degrees back in 1913), the lowest point in the country (200 feet below sea level at Badwater Basin), and one of the driest places in the world (an average 2 inches of rain per year). I enjoyed the outdoor thermostat, which showed the temperature change between different elevations.

Next up was the drive down Badwater Road, which winds through multiple interesting park features. My first stop was the Golden Canyon trail, which is on the other side of Zabriskie Point. This trail was short and a pretty neat hike, especially the further you went in! I hiked back to the Red Rocks Cathedral and was not disappointed.

Next I did the drive down Artist’s Road and stopped at Artist’s Palette, known for its many-colored hills, due to the chemistry of the soil.

The next feature I visited was Devil’s Golf Course, which made me chuckle. It’s essentially a bunch of salt formations, which look cool but are understandably pretty difficult (and painful) to walk on, so I didn’t spend much time there.

My final major stop in the park was Badwater Basin, the lowest place in the country. It was pretty neat, despite being packed full of tourists. I got a kick out of the sign pointing out sea level – can you spot it?

My time in DV had run out, so it was time to hit the road again. I drove back towards LA and snagged one of my favorite travel partners from the Ontario airport for the second leg of the trip, Joshua Tree.

Of course, our first stop was In’n’Out. SO good.

Dad and I drove the rest of the way out to Joshua Tree that night, set up camp at our site in Ryan Campground and promptly crashed. We were up a few hours later to catch sunrise at the Chollah Cactus Garden. Man, it was as beautiful as everyone said it would be.

After I had finished running around like a madman taking photos, we slowly made our way back to the campground, taking photos of other cool plants we found on the way. Again, the desert is amazing.

We also played on rocks a bit near Skull Rock. Much to my amusement, Dad decided to masquerade as an eyeball.

Back at the campsite, we mused over a neighbor’s interesting vehicle over a late breakfast. I saw the website listed on the side (https://exploring509.de/) and guessed they were from Germany.

Just a few minutes later, we saw one of them out and about, so I went over to strike up a conversation. Of course, I was right in the middle of brushing my teeth, so first impressions probably weren’t stellar, but oh well…

Turns out, they were from Germany! Michaela and Peter are a married couple who have been traveling the world for the last four years. We had just a quick introduction that morning, as Dad and I were eager to go hike some trails, but we parted with the hope of seeing them later that night.

First we hit Chasm of Doom, which is best described as an exhilarating, claustrophobia-inducing passageway through a massive group of boulders. Dad had sojourned through this once before with a group of Scouts, and based on his stories, I was eager to try it. Not going to lie, it ended up being kind of outside of my comfort zone, so I was really glad Dad was with me.

There are multiple ways to start and end it, but the defining element is known as “the coffin” or even the “birth canal”. If you look at the picture below, you can see why:

You essentially have to squeeze between these two rocks, pushing off of other rocks, until you get far enough back to reach a vertical shaft that you can climb up. Good thing I’m not claustrophobic.

After you top out of the shaft, you enter a narrow hallway between two massive boulders and make your way through.

After we made it out of the hallway, we took some celebratory photos by these cool rocks, thinking the hard part was over.

Ha! Getting down proved to be one of the hardest, sketchiest parts of the whole thing, but we made it out okay.

Next up was a hike to the Desert Queen Mine. Much like Death Valley, mining was a big part of Joshua Tree’s history, although it ended much more recently here in JTree than DV. The park service has covered over all of the shafts we encountered on the way out, but they were still neat to see.

What most people don’t know is that if you continue past the main mine shafts, you can hike to the Boulder House, an ingenious little dwelling constructed presumably by an area miner. It’s not marked on any NPS maps, and there’s no signage on the trail – Dad stumbled across it online and thought it sounded interesting, so he printed out directions.

After about an hour or so of picking our way along a tricky-to-follow trail, we made it to the general area of the house, but we had no idea where it was. That’s when we stumbled along David, an older man who was exploring the area.

We struck up a conversation with him, and before long we were talking about all of the adventures he’d had hiking around the world. Such a sweet and interesting guy! We have him to thank for showing us where the house was – it’s right behind him in the above photo.

The ingenuity of whoever built this is just astounding. Luckily, its distance from the trailhead and obscurity mean that it’s stayed relatively unchanged, and a lot of artifacts still remain. Highly recommend if you have a few extra hours to spend at JTree and aren’t afraid of going off the beaten path.

As the sun started sinking lower, we decided to head back to try and catch sunset. We drove back to our campsite, grabbed our headlamps and set out for Ryan Ranch, behind which is the large rock formation known as Oyster Bar.

Dad and I decided to scramble to the top to get some good views. It was pretty awesome, but unfortunately it was just not peak color that night.

We scrambled back down in the dark, eager to go eat dinner. After filling ourselves, we went to go catch up with our neighbors around the fire, sharing Girl Scout cookies and a beer. The stories they told about their travels were just incredible. It’s so exciting to see people live out their travel dreams, and they made me excited for the years to come.

Eventually we bid adieu, as Dad and I had to be up early the next morning to go rock climbing.

And what a grand adventure that was: my first time climbing outdoors! We met our guide at Intersection Rock, then drove to Cap Rock and did a few climbs around there. It was so much fun, our guide Jarad was great, and we had near perfect weather.

After each doing a couple climbs toprope, we decided to close out the day with a lead climb summitting Cap Rock. We scrambled up to the route, then Jarad lead-climbed it and Dad and I followed. It was pretty sweet.

We ate lunch under Cap Rock, then crawled up to the true summit and hung out while Jarad set us up for rappelling back down.

What a great day. Definitely will be doing outdoor climbing again!

Full recommendation to Jarad from Vertical Adventures, by the way. He was so chill, knowledgeable, encouraging, and helpful. Genuinely a great guy and guide!

We parted ways, and Dad and I passed time by going on a drive through Joshua Tree. In case you’re wondering, the perfect sound track for this is obviously U2’s Joshua Tree album. What a dream come true – couldn’t help but get teary-eyed hearing “Where the Streets Have No Name” blasting over the speakers.

The sun was dropping in the sky, so we drove to the Boy Scout trailhead and got our packs ready. Dad had the genius idea of backpacking our last night so we could have a section of Joshua Tree to ourselves. JTree’s only requirement for backcountry camping is that you be a mile from the main road and not within a day use area, which leaves so many easy possibilities.

We had a location in mind, but Jarad had recommended we instead go to Mustang Ranch off of the Boy Scout trailhead. We took him at his word, and I’m so glad we did – it was the perfect location, and the hike out was gorgeous.

We admired the site for a few minutes, then I dropped my pack and prepared for sunset. With all the clouds in the sky, I was really hoping for a killer show, especially since the night before had been kind of lackluster. Man, it did not disappoint.

AUGH THAT PINK. This picture just doesn’t do it justice. It was there and then gone so fast.

After I had finished running around like a madman, I made my way back to Dad and we set up camp. We climbed up on a rock for a bit and talked until we started feeling hungry enough to climb down and make dinner.

I set my alarm an hour early for the next morning so we could enjoy our last morning in JTree without being hurried. Dad and I explored for a bit before making breakfast and taking down the site.

We hiked back, put our packs in the car, and bid adieu to Joshua Tree.

We got Dad a shower at a local campground and then headed for Ontario Airport, with a stop at El Pollo Loco for lunch. No photo evidence because, well, we were hungry.

I dropped Dad off and continued on to LA. I had a reservation at the Freeland Hotel downtown for that evening, and with a few hours to kill, I decided to head for Griffith Park. I know, I know – after all this hiking, I head to the second largest city in the country and do what? Yep, you guessed it – more hiking!

Feeling tired but happy, I trekked back to the car after reaching the summit of Mt. Hollywood and braced myself to enter rush hour traffic. Thankfully, it wasn’t too bad, and I lucked out even more by scoring a street parking spot right outside the Freehand.

I had chosen the Freehand because it was ranked really highly on HostelWorld and because I was eager to have a hostel experience in such a big city, but it quickly became clear that it actually was a hotel that offered some hostel-style rooms. That’s my guess at least – I’ve never seen a hostel this boujee!

