Day Twenty_Rapid City to Wall

I get up a bit early, as we parked the car on the street and the meter needs to be topped up before it becomes live at 8AM, and running outside in the cold is bracing and helps clear my head. It’s a slow start generally though, but well worth it, and we decide to walk out around town to find some breakfast - we make our way to Harriet & Oak, a surprisingly hipster spot that offers artisan coffee and avocado on toast. We settle for freshly made sandwiches, turkey and avocado for me, which actually make a nice change from the usual huge breakfast and head on back to the car to get moving.

We drive out of Rapid City into another beautiful day and head towards the Badlands National Park - this is another of our must-sees, picked out during the planning phase, and it’s exciting to finally be here. That being said, the approach to the park is a little underwhelming as we drive along a gently rising road surrounded by flat plains - one upside is that we see lots of fuzzy shapes by the side of the road and realise that there are hundreds of prairie dogs darting about and standing up watching the grasslands around