respect and patience. if it knows you're there and has an exit it will move off eventually. if it doesn't leave, it's best not to force the issue.
Where pants that cover boots and like a bear make constant noise by talking or dragging your feet every now and then Also don't ever sit someplace before poking around it or scanning all of it I almost sat on one in new mexico. Could taste the adrenaline in my mouth when I heard it slither away Fuck snakes
Don't make sudden movements if you realize you are near one. Give them a very wide berth and don't fuck with them
Just booked flights to Salt Lake City for our August Grand Tetons and Yellowstone trip to see my mom. Staying in cabins in Grand Teton Sunday through Tuesday night returning on the redeye Wednesday. The plan is to be tourists in SLC for the day and stay Saturday night or get a few hours down the road. For SLC: I'd like to the the lake, the Mormon Tabernacle, Temple Square. What else should we see? Sunday PM, M, T, and W AM in GT and Y. Likely Monday or Tuesday do the South loop in Yellowstone. First time for my gf to be there, I haven't been since I was 12. Mom is a seasonal employee at GT who leads nature hikes so she'll take us on her tour one morning. We're planning to get on the Snake River via canoe and I'm looking at fly fishing trips. Also plan to hike, relax, and enjoy being out of cell phone service. Thoughts or recs?
Raft the Snake River Canyon Fly fish the Snake (Henry's Fork is a little far away - use World Cast Anglers if you want a guide) Jump off the rock on the east side of Phelps Lake Canoe/kayak/paddleboard Jenny and/or String Lake (Dornan's rents boats) Eat dinner and watch sunset on Dornan's rooftop If you want a serious and beautiful hike - Amphitheater Lake (or try to take at least one hike up into the Tetons with views of the valley Cascade, Paintbush Granite canyon trails) I lived out there for two years so let me know if you have questions
Awesome, thank you. Mom lives in Colter Bay and got us a cabin there. I'll circle back after doing all my research. I'm jumping out of my skin excited.
if you're based out of Colter then some of my recs won't be great as far as travel goes. jealous of you. that valley is my favorite place in the world.
Appreciate it. Went hiking in SLC this weekend and encountered my first 2. First one was just a baby and eventually took off. Second one was laying in the middle of the trail and was pretty big. After that I was paranoid Snakes...why'd it have to be snakes
Hike up to two ocean lake...might see some bears...and canoe/kayak around oxbow bend for great views and good wildlife opportunities...both of those are right next to colter bay
So I bought an Oru Bay+ and I'm not quite slim and short enough to be comfortable in it. One of you dorks should buy it from me, k?
Figure out which trailheads have the best chances of getting a walkup permit. The north rim loop looks interesting: http://www.backpacker.com/trips/cal...al-park/yosemite-national-park-the-north-rim/
Are u looking for back country or camping with tourons on the valley floor? With FAM or girl or solo? What month?
saw National Parks Adventure at the IMax on friday - good movie and some great shots. gave me the itch to get to some mountains.
Not like the other recs in this thread, but if you are around downtown SLC, go eat at the Copper Onion. Really cool place. Did a backpacking trip in the Tetons in high school. Cannot recommend the highlighted enough. We did a quick day hike up to Surprise/Ampitheater lake the day we got in. And then did a couple day trip through paintbrush canyon. Just absolutely goegeous country out there.
I am planning on going out west fairly late in the parks season, but would still like see as much as I can. Not sure on exactly the amount of time, may road trip one way and fly the other, or may road trip both. If I drive both ways I'm taking my dog, so I'd like to do that. My dates aren't set in stone. Have a friend going out to Arizona for military training in late September. My dad is staying in Southern California right now, so I have places/things lined up there. Have to figure out if I should do a couple weeks in September and finish by October, or do the last week in September/first week October. Anyway, is there a good way/website to plan a road trip through hitting parks? Mostly it would be car camping, I presume. I'll likely be solo most the trip so I won't want to get too far off the beaten path and put myself in a dangerous situation, but I have basic backpacking gear for both day or overnight hikes.