I grabbed a shower, which felt indescribably wonderful, and then went next door to Shake Shack to grab dinner. Man, it tasted so good…

I went up to the roof to check things out, and if I hadn’t had to be up early the next morning, I would have totally stayed and had a drink or two at the bar. Maybe another time.

4:00 rolled around too early, especially since I was leaving an actual bed as opposed to a sleeping bag, but I couldn’t risk getting caught in LA rush hour traffic when I had an 8 am ferry to catch. Thankfully I made it to Ventura with plenty of time and a gorgeous sunrise to boot.

Before I knew it, I was off to the Channel Islands! Santa Cruz Island, to be specific. We were lucky enough to encounter a pod of dolphins along the way – I about could have cried of happiness.

After about 1.5 hours, we docked and disembarked. First impressions were stunning – so green, especially after having been in the desert the last week.

While walking to the campground, I struck up a conversation with two older men who were leaving the island that day. They started giving me suggestions on some hikes to do, and of course from there we started talking about the various places we’d been. Turns out, they were old mountaineering buddies who, even though they now lived across the country from each other, would still travel together. I was bummed that our island time hadn’t overlapped more, but still glad I got to meet them.

The campground was just beautiful. I set up my tent and just breathed for a moment.

Each site had a “fox box” – identical to bear boxes in other parks, except intended to keep out the tiny but fearless island foxes, endemic to the island. They patrolled the campground, so I saw quite a few!

I had heard a lot about the hike to Smuggler’s Cove – one of the few accessible beaches on the island – so I decided to knock that one out that afternoon. It was absolutely gorgeous – 7.5 miles RT with sweeping views of the ocean and nearby Anacapa Island.

Even better, I had the whole place nearly to myself! I explored Smuggler’s Ranch, ate lunch, then laid on the beach for about an hour, soaking up sunshine and listening to the waves. Life was grand.

I headed back when more people started arriving, eager to catch a good place for sunset. I caught the ranger at the campground, and she recommended heading towards Potato Harbor, so I grabbed a headlamp and off I went.

Unfortunately, the winds had really picked up at this point, so it was slow going along the exposed cliffs. I gave up before making it to Potato Harbor – being pelted with dirt and pebbles blown by the wind was just not fun – but I still got some great views.

I chose mashed potatoes for dinner since they required the least amount of cooking time, but even then I was fighting the wind to keep my stove going. I climbed into my tent immediately after cleaning up and passed out.

I slept in the next morning, and it felt so good. I swear, there’s hardly anything better than waking up in a tent warmed by the sun – bonus points if it’s in a beautiful place. On top of this, winds were strong enough that they had cancelled all ferry trips, which meant we campers had the whole island to ourselves!

I took time to explore Scorpion Ranch that morning. Ranching is a huge part of the island’s history: the island at one point was used almost entirely for raising sheep and cattle and had 10 ranches and offranches. Santa Cruz island even had the largest telephone system in the country at one point as wires, as wires were laid between each of the ranches. Stock wasn’t the only product of the island, however; olive orchards and vineyards were also planted, and the island boasted the most productive winery in the US for a while.

Today, the western 75% of the island is managed by the Nature Conservancy, and the eastern portion is managed by the NPS. Hiking on the Nature Conservancy side requires a permit, so I stuck to the NPS side; however, I felt there was more than enough to do for the time I had.

For my second day hike, I decided to do a loop hike connecting Smuggler’s Cove Road to Montañon Ridge to Potato Harbor to the campground. The guys I had met said it was even better than Smuggler’s, so I was excited to check it out.

I don’t know if I agree that it’s better than Smuggler’s (hard to beat the beach!), but it was still pretty stunning!

In some high spots on the trail, you could see ocean in nearly all directions – just gorgeous. The only downside was the wind – I kept hoping to stop somewhere scenic to grab lunch, but the gusts were up to probably 45 mph, so I eventually gave up and just snacked.

I made it back to the campground to find my tent had blown over. Luckily all my poles were fine, but it did give me a good scare. I readjusted the angle and reanchored with rocks this time.

Before long, it was time for sunset again. I stayed closer to the campground but still got some good views.

The rest of my evening consisted of another quick dinner of mashed potatoes soon followed by sleep.

I was relieved to find the next morning that the winds had cleared up enough for the ferry to come pick up campers; however, the winds were apparently still too strong to go sea kayaking, as my guided tour was cancelled. I was a little bummed, but honestly, my island experience has been so good that it just would have been icing on the cake. I’ve heard rave reviews, though, so it may be worth coming back for.

I packed up, squeezed in one final short hike, and boarded the ferry back to the mainland with a wistful smile. Island time is such a special thing.

We were lucky enough to spot gray whales on our way back, though I wasn’t able to get any pictures of them.

Back on the mainland, I visited the park visitor’s center, which gave a nice overview of all five islands.

I was hungry and excited to experience my first fish taco, so before long I found myself at the locally famous Spencer Mackenzie’s. And BOY, were there tacos good.

I had some time to kill before heading back to the airport, so I ambled down to the Ventura Pier and people-watched for a bit.

And of course, when at the beach, you at least have to take a stroll, so I walked a ways and caught some surfers at sunset.

I finally tore myself away and trekked back to the car so I could pack up my stuff. Within a few hours, I drove back to LA, grabbed a delicious chocolate malt from Melo Burger, dropped off the rental car, and boarded a redeye back to Indianapolis.

That wraps it up for this trip – stay tuned for a Dakotas road trip with the fam in July! Thanks for reading!

Colorado Rocky Mountain High

Sheraya SmithLeave a comment

Hello all! Excited to share about this adventure – it was a good one!

Colorado is a state that is – if not near, at least – dear to me. I fell in love with its mountains on a ski trip a couple of years ago, and I was considering moving out there before COVID hit. I decided in March to check off the National Parks there, and I was lucky enough to score some pretty awesome backcountry permits in RMNP and campsite reservations in the three other parks.

Despite my early bookings, things didn’t really come together until the week of the trip, in typical Sheraya fashion. I was really hoping to share the trip with someone (and avoid paying for a $750 rental car!), and I found an amazing travel partner and friend in Stephanie! Long story short, I know her mom, and she offered Stephanie up as a potential companion.

I flew into Denver on Friday, and we stayed in a hotel there before heading out to RMNP on Saturday.

The original plan had us backpacking up to Boulderfield Saturday, and we would summit Long’s Peak, the highest point in the park, Sunday morning. Unfortunately, the weather looked downright nasty, so we decided to forgo the summit and backpack to a much lower elevation campsite, Goblin’s Forest. Since the hike in to the site was just over a mile and we couldn’t get into the main park area until 3:00, we killed time by running errands, including, of course, stopping at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. Once the park opened, we procrastinated on hiking in the rainy, cold weather by driving around.

We decided to drive the somewhat treacherous Old Fall River Road, a 11-mile, one-way gravel road. Unfortunately, clouds made it difficult to see much, but we still encountered some deer and a pretty waterfall.

By the time we reached the end of the road and drove back down, we decided it was probably time we hit the trail. Somewhat reluctantly, we packed up our stuff and left the dry warmth of the car for the cool, drizzly outdoors.

As we climbed up to the campsite, we quickly became grateful that it was only a mile in. Colorado’s elevation is no joke!

We ended up having Goblin’s Forest all to ourselves, so we had our choice of sites and picked the closest one to the stream. It was really pretty, despite being overcast.

Thankfully, the rain stopped shortly after we got there, so we were able to set up camp without getting too wet. We chatted a bit and made plans for the next day, then turned in.

Sunday we whipped up some oatmeal, then packed a daybag and began the 3 mile hike up to Chasm Lake. And man, those views were killer, especially once we got above treeline.

And that doesn’t even include the actual destination: Chasm Lake!

Stephanie and I agreed that we liked the views on the way just as much as Chasm Lake, though it was all beautiful. We ate a snack by the lake, then started the hike back before afternoon storms rolled in.

