Jackson, WY to the Needles

As beautiful as Jackson, WY is and as magnificent as the Tetons are, being there felt like standing outside the circus without a ticket. Anna was recovering from a stomach bug when we were there so we needed to be still for a couple of days.  Also Alex and I figured the Grand Traverse wasn’t exactly something we should submit our kids to. So as painful as it was to be in the Tetons and not play in them, we drove north gazing at them over our shoulder, hoping that we’ll be back another time in the not so distant future.

Fortunately, Yellowstone is only 97 miles north of Jackson and we had a glorious three days there. We couldn’t believe how much snow was still on the ground, but I had also forgotten, despite two previous visits in my early adulthood, how high Yellowstone was. We spent three days at 7000 to 8000 feet of elevation and each morning’s run ended up being a bit of a suck fest. Of course Alex and I were motivated to keep the pace lively and the chit chat even livelier in order to keep the bears fully aware of our presence. We did end up seeing a grizzly mama and cub meandering along the edge of a lake. And when they started heading in the direction of our campsite, I think we had a “personal best” for the last mile and a half.

Yellowstone with its steamy, stinky fumaroles

Patiently waiting for Old Faithful

Worth the wait

Jackson was so psyched to corner a ranger and pummel him with questions.

Beautiful Yellowstone Falls

Anna's expression pretty much sums it up.

Following a quick trip up to Bozeman to the Museum of the Rockies, we headed back down through Wyoming to Cody for a couple of days. There we got to experience a horseback ride and a rodeo, both awesome. Cody is one of those authentic western towns that doesn’t seem to have changed much since the days of Buffalo Bill Cody. The best thing was seeing the kids faces as they watched kids their own age barrel racing and getting thrown from the backs of bucking broncos. It’s just what kids do in Cody, WY…..as natural as fishing or skiing or playing hockey in VT.

Anna on Bruiser, Jackson about to fall off Tornado.

Alex, on Stretch, giggling because he kept staying behind so he could make the horse trot. We were supposed to keep them at a walk. And Alex can't ride so he just bounced up and down on the poor thing.

Anna gettin' ready to chase calves in the rodeo ring.

Trying to catch the dern things. They're quick.

Since we only touched on part of the Dinosaur Trail in Montana, we decided to check out Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis, WY where we also got to visit a dig site. Definitely one of the cooler dinosaur-related parts of our trip, we were able to see fossilized rock with footprints of sauropods and the carnivores who ate them. Jackson had his first real lesson in consumerism, however, when he used his own money to purchase what he thought was a real Allosaurus tooth from the museum, only to find out once we were back on the road that it was a replica. It was awful to see how crushed he was, but we thought he learned a good lesson about how to be a discriminating consumer.

Allosaurus footprint

Dig site

Having not climbed since City of Rocks, Alex and I were anxious to get to Devil’s Tower in eastern WY. This place is legendary in terms of its climbing and its Native American history. Unfortunately when we got there, we discovered that climbers had volunteered to abstain from climbing the tower during the month of June out of respect for the Native Americans in the area who felt the Tower was sacred ground.  It was June 27^th. Ugh, such a painful decision to drive away and leave the Tower in peace. But knowing we need all the good karma or “Ju Ju”, as Alex calls it, we could get, we felt we were doing the right thing. Once again we added Devil’s Tower to our list of places we must get back to.

Devil's Tower

In contrast to Devil’s Tower, the Needles is one climbing area we can tick off as one that we saw and have no interest in revisiting. After the photo op moment at Mount Rushmore, we wandered around the Needles for a full day looking for something we wanted to climb. But the place ended up looking like one big boulder problem with grovel-y climbing and very little protection. So the Needles felt like salt in our wounds after passing on Devil’s Tower, especially with the knowledge that the Black Hills of South Dakota were the last place that offered anything vertical for a thousand miles.

Vermonters at Mt. Rushmore

.......and a Buckeye

Alex frustrated at the Needles, nose in the guidebook.

Scrambling around the Needles. Eye of the Needle is behind Anna.

Fortunately, for me, I was heading into my beloved Midwest for some family time and a walk or two down memory lane. I just had to talk Alex down off the ledge in the hopes of convincing him that he would climb again and he might even enjoy the Midwest in the meantime.