Pretty much just use this site. Seems like there are a few of us here that have spent a lot of time in the region. Are you looking for adventure (climbing/white water/canyoneering), camping and hiking or more taking pictures at pullouts? Social or a bit more solitude? How far are you willing to drive? Later in the season is usually better because the families are back to school and the temps are perfect. As your questions clear up bring them here and we will chip in answers as we can.
Im in southern AZ. I did a rd trip last year and hit like 4 national parks and ill be in Yosemite in Sept. Any specifics? Has a lot to do with what you want to do, like what huckleberry was asking.
Mostly I would just like to do some scenic hiking. If I have my dog with me I'm not really going to be able to do much else (not that I my ass would be rock climbing anyway). I'm trying to make a real trip of it, so driving out of the way is sort of my purpose. I'll be coming from and going back to Alabama, so there's a lot of room to work there. What I'm afraid of is trying to plan on seeing too many places and not being able to really enjoy them. So far, a preliminary look of the map and parks within reason is something like: Big Bend > Carlsbad Caverns > White Sands > Tombstone > Grand Canyon? > Joshua Tree > LA > Death Valley/Mojave > Lake Mead > Zion > Bryce Canyon > Rocky Mountain? (idk, something in Colorado) > Ozark National Forrest (Fayetteville to Devil's Den, probably) Obviously that's a lot of stuff. Some of it probably wouldn't be worth it if I can't spend a couple days hiking, but others would be fine to just have a scenic drive through. But I don't know which ones I should spend more time on, so I guess that's really what I'm looking for.
Used to camp there every year when I lived in Oregon. Driving up to the rim at night to look at the stars was fucking amazeballs
First thing: if you bring your dog you won't be able to do much in the national parks unless he's a service animal. Not allowed on trails or off leash. That said, the national parks aren't the only things to do. Also, I took my dog romping in less visited areas of parks but the fines are steep. Second: if you haven't already, make sure you buy a national parks pass. Its 12 months from the month u buy it so id just pick one up at the first park you hit. Will cost 80$ but that will be paid for in just a few parks. Doesn't cover camping or state parks BTW. Carlsbad is epic. Grand canyon is grand, make sure that you hike at least a few miles down into it or you're missing the whole point. Pick up a geologic guide to the southwest because that's why these parks are here. Don't skip havasupai falls. Its a top five thing I've seen on earth, and that's saying something. Joshua tree is pretty cool but not world class. Death valley, race track playa (aliens!...not really but its really cool) and bad water basin (lowest point in the lower 48). Mt Whitney (highest point in the lower 48) is right there too. Arches, great sand dunes, moab, canyon lands, Zion, Bryce, salt lake, capital reef, shiprock, meteor crater, Salton sea....so many things...heres havasupai falls...its cray cray.
Yeah that is the downside of bringing the dog, but from a few I looked through on nps.gov it seemed like some were more strict than others. White Sands seemed more pet friendly while Death Valley seems like it'd be a huge pain. But I may not bring him so I don't know. Nothing is set in stone yet.
If you're coming down to S AZ I can help you out. I live about 15 minutes away from Tombstone. Bisbee is close, as is the Border. If you want to just see the Grand Canyon, you can spend a day sight seeing, maybe a day hike. At that time of year the North Rim might be closed tho. We did DV in a day and saw most of the sights. No Hiking. Carlsbad is awesome. Kartchner Caverns is about 45 minutes from Tombstone and worth seeing. I was discovered back in the 70s. With that loop you could hit Yosemite and/or Redwoods if you wanted. Arches National Park/Moab/Canyonlands is in S Utah and they're all great. Hoover dam is right at lake mead. When you narrow down a plan message me, ill help you out with what I can.
For yosemite, i can't recommend the sentinel dome hike enough. Its not very strenuous as my mom did it, but the view from sentinel dome is pretty unbelievable.
You can sweep across southern Utah really easily while doing the Grand Canyon, five national parks just north of Grand Canyon--Zion, Bryce, Capital Reef, Canyonlands, and Arches.
Also, not sure what you have lined up in California, but the Los Osso-San Simeon-Cambria area at the bottom of Big Sur is absolutely beautiful. It's fantastic to watch the sun settle into the Pacific.