We got back to the campsite early afternoon, and Stephanie decided to hike back to the car for a phone charger, while I stayed behind and sat on the banks of the stream and read Lord of the Rings (still working on Fellowship of the Ring!).

It looked for a while like we were going to have the whole place to ourselves again, but a hiker Stephanie met on the trail ended up dropping by and decided to stay for the night. We had a great time with him and were happy to share our dinner with him, especially since he volunteered to sleep under the stars and be bear bait!

We couldn’t stay up too late chatting, however, as we had an early Monday morning coming. Since we didn’t have timed entry passes to the Bear Lake section of the park, we had to enter before 5 am, which meant waking up at 3, packing up, hiking the mile back to the car and driving a half hour to that side of the park. We might have been crazy, but we made it!

We crashed in the car for about an hour before we roused again and began the hike to Sky Pond. Unlike the image below, we hiked over by Nymph Lake and Dream Lake so we could make a bit of a loop. In retrospect, we thought this was the best way to hike it, as it added some beautiful views without too much more mileage.

Sky Pond and more: RMNP - Take a Walk

It was so pretty.

The terrain never got old, especially because there were so many lakes to stop at and several little side hikes you could do.

After a couple of hours, and some decent switchbacks, we made it to the base of Sky Pond. What we didn’t realize is the final climb to Sky Pond was actually a climb, up through a small waterfall no less!

I decided to go on ahead while Stephanie stayed back and recuperated a little bit. I was pretty glad when I got up and saw Sky Pond pretty much immediately!

….or so I thought. I overheard a family talking and realized that this was in fact Lake of Glass, and that Sky Pond was a little further. So I got back up and followed them the rest of the way there.

I liked them both about equally, but it was nice to say I made it to Sky Pond. Really, the whole area up there was beautiful.

After a little while enjoying the views, I scrambled back down to where Stephanie was waiting, and we got a picture by the waterfall before descending.

Thankfully, the way back was almost entirely downhill. There were some pretty spots, though less scenic than the way we came in.

After we got back to the trailhead, we headed for Glacier Basin Campground to see if they had any last-minute openings, as we were pretty pooped at the thought of backpacking to a site that night. We were in luck!

We set up camp and ate a late lunch, then drove into town for some supplies. We walked out with what I’d call some high quality dinner…

It was raining by the time we got back, so we holed up in our tents and fell asleep to a soft pitter-patter. It would have been nice, except that we also woke up to a soft pitter-patter. We quickly broke camp, stuffed the sopping tents in the back of the car, and headed out for Great Sand Dunes NP.

We made a stop for a couple hours at a Panera in Colorado Springs so Stephanie could knock out a test, and I got to try a bread bowl for the first time. Yummy.

We had some really good conversations on the way to GSD, ranging from silly to serious. We were pretty slaphappy by the end of it, and got really giggly when we saw this sign:

Like, okay, lots of things could exist on the road, right? We giggled even more when we saw this sign:

So water may exist on the road, along with a host of other things, but you know there definitely won’t be snowplows between 7-5.

Much to our amusement, a few miles later, there really was water “existing” on the road!

There had been so much rain that the road had flooded! Thankfully, within about 15 minutes, it had receded enough for us to drive on. We were still pretty tickled though. For the rest of the trip, we made it a point to look for silly signs, and we weren’t disappointed:

We finally got to the park, and though the weather looked awfully ominous, we got some awesome rainbows!

And we caught our first glimpse of the dunes!

We drove straight to the campground so we could dry out our sopping tents, and low and behold we found at our site…

The conversation went something like this:

  • Me, the first one to see it: “Uh, Stephanie? You might want to see this…”
  • Stephanie, walking up to see it: “Oh no…”
  • Me, trying to find some positive in the situation: “Well, at least…”
  • Stephanie: “At least what??!”
  • Both: Dissolve into giggles

Thankfully there was enough space for us to pitch our tents around it.

We made dinner, which we also giggled about because it was chili and it had beans in it (can you tell we were pretty slaphappy?).

At sunset, we walked down towards the dunes to get a better glimpse. This picture really doesn’t do it justice.

There we met a women named Glenn. We quickly hit it off, and spent several minutes chatting before we took her back to our campsite to see our “built in pool”. To our chagrin, it had soaked into the ground, but we had something else to giggle about now.

Wednesday thankfully broke warm and sunny. We packed a day bag and headed for the dunes.

The whole time we were at this park, Stephanie and I just couldn’t fathom how all this sand got here. It’s literally these massive dunes (the tallest in the country!) that just show up randomly in the middle of the mountains.

Our goal was to get to the top of High Dune, the second tallest dune in the park. After an hour or so, we made it up, and the views were incredible!

To our great surprise, Glenn was also at the top of High Dune!

We decided to hike back together. As it turns out, Glenn was not a huge fan of going down the ridgelines, so we ended up taking a much more circuitous route than we would have otherwise. It definitely gave us time for good convos, more sights of the dunes, and lots of laughs!

We parted ways when we got back, as Stephanie and I had to go pack up the campsite. For our second night there, I had heard about camping on the dunes and really wanted to do that, so we headed to the visitor’s center and sorted out permits. We were pretty tuckered out from the morning hike, so we decided to eat, rest up, and then head out for the dunes closer to sunset so we wouldn’t need to take as much with us.

We got another really good laugh when we discovered that the two inches of skin between my socks and leggings (which I’ll admit, Stephanie had told me earlier to apply sunscreen to) were a bright fiery red from that morning. Hiker chic, amirite?

Hiking back up in the evening was a bit more challenging, as the wind was blowing pretty strongly. It was just as beautiful though.

The rules said only one group was allowed per dune hollow/pit, so it took us a while to find an unoccupied spot. We pitched our tents, put our packs inside them to keep them from flying away, and climbed the nearest dune to watch sunset.

We left the rain flies off our tents that night so we could see the stars. Unfortunately, my phone can’t take night pictures worth anything, but it was the kind of night where you couldn’t pick out constellations because there were so many stars. I counted five shooting stars. It was absolutely magical.

Thursday we got up in time to watch the sunrise, which was also beautiful.

We enjoyed watching various sand bugs for a bit, then packed up and started heading back.

We ended up on top of High Dune again, which had some nice early morning views.

There we met Ashton, another dunes backpacker. We hit it off and ended up walking down the dunes together. Ironically enough, he was supposed to have camped at Goblins’ Forest in RMNP one of the nights we were there, but his flight got delayed.

We parted ways at the parking lot, and Stephanie and I headed out for the next park: Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Stephanie had actually been to this park earlier in the year but didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time there, so she was really excited to go back.

If you’re adventurous, one of the biggest draws of Black Canyon is getting to hike down into the canyon. The fact that less than 30 people per day are issued permits to hike down in only makes it more covetous. We got to the park about about 2:30 and immediately went to the visitor’s center to claim our permit for the next day. Within the half hour, all 15 permits allowed for the Gunnison Route, the “easiest” route down, had been taken!

The route down is actually part of a designated wilderness area, meaning that there is no signage or trail markers. This isn’t much of a big deal on the way down, but it makes it more of a challenge going back up. Partly for this reason, we were required to attend a ranger-led orientation on going down.

After the orientation, we drove to the campsite and pitched camp, then drove around to catch all the canyon overlook views. Not going to lie, it was pretty stunning.

While driving between overlooks, we met two guys our age and hit it off with them. They were testing which overlook had the best echo, and we happily joined in.

Sunset, of course, was gorgeous, if a bit smoky.

We finally pulled ourselves away from the views, drove back to the campsite, and made dinner before turning in.

Unfortunately, some animal tormented Stephanie in her tent for hours that night, while I managed to sleep through the whole thing. Looking back, we think maybe it was a deer, but it was hard to tell in the moment.

Friday we packed up in the dark so we could get an early start down. Within 20 minutes or so, we had passed into the wilderness area!

The way down was a little treacherous at times, mainly because of the steepness and the amount of loose scree on the trail. The only man-made object from the top down to the bottom was an 80 foot chain on a particularly steep section.

In a little over two hours, we reached the bottom. Oh, it was so worth it!

We had a good time walking along the riverbank and exploring. If you’re wondering, the river is much too cold to do anything besides stick a hand in, though some people fish in it. After we’d gotten our fill of exploring, we sat down at the campsite to rest and refuel. Our friend Ashton from the dunes had mentioned backpacking down here on an even harder route and spending the night, and we just couldn’t fathom lugging a pack up and down that steep trail.

We finally decided to start heading back up, though not before grabbing a few more pictures.

Even though we had been careful to turn around frequently on the way down and look where we were coming from, we still managed to get off-route on the way back up. Thankfully, we spotted a landmark after a few minutes and were able to get back on track. Even with that mishap, it took us less time to get back up than it did to go down!

We refilled our water, then set out for our final park, Mesa Verde, the famous home of the Cliff Dwellings. This is the only national park in the US that’s primary purpose is to preserve Native Americans homes and communities; thus, we were disappointed to find out that several of the sites were closed due to construction, renovation, or COVID. I also hadn’t purchased tickets to tour one of the larger houses, and they were all sold out by the time we got there.

Nonetheless, we made the most of it. After picking out our campsite, we drove to High Point, where we got some awesome views of the park.

Next, we drove out to Chapin Mesa and explored the Mesa Top Loop. Apparently, the people were in the area for hundreds of years and started out in smaller, underground dwellings called pithouses.

There were two more stages of housing, each bigger and more communal than the next, before the people began to construct the cliff dwellings. Stephanie and I were amazed at how skilled, creative and resourceful they were.

A few other items of note:

  • I didn’t realize that the cliff dwellings often are literally on the side of the cliff not near the valley floor. Wow, these people had guts! Lots of times they would farm on top of the mesa and use ladders or handholds to climb up and down.
  • It amazed me how much archeologists had deduced about this group, and yet still had no idea about some aspects of their life.
  • Natives throughout the region were part of an extensive trade network that stretched hundreds of miles, and they traded not only goods but ideas.
  • People would often leave their homes, only to come back a few generations later and build on top of them.

As it started getting dark, we decided to try and enjoy our last camping dinner up at High Point while watching the sunset, but a fussy ranger crushed our plan. So we rebelled and drove to the next closest overlook and enjoyed our dinner there instead. Not quite as good of a view, but we still enjoyed it!

One of the best perks of the park was SHOWERS! Stephanie decided to take one that night, while I held out until the next day – I couldn’t get past the though of crawling back into my stinky sleeping bag after being all clean.

While we were driving back to the campground, we had a bit of a surprise: I spotted a mountain lion sitting on the side of the road. We turned around to get a better look at it, and it ran off. Towards the campground, of course. Gulp. We didn’t spot it again, thank goodness, but it was a little nerve-wracking.

Saturday morning we awoke to smoke. There was a fire just outside the park, though as far as we could tell, we were safe. There have actually been several fires at the park within the last 30 years, and it was amazing how long it took foliage to grow back.

Another thing we were surprised at was the amount of wildlife we saw here. On top of the mountain lion, we encountered deer, wild horses, a turkey family, and a coyote. The most we saw at other parks was deer.

We packed up our site…

…then headed out to Wetherill Mesa, specifically to see Step House, a self-guided cliff dwelling. It was neat, but we were bummed that part of it was closed off. Oh well.

We also walked around the Badger House Community, which was pretty neat, though not cliff dwellings.

At this point, our brains were about full of information, and we had a long drive to Denver ahead of us, so we decided I would grab a shower and then we would hit the road. I can’t tell you how nice it was to be clean…

Thus, we began the seven hour drive back to Denver. It was a long one, but we made it! And even better, Stephanie’s mom Lisa had decided to fly in and join us for the evening.

We checked into our hostel, which was absolutely gorgeous…

…then set out to find a place to eat. We found a good burger place a few blocks away, and I got a breakfast burger because it reminded me of NZ. We were all pretty tired, so we went back to the hostel after dinner. I hung out in the common room for a little while because I missed being in a hostel, but there weren’t many people, so I went to bed before long. And oh how good those beds felt! It was like sleeping on a cloud.

Sunday we drug ourselves out of bed to get breakfast at a cute little place called Jelly. We got a fun little donut sampler, and I really enjoyed the vintage cereal boxes on the walls.

Our last stop in Denver was a letterbox grab at a local cemetery. It was an awesome carving of John Denver, which I thought was pretty fitting considering I’d had “Rocky Mountain High” playing in my head the whole trip.

Stephanie and Lisa dropped me off at the airport after saying goodbye, as they had a 10 hour drive ahead of them back home. I had planned to check my bags and then go back out to explore Denver a little more, but I found that Southwest doesn’t allow you to check your bags more than 4 hours ahead of a flight. So I ended up spending the day at the airport, but I got to meet some cool people that way!

All in all, it was a pretty amazing trip. I was so so glad to have found Stephanie to go with me: I really don’t think we could have hit it off any better! Hoping we might be able to plan some future trips together.

Thanks for riding out another really long post! Not sure where the next trip will be – trying to decide between Florida, the Virgin Islands, Mexico, or SoCal – what would you choose? Until next time!

An Eastern Escape

Sheraya SmithLeave a comment

Happy summer all! It’s so nice to have warmer temperatures again – perfect time for a national parks road trip!

On this trip, I hit four parks: the Great Smoky Mountains, Congaree, Shenandoah, and the country’s newest park, New River Gorge! After a wonderful semester volunteering with student ministry on top of my job, this solo trip was a much needed retreat.

I left after work on Friday and made the seven-hour drive to Cosby Campground in the northern Smokies, where I basically pitched my tent and crashed for the night. My original plan had me ending the trip in the Smokies, but then I realized that being in the nation’s most visited park on Memorial Day weekend was probably not going to be very relaxing, so I flipped the trip around.

Say hello to Agnes! My little tent sheltered me every night except one on this trip. If you’re interested in specs, it’s a Big Agnes TigerWall UL1. Packaged weight is a whole 2 lb. 3 oz., so it’s perfect for backpacking! It’s semi-freestanding, which for me is probably the biggest downside, since I have to stake it down to get the full amount of room. It performed beautifully on this trip though. It’s definitely on the pricier side, so I may invest in a cheaper tent for car camping in the future, just to save some wear and tear on this one.

Saturday morning, I made oatmeal for breakfast and packed up decently early so I could hit the trails before traffic got bad. I passed through Gatlinburg on my way to the Paradise entrance. Good grief, I knew it was touristy, but just driving down the main street was a whole other level of tourism.

I stopped to get a picture of the sign…

…and then stopped at the Paradise Visitor’s Center to grab a quick letterbox.

My next item on the agenda was the Chimney Tops Trail, which I’d heard had amazing views. It was about a four mile round trip hike and had about a 2500′ elevation gain, so it was no joke! Be aware that if you do this hike the last quarter mile is closed due to a 2016 fire. The views from the lookout are still beautiful though.

Once I got back to my car, I took off for the Deep Creek trailhead. The road took me through Newfound Gap, and the views were really pretty.

At the Smokies, backcountry campers reserve designated campsites and pay a small fee per night. I had reserved campsite 55 (see map below) and was originally planning on taking the Noland Divide Trail up and over, but it was kind of late by the time I got to the trailhead, and I was (sadly) kind of worn out from the Chimney Tops hike already. I decided instead to take the Deep Creek trail straight back.

Near the trailhead, they had tubes available for rent, and there were quite a few people taking advantage of them on this toasty Saturday afternoon.

It was a pretty hike back, as it followed Deep Creek most of the way. The mountain laurel was in bloom too!

After a couple hours, I reached campsite 55. Because I had booked it a few months in advance, I had forgotten that it was a stock camp! Even better, there were horses and riders there. I’m learning to really appreciate horseback riders – they don’t have to worry as much about the weight they carry, and so they frequently have “luxury” items that backpackers can’t afford to carry. Just look at that campsite setup!

Even better, both this group and the guys I met in Washington were incredibly generous in sharing their food. This was by far and away the best I’ve ever eaten on a backpacking trip. Peep the fried fish, fresh hot cornbread, potatoes with ramps (a local onion relative), and bear meat stew – yep, you read that right! They even gave me a beer to wash it down with!

Our campsite was pretty busy, as there were five guys on horseback, four other backpackers, and myself. We had a good time trading wilderness stories and feasting before we turned in for the night.

Sunday morning, I hung around for a bit after packing up, as they had promised me breakfast the night before. While they got up and got going, I took a quick walk to the old swimming hole in Deep Creek and had a little devotion time.

I didn’t get a picture of breakfast, but it was just as good – canned biscuits with homemade sausage, gravy, leftover potatoes… I was a happy camper!

I bid everyone goodbye and headed out. I had considered trying to do Noland Divide that morning on the way out, but ultimately decided to sleep in a little and enjoy breakfast. To get a change of scenery, I hiked out on Sunkota Ridge rather than going back out Deep Creek. I was a little disappointed in the scenery – I’m sure it would have been beautiful, but there just weren’t many gaps through the trees.

I had my first of three major wildlife encounters that day on the Sunkota Trail. I’m 95% sure it was a rattlesnake: it moved very quickly, hissed, and made a rattling noise. I ended up waiting for two guys I knew were behind me to catch up, and we were able to pass it without any incident. Of course, it didn’t make any noise for them, so I don’t think they believed me, but at least we made it out safe.

Here’s Indian Creek Falls! Very pretty.

My next destination was the Twentymile trailhead, about an hour west of Deep Creek. This mini-trip was a two-nighter: I booked site 13 near the top of Gregory Bald for the first night, and 93 for the second night.

The hike up to the bald was no joke – about 7 miles with 2500 feet elevation gain. I was very tempted to stop at site 95 and stay the night but ultimately decided to push myself to get as far as I could.

A few miles in, I heard a noise that sounded too big to be a deer, so I looked around and spotted a young black bear about a hundred feet off the trail! It wasn’t really scary – I just made a lot of noise and attempted to make myself look as big as I could. It just kind of looked at me as I walked by. I didn’t get any pictures of it, as I decided I didn’t want to be the idiot who stopped to get pictures of a bear and got mauled!

My third major wildlife encounter that day occurred as I was walking along Parson’s Bald, close to the campsite. I didn’t get a good look because they ran off as soon as they heard me, but I’m pretty sure they were two large feral hogs. They didn’t seem to move like deer or bears, and they made a loud grunting noise.

After about 4.5 hours of hiking, I finally rolled into camp. I definitely didn’t win any awards for speed, but I made it! I set up camp as the sun was setting, then walked over to the neighboring campsite to fix dinner and join in some conversation with two very sweet older guys. We chatted for a while about previous adventures while I tried to finish my fajita chicken and rice, until it got late and they turned in.

I had a new experience that night! Whenever you’re in bear country, you have to take extra precaution with making sure bears can’t access your food and “smellable” items, both for your and their safety. Usually that means hanging your food bag in trees, but in the Smokies, you’re spoiled with pack hanging cables at every campsite! They were pretty easy to use, and I didn’t have to worry about finding the perfect tree to hang my food from.

I woke up decently early Monday morning, as I was hoping to catch a little bit of sunrise and eat breakfast on top of the bald.

I packed up, got a picture of and said goodbye to my new friends, then hiked the 15 minutes to the top of the bald.

It was beautiful, especially in that early morning light! I picked a spot to plop and just enjoyed the views before eventually pulling out my stove and fixing a bowl of oatmeal.

After breakfast, I walked around and explored the bald a little. I was excited to find wild blueberries, though it would be several months before they’d be edible.

I enjoyed the view a little longer, then continued on the Gregory Bald Trail. I had the option of hopping on the Long Hungry Ridge Trail and taking it straight to my campsite, but I decided to hike a little further on the GB trail to the Appalachian Trail.

The Appalachian Trail is something I’ve been considering through-hiking for a while now, so I was really excited to get to see it in person. After being on it a few minutes though, my excitement kinda died down, as it seemed a lot like the trail I was just on. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I kinda overhyped it. In hindsight, though, I’m glad I did it and got to see the famous white blazes marking the trail!

I hiked about three miles to the turnoff for my campsite and debated just heading straight there, but I had heard about a firetower about a quarter mile further on the AT that was supposed to have decent views. After talking with another hiker, I was sold. And oh my goodness, I’m so glad I went for it.

The firetower is called Shuckstack; you can get to it via an unmarked but well-worn side trail from the AT. If you don’t like heights, it may be a challenge for you, but I still encourage you to try it: it had the best views I saw in the park. I think you can make it into a pretty decent day hike from Fontana Dam.

I had the pleasure of meeting a through-hiker who was taking his lunch break up there, and he was really encouraging me to pursue through-hiking the trail. Super neat guy.

After spending probably a good hour there soaking in the views, I started meandering down to my campsite. Today was a downhill day, and it felt so good after the climb yesterday.

I rolled into camp a few hours later and was pleasantly surprised to have it all to myself. I saw on the map that it was right next to a stream, and I was so excited to take my boots and socks off and soak my feet. It was even better than I imagined: there was a swimming hole very close to the campsite, surrounded by beautiful rhododendron bushes, with the perfect spot to sit and read for a while. And after grabbing a snack, that is exactly what I did for the next several hours. I was so happy…

I finally dragged myself away and set up camp for the night. My appetite had returned with a vengeance, and I was hungry for salt, so I ditched my chicken couscous for beef ramen. That was some of the best ramen I’ve ever had!

I hung my pack, then climbed in my tent and read for a bit before turning in early. Tuesday morning, I was up early and grabbed a honey bun for breakfast so I could hit the trail quickly. I did stop at the beautiful Twentymile Creek falls for a little while and did a devotion there.

Before I knew it, I was back to the car. I did a quick baby-wipe shower, dunked my hair in the water to get some of the oil out (it didn’t work), then hit the road for Congaree National Park!

I was almost reluctant to leave the Smokies, but I was also excited to see one of the lesser known National Parks. Congaree is twenty minutes outside of Columbia, South Carolina, and it’s composed mainly of floodplain forest. It’s on the newer and smaller side, so I only budgeted 1.5 days/1 night to see it, and I think that was about right. It’s a cool park, but unless you are a total tree fanatic, you can see all the park highlights within this time frame.

One of the biggest draws of the park is seasonal: the last few weeks of May, a species of rare fireflies that flash in synchrony appears in pockets of the park. Pre-COVID, 18,000 people showed up one year to see the fireflies, but because of COVID, this year they had a lottery system and were closing the park early to all but people with tickets. I just happened to schedule my trip during this time, but I was super excited to see the fireflies.

I got there about 2:00 and decided to hike the 2.5 mile boardwalk trail. They offer a self-guided tour so you can pick out some cool sights. One of the coolest parts for me was seeing the bald cypress trees, whose roots send up these strange little nubbins. Scientists speculate they help provide support for the tree, but they’re not sure.

I was originally supposed to do some backpacking that evening near the southern entrance, but when I heard that there might not be fireflies over there, I hopped online to see if there were any last minute campground cancellations, and there were! I was absolutely thrilled.

As it turns out, the campground I booked at, Bluff Campground, was about a mile hike away from the parking lot. This didn’t daunt me since I had my backpack, but if you camp here, plan to be carrying your stuff for a while! There’s also no bathrooms or water at the campground, so plan to hike a mile to the Visitor’s Center for these things.

It was a beautiful hike/campsite, though, and there was only one other couple there!

I set up my tent and fixed dinner. I was really tempted to leave off the rain fly since it was so hot, but I ultimately put it on, and I’m glad I did! A popup shower hit right after I was done cooking dinner, so I ate my mashed potatoes and spam (delicious!) from the comfort of my tent.

About 8:30 or so, I hiked over to a spot on the boardwalk where I had heard there were a lot of fireflies. The next two hours or so were just magical: the rain, which had cooled things off, was dripping from the trees, the crickets were chirping, and the fireflies were illuminating the woods like Christmas tree lights, blinking a softer and bluer light than the ones I was used to. It actually takes them a while to synchronize, but once they do, it’s near perfect.

I was also geeking out because I ran into a computer science researcher from the University of Colorado who was studying the fireflies. We talked for a few minutes about the projects he was conducting and how we both enjoyed travel and hiking/climbing. I also bumped into some cool people I had met earlier.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any good pictures or video from the fireflies, but I highly encourage you to look them on Youtube!

Wednesday morning, I got up and hiked my stuff back to the car, then drove to the Visitor’s Center. I wanted to do the River Trail, a 10 mile lollipop trail that was the only trail to offer views of the Congaree River. If you only have a day in Congaree, I would not recommend this hike: it’s long, is pretty narrow and windy, and has several trees down across the trail, and there’s only one or two spots where you can even see the river. That said, it was kinda nice to log ten miles in this park, and if you’re a real tree fanatic, there’s some big trees along the way.

I hiked out to the Sandbar, and ate lunch, then hoofed it back so I could start the 7 hour drive to Shenandoah.

The park is known for mosquitoes, and there’s even a funny sign indicating how bad they are currently, but I lucked out and hardly saw any.

I refilled on water, took a picture by the sign, and hit the road!

The drive to Shenandoah was pretty long, but I broke it up with a stop at Bojangles for dinner. They’re a popular southern chain and are apparently known for their chicken biscuits, so I decided to try it. I thought the chicken was just okay, but the biscuit and potato rounds tasted heavenly (fair warning: food tastes much better when you’ve just come off a backpacking trip, so I’m probably biased!).

Like the Smokies, Shenandoah is mountainous and contains a good section of the AT, but that’s about where the similarities end. Shenandoah encompasses part of the Blue Ridge mountains and is very long and skinny; the famous Skyline Drive, which is over 100 miles long and takes three hours to drive, runs the length of the park and offers over 75 lookouts. Most of the trails spur off of Skyline, which means you often hike down then hike up on the way back. Definitely not like the Smokies, where you had to work for your views! Also, backcountry camping at Shenandoah means finding a spot that fits the rules and camping there, unlike the reservable backcountry sites at the Smokies.

I had a reservation at Loft Campground, the southernmost and largest in the park. I got there late, set up my tent and crashed.

Thursday morning I took a baby wipe shower, packed up, checked weather, and drove back down to the entrance so I could see the parts of Skyline I had missed in the dark.

I had a backpacking route planned, but I realized it probably wouldn’t take me all day, so I spontaneously hiked to the Jones Run Falls. The falls were super neat, and I also stumbled across a beautiful moth!

Back on Skyline, I stopped at some more beautiful overlooks…

…then headed for the Rocky Mount trail. I picked this one because there was supposed to be a singular campsite with incredible views. There was no parking lot at the trailhead, which made it a little tricky to find; I just parked at the nearest overlook and hiked a short distance to the trailhead.

Most people just make a dayhike of the route shown in blue above, but I decided to backpack the whole loop counterclockwise. It was very isolated – I didn’t see another soul the whole trip – but surprisingly well maintained.

There was a mile or two of downhill along the lollipop “stick”, and I got some decent views.

The Gap Run section was pretty flat and went by quickly. Though there weren’t vistas, there were some neat plants I hadn’t seen before!

Another interesting aspect of Shenandoah is that trail markers are concrete posts with metal bands that are stamped with trail information. You can see the one below for the turn off for Rocky Mount.

After turning onto Rocky Mount, things quickly got steeper. It was a good, challenging hike up to the summit. The problem was, I couldn’t find the summit. I stopped a few times before I kept hiking and finally stumbled across the summit.

The views really were pretty awesome.

However, I was worried about camping there, partly because it was so close to the trail and partly because it was exposed and it looked like rain might be coming in. I crawled through the bushes for a few minutes and stumbled on this awesome little clearing that was just steps from the trail but still hidden.

Reassured that I had a safe place to sleep, I went back to the summit and made dinner with that awesome view. I amused myself by calling my little setup Ray’s Cafe, with a different location every night.

Unfortunately, Ray’s Cafe that night had a great location, but pretty so-so food. My stuffing with chicken was a great idea, but execution was another matter. I’ll have to play with that one a little.

After dinner, I hurried back to my site and set up my tent before dark. I had a new experience that night: hanging a bear bag. I didn’t follow the exact rules of hanging it on a branch so far out from a tree, so please don’t use my photo as an example, but I felt a huge sense of accomplishment just getting it up in the tree.

Friday morning was bright and sunny when I woke up. I retrieved my bearbag, grabbed a small breakfast and packed up. I spent a few more minutes at the summit enjoying the views, then hiked down and stumbled across the actual campsite advertised online. It did have some pretty amazing views, but I was pretty happy and felt safe with the little clearing I had found.

It was largely downhill until I got to the lollipop stick, and then it was uphill back to Skyline. Overall, it was a pretty good hike, but if I did it again, I would probably skip Gap Run trail and just hike up to Rocky Mount. If you can’t get a spot at Rocky Mount, though, there are a few sites along Gap Run, as well as access to water – water was scarce to nonexistent on the Rocky Mount section.

Ta-da! Done.

I kept driving north on Skyline and stopped at Hawksbill Mountain. This is the highest point in the park, but it’s only a two-mile RT hike from the trailhead. Unfortunately, the clouds moved in while I was up there, but it still had some pretty sick views.

I also hiked to the White Oak Canyon Upper Falls, which was about 4.6 miles round trip. It was much taller than Jones Run, but you couldn’t get up close to it; you could only really see it from the lookout. I much preferred Jones Run, but it was still pretty.

Back on Skyline, I got some good but cloudy views from a few lookouts. I also grabbed another neat letterbox!

My final stop for the night was the Old Rag trailhead. Old Rag is probably the most popular trail in the park and also happens to be one of the few trails not really accessed via Skyline. You have to drive outside of the park, then back in from the side to reach the two Old Rag trailheads. The whole trail is about 10 miles, and there’s a couple ways you can hike to the summit: 1) Park at the Old Rag TH and hike the entire loop, which includes a 1+ mile rock scramble; 2) park at the Old Rag TH and take the old fire road in to the summit and then back out; 3) park at the Berry Hollow TH and take the fire road in to the summit. Despite a ranger cautioning against doing the scramble while wet, I decided to do option 1.

I technically had backpacking permits for the area, but I was tired, and it was raining, so I parked at the trailhead and decided to sleep in my car.

Saturday, I woke up early, grabbed a quick breakfast and hit the trail before too many Memorial Day vacationers got there.

And boy oh boy, what a fun trail it was! The rock scramble section was slippery, and the normally beautiful views were completely obscured by clouds, but it was still a blast. If you have the option though, I would definitely do it on a dry sunny day with someone else. It was kinda easy to get turned around, and I learned later that someone had broken their ankle on the trail the day before and it had taken 10 hours to rescue them (and that was considered a short rescue!).

This was the only picture I got on the rock scramble because I was often using three or four limbs to climb over rocks. If I remember right, it was one of the sketchiest sections of the hike: you had to climb down from the left side, with just a little foothold to grab onto. Shew!

I finally made it up to the summit, where I met a group of three other women who were breaking for lunch. I asked if I could join them, and they gave an enthusiastic yes. We didn’t break for long because it was cold and barely 60 degrees – a far cry from the 90+ degrees I had a few days ago in Congaree! They took my picture by the summit, and I ended up hanging out with them the rest of the hike. We cracked jokes about how great certain lookouts would be if we could actually see anything, and how reviewers had labeled the downhill section of the trail as boring. (“Nope, not boring yet!”) It was a great time.

After about six hours of hiking, we made it back to the parking lot, tired and wet but happy. We parted ways, and I took a babywipe shower and changed into dry clothes before hitting the road again. Even though it was really cloudy, I decided I wanted to finish out the rest of Skyline Drive, so I headed that way.