I believe that with the dogs the primary difference is going to be in national parks. National monuments, national recreational areas, blm and forest land are going to be less rule intensive. Another tip that I find that a lot of people from the east aren't familiar with is the amazeballsness of camping on blm/forest land. For me personally, camping in a national park is paying way too much to sleep in a parking lot. Sometimes you have to do it but usually there are federal lands with free camping in beautiful spots where you can pretty much do what you want I.e. let your dog do dog things. This can be intimidating for first timers. My Jiujutsu instructing tough guy buddy damn near had a panic attack the first time he went roadtripping with me and we car camped off a blm road. I'll go as far as to say >90% of the best campsites I've encountered have been primitive sites, many car accessible. We don't have much in the way of risk factors in the sw outside of the heat and the rare rattlesnake bite. Last tip would be to make sure you do the Utah parks. They are probably the most impressive parks you're going to see tbqh. Not gonna lie, I'm excited for you.
Yeah I'm certainly looking at/for some things in the way of national forests and others, not just national parks. Like Lincoln forest is right up the road from White Sands, would make sense to me to see both, especially if I'm coming from Carlsbad. But any other recommendations in that vein would be appreciated.
We started at 6am, when we got to the cables there was no line. We hung up there for about an hour, took photos, drank beer, etc. then on our way back down, there was probably about 40 people or so trying to come up. Also, quite a few people had carabiners, but we went without.
Jesus, carabiniers? I guess better than the hordes being gripped on the cables. Used to camp up there a few nights a season and rap/hang off the diving board for sunrise. I do miss that place.
Yeah, we didn't realize we were in the minority till we were heading down. There were quite a few people that were losing their shit and probably shouldn't have been up there.
Suggestion depending on your fitness level. The holy grail of valley hiking is go up the mist trail, summit Clouds Rest (the peak that looks over half dome), summit halfdome and then take the panorama to glacier point. I thinks its about 20 miles but its epic. You can also look into getting a back country permit for little Yosemite valley (above Nevada falls but before you turn to start going up half dome). Its great to not feel like you have to rush and can chill and actually enjoy everything. Another thing that is pretty cool is that if you make it to the top of haldome for sunrise there's a good chance that you will see some base jumpers go off. Its illegal in the valley so they go early before the day rangers come on duty. Protip for the cables on half dome. Buy some shoes that have legit sticky rubber. Five ten approach shoes are my go to. The hardest thing about the cables is that with the hundreds of thousands of people who've gone up them they have polished the granite with their feet. If u have sticky rubber (a tethered carabinier might be smart as well) step outside of the cables to the left. You still have one cable but the difference in the grip means you can pretty much just walk up and you get to skip the line.
That was discussed but we're not really prepared for back country camping, gear wise. Our campground is like a 1/4 mile from the trailhead. So we're gonna get an early start at like 4 or so probably. I do wanna do the Clouds rest trail and a few others.
I love my dog as much as anyone But I respect the leave no trace principles too much to bring him through a National Park when explicitly forbidden from doing so Seems incredibly selfish to do otherwise RMNP is the strictest about them from what I've experienced. Yellowstone and Tetons it's cool to have them within 100 feet of the road IIRC
Re: the dog discussion I took mine along on a similar road trip a few years ago. he had to stay in the car a lot more than I liked but if you can find a nearby national forest then those are much looser on dog restrictions.
When we took our dog along we'd take him out along the roads to see things inside the national parks and then head out to BLM or Forrest land adjacent to the parks to camp and hike. Zion and Bryce were great for that. At Yosemite we didn't get to see the mariposa grove, but aside from that we saw the major landmarks from the road. At that point we knew we weren't hiking with him there, so we'd already adjusted our plans to go back without him later on. Ended up at a hotel in mariposa. Excellent donuts in a strip mall on the main drag there.
I feel you on that but I'll point out that a well trained dog leaves waaay less trace then even an average backpacker. Alas most people don't really train their dogs past the don't pee in the house and shake basics. My next dog will absolutely be trained as a service dog and will be fully allowed anywhere in the parks. Its a process but totally worth it.