On my way back, though, I stopped in the adorable town of Sperryville and walked around for a little while. There was the Corner Store, from which I grabbed some strawberry white chocolate cookies…

…and a coffee/gelato/wine place called Before & After for a hot honeysuckle latte. It was pretty wonderful!

Nearly all the lookouts at Skyline were unfortunately whited out from the clouds. It wasn’t until elevation started dropping that I could see anything.

Finally I reached the northern entrance! I drove all 100 miles. Maybe someday I’ll come back and hike all 100 miles of the AT that runs alongside it.

Next destination: New River Gorge NP in West Virginia! The drive was only supposed to be about 3.5 hours, but I got stuck in accident traffic for an hour and a half and didn’t get there until about 11:00. Normal campsites at New River are supposed to be free and first come first serve; I accidentally picked a group campsite (Burnwood), which is apparently not free and is supposed to be reserved. Luckily for me, the group staying there was super nice and let me pitch my tent near them.

It drizzled most of the night, so I was reluctant to get out of my warm dry sleeping bag the next morning. I finally got to use my hot chocolate though! After hanging out with the group for a bit, I drove across the road to the Visitor’s Center, where I picked up some maps and got a picture with the sign.

The park is so new that most of the signs still say National River; the main entrance sign just had a canvas wrapped around it.

I also did a little hike to see the New River Gorge Arch Bridge. This bridge was super important to the community, as it reduced a 45 minute, winding drive down the gorge to a 2 minute straightshot across. It’s the third-longest arch bridge in the world; plus it makes for great photos!

Next up, I decided to hike the Endless Wall Trail to Diamond Point, which was an easy two miles RT. It was pretty neat, especially since I was going to be rafting that section of the river the next day!

My plan was to head to the tiny town of Thurmond after that, but I hit a hiccup when I got a flat tire. I was okay, and was actually really fortunate it happened in civilization rather than on a windy deserted country road. About three hours later, I was back on the road with a new tire, thanks to Walmart!

I still ended up going to Thurmond, and it was pretty neat! It’s an old railroad town that thrived off of mining traffic. There’s no shops open there today, but there’s a seasonal visitors center set up in the old depot. The tracks are still active, and it was pretty cool to have a train come through.

After that, I made the unfortunate decision of taking the scenic route (McKendree Road) to my next destination rather than going back out to the highway. The road quickly turned into a four wheel drive road with no cell service, a top speed of 12 mph, and no houses. I was utterly terrified, but my poor Honda Civic pulled through! I’ve never been so glad to see a paved road…

I learned after the fact that there actually used to be a hospital in the blip-on-the-map town McKendree. If you’re intrigued, it’s an interesting story!

Unfortunately, that little sojourn cut my daylight significantly, and I decided I didn’t want to test my nerves any further by trying to finish a hike before dark, so I sought out a campsite for the night at Grandview Sandbar. My camera ran out of room, so I wasn’t able to get a picture of my site, but it was decent!

I treated myself to a can of soup for dinner, then read for a little while and fell asleep. Monday morning I packed up early and headed for the ACE Adventure Resort for a 14 mile whitewater rafting trip! I was paired with a mom and four teenagers on my raft, and while there was a little drama, we made it through okay. My guide was really knowledgeable of the area, and we bonded over experiences in New Zealand.

The river was pretty flat the first half of the trip, but it soon picked up after lunch (included!). We hit multiple fun rapids, surfed, and even swam a little bit. It was a great day, and a lot warmer and sunnier than the previous few days! A good way to end the trip.

I had been hoping to do one last hike before heading out, but we got back pretty late, so I made the adult decision and drove the seven hours back home. After 11 days, 70+ miles hiking/backpacking, 2000+ miles driven, 5 pounds lost, 4 parks and 14 miles paddling, my shower and bed had never felt so good!

Well, that’s all for this one folks! Kudos if you made it this far. Next trip will be to Colorado, so stay tuned for that!

Road Trippin’, Vol. 2, Part 1 – Weeks 15 and 16

Sheraya SmithLeave a comment

Here it is: the post you’ve been waiting for! (Or at least the first half). I know, the last was such a cliffhanger. (Except you already know I got home safely.)

The week after returning from Milford was a decently busy one. It was the last week of classes, so thankfully classwork was finally slowing down. I made it to my final flax weaving class and cranked out two more placemats for a total of four. I had quite a bit to carry on my way home from class and had to get a bit creative; Jessica found it pretty entertaining and snapped a picture. And yes, I got quite a few strange looks. Oh well; if it works, it works!

Outside of that, my time was largely spent planning what to do with my time in between end of classes and finals and studying for my early exam in New Zealand history. After the test was finished Thursday afternoon, ISA met up for our final get-together of the semester at the famous (in New Zealand) Speight’s Brewing Company in downtown Dunedin. We got a tour of the whole place and lots of information about its history and beer-making process, unfortunately far more than my brain could ever remember.

And of course, one of the best parts was the tasting at the end.

Believe it or not, it was my first ever beer. Definitely seems to be an acquired taste, but I did thoroughly enjoy their cider!

And things just kept going up when we got free dinner and a free drink after the tour! Steak dinner with cheesecake for dessert, no less! Plus, good company to top it all off. This girl was pretty much in heaven.

It was so hard to believe that this was the last time everyone from ISA would be together in one room. Lots of laughter, reminiscing, and toasts that night: a great way to send things off. I already miss you all bunches and can’t wait to see many of you again! Cheers!

After getting home that night, it was go time again: I was leaving bright and early the next morning on a road trip with my flatmate Autumn and had a lot of packing to do!

After a very short night, we were on the road headed for Bluff, probably the southernmost town on the South Island. Our main destination, however, was even further south: Stewart Island. We had to take a ferry to get there, which was about an hour long trip. Thankfully I don’t get seasick easily!

Stewart Island, though decently sizeable (half the acreage of Rhode Island), has just one tiny town, Oban. The island is most known for its history in timber and saw milling and the Rakiura Track, one of NZ’s nine Great Walks. If you’ve followed my other posts, you can probably guess what the main draw was for me…

After a brief stop at the DOC center to get some information on the track, we were off! Of course we had to take a picture with the kiwi (sign) we saw. Stewart Island is known as one of the best places to see a wild kiwi.

The trail was beautiful. It was a lot of ferns and greenery and had relatively few jaw-dropping vistas compared to the other Great Walks I had done, which I was initially kind of disappointed about. The track really grew on me the longer we kept going, however.

Somewhere along the stretch, we reached the point that was probably the furthest south I would ever be! Much further and I would be too cold.

After about 3 and a half hours, we reached the North Arm Hut, our home for the night. We had pretty good luck in terms of weather; just after we arrived, it started pouring. Thankfully it didn’t last too long, so we could go out and explore a bit.

Sharing the hut with us was Dan from Christchurch, Tim and Janet from Wanaka, and Janet’s dad Doug, who was from Australia. We bonded pretty quickly while trying to light a fire with very few dry materials handy. After we finally got it going and ate dinner, I spent a good while chatting with Dan and Tim about all the adventures I had been on that semester and comparing which hikes we had done.

The next day Autumn and I set out early, as we had about an eight hour hike in front of us. The landscape was pretty similar to the day before, though with a little more elevation.

To give a fully accurate representation of the track, though, I really have to show you these pictures. It was so MUDDY. No matter how careful we were, we were sometimes up to our ankles in mud… My boots were quite well camouflaged; see if you can spot them below!

Also rounding out the track were a couple of historical sites. I think I mentioned how Stewart Island was once a big timber and saw milling site, and luckily some old equipment was left behind. While the track was really beautiful, I think the history really made it for me. (I know, my nerdiness is showing)…

We definitely got more coastal views as we got towards the end of the track… So gorgeous! We even found a Paua shell! (An abalone only found in New Zealand)

After a long day of hiking (about 7 hours), nearly all of which we had perfect weather for, we made it to the end! Another Great Walk down!

Fortunately, we were able to call a taxi to take us the couple of miles back into town (especially since I soaked my socks taking that last picture… worth it!).

We got settled into our cozy hostel, then set out to find Dan, Janet, Tim and Doug, who all happened to be staying at our hostel! (To be fair, it wasn’t that big of a coincidence… Oban is pretty teeny!)

Our North Arm Hut reunion started with a short walk to an area of town nearby where there had been several kiwi spottings the last couple nights. We had no such luck, but it was a pretty walk with a good view of Oban.

We then went out to dinner at the hotel nearby, where we got some really big portions for a pretty good rate. Even after having backpacked the last two days, I still had leftovers of my loaded potato wedges!

After dinner, we headed out one more time to try to find the ever-illusive wild kiwi. This time we searched a rugby field quietly and diligently with our red flashlights (kiwi can’t see red light). It wasn’t too long before we all got impatient and cold, and one of us got the bright idea of shining their super bright headlamp all across the field. Still no luck. I think my favorite quotes from the trip occurred then: “That’s how we’ll get to see them, we’ll just blind the little buggers!” and “If we can’t see them, nobody can!” What a riot. I was really glad to meet these incredible people, and even more glad we could reunite with them. What a great bunch!

The next morning, it was up early again to catch the ferry back across. After reaching the mainland we headed back north again towards Te Anau, stopping briefly in the scenic town of Invercargill along the way. It’s home to possibly the fanciest water tower I will ever see.

Our primary destination at Te Anau was the glowworm caves. If you haven’t heard of these, they’re these teeny little worms that live only in New Zealand caves and put off a blueish greenish light. This had been on my bucket list for a good while, and Te Anau was supposed to be one of the best places to see them.

To reach the cave, we had to take a cruise across Lake Te Anau. Once we arrived we were split up into groups to go inside the cave. After walking a ways through the cave, we were ushered into a little boat, and the lights were turned completely out. After bumping around in complete darkness for a minute or two, our eyes adjusted and we were able to see clouds of little blue pinpricks floating in the black. Of course, I couldn’t take any pictures, but it was pretty cool. Guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.

After we emerged, we were taken to the Cavern House, where we got to learn a little more about the history of the place and about glowworms. I won’t share the gory details here, but glowworms are really sort of primal creatures (I don’t think that’s quite the right word, but I couldn’t come up with it…). Feel free to Google them if interested, but make sure to at least look at pictures!

To be honest, I enjoyed the ride back across the lake almost as much as the glow worms! It was a gorgeous night.

To top it off, we got to find a letterbox just outside of town! It was my first one in New Zealand, so I was pretty psyched. For those of you unfamiliar, it’s basically like a treasure hunt where you’re looking for little boxes with a stamp (usually hand-carved) and a logbook inside. If you find one, you take a print of the stamp and leave a print of your personal stamp inside. It’s pretty similar to geocaching if you’ve heard of that.

After finding the box, we headed off to Queenstown to spend the night. While most hostels I stayed at just had a bunkbed layout, this one was really unique: each person had a totally encapsulated pod to themselves within a larger room. I found the personal space and noise barrier really nice, especially since it’s hard for me to sleep when people are snoring…

The next morning it was off for another round of Queenstown adventures. The first item on the itinerary? Paragliding!

We rode the famous Queenstown gondola up to the top where we met our instructors/pilots. They got us saddled up and the parachutes all straightened out, then gave us a couple of instructions and off we went!

Essentially, once my pilot got the parachute up in the air, he just told me to start walking and then running on his cue. So basically, we just ran off the side of the hill: not really scary at all! It really felt like flying, or at least what I imagine flying would be like.

Unfortunately, the winds were a little too strong for us to travel too far out from the mountain, but the views were still gorgeous, and he took me on a bit of a roller coaster ride as we neared the bottom. Overall a cool experience!

Afterwards, we took the gondola back up the mountain and enjoyed exploring the chalet at the top for a bit. They apparently had a thing for jelly beans; in addition to a Jelly Belly store, they had replicas of some famous artwork made from jelly beans!

We also enjoyed some really yummy hot chocolate…

…and some classic Queenstown views.

Next up we tried luging. The best way I can explain luging is probably real-life Mario Kart; you basically have a cross between a scooter and a wagon and ride it on a track. I really wasn’t expecting much, but Autumn talked me into it, and I’m so glad she did! It was a blast!

Afterwards, we went on a bit of a hike, where we caught some killer views of Ben Lomond (a nearby mountain) and some other paragliders. What a stunning day.

After many hours atop the mountain, we finally took the gondola back down and headed out to nearby Arrowtown, which I also had stopped at on my first trip to Queenstown. I was really hungry for another one of ABC’s pies, and it did not disappoint! (The “M” is for mince, in case you were wondering.)

I also wanted to spend more time exploring the town since my last visit here had been short. Arrowtown was once a mining town and had a large population of Chinese miners, who were asked to come fill the vacuum of Kiwi miners who left after the large chunks of gold ran out. We learned in my history class that the miners faced a lot of obstacles, including ridiculously high poll taxes, and were treated poorly, yet were so hard-working. It was pretty humbling to see how they survived in such itty-bitty homes.

We then retraced our steps to Queenstown, where we were hoping to see Luma, Queenstown’s annual winter lights festival. Though it was pretty chilly, there were enough really neat displays to make it worthwhile.

Although I couldn’t figure out how it was related, one of my favorite parts was a garden gnome decorating exhibit. From what I could piece together, it sounds like several artists were given blank gnomes and free reign to decorate them however they wanted. The results were quite creative!

I think Autumn could have stayed for ages (she loved it!), but I was pretty cold, so we eventually headed out. Our hostel that night was in Wanaka, so it was on the road again.

Tuesday morning, we woke up to snowy mountains in Wanaka.

After sleeping in a bit (what a luxury!), we had to head out for the Rob Roy track pretty quickly. What we didn’t realize was how quickly the road would deteriorate from pavement. We may or may not have had to ford a couple pretty deep streams… Thankfully, we didn’t get stuck, and no bill from the rental car company yet! Despite road conditions, the scenery was as usual magnificent.

The track had a decently steady but not too steep incline. It followed a river for part of the way, which was a gorgeous Listerine blue (not Gatorade blue, as Autumn corrected me!).

The endpoint was the Rob Roy glacier. It was kind of hard to spot and was covered in snow, but still really pretty.

We made it back to the car in about 3.5-4 hours and rushed back through the fords to try and make it to our next destination before it closed. Of course, this just happened to line up with a quintessential New Zealand experience:

We probably spent a good five minutes creeping along behind those sheep. The poor things were so confused: first they were going away from us, then towards us, then away again! They’re not lying when they say sheep aren’t the brightest creatures. Thankfully the farmer wasn’t far behind us to tell us to just drive through them and they would move out of the way.

We rolled into Puzzling World with about an hour until closing time and raced inside. We quickly worked out a plan: explore the indoor portion of the museum, which was filled with puzzles and illusions, then head outdoors to complete the giant maze. Below are some of my favorite illusions and puzzles from the indoor portion. (If I didn’t include Towers of Hanoi, would I really be a computer science major?)

We made it outside into the maze just before closing time and were left to our own devices. (Don’t worry, there were emergency exit doors! But that’s cheating.) We were tasked with making it to each of the four corners of the maze, which all had a tower, and then finding our way to the exit. Making things even more challenging was the fact that we quickly ran out of daylight. We made it out in a little less than an hour, though!

After a decent hike plus a couple more steps in the Maze, we were pretty ready for dinner, so we hit up a taco stand in celebration of our last night together. Tasty…

Wednesday morning we were on the road again, this time before it was even light. I nearly missed seeing the famous Cardrona Hotel on the side of the road, but I caught it just in time to pull over and snap a picture.

Sadly, our adventures together were coming to an end. Autumn had to be back in Dunedin to perform at a concert, so we planned for her to take a bus back from Queenstown that morning. I still had a couple of days before I had to get back and get serious about finals, so I was going to travel for a bit more. Cheers to the first half of my travels and a good travel mate!

Shew! This post is already ginormous and there’s still a lot to cover, so I think I’m going to split this trip up and leave you hanging a little bit longer. Hold tight, almost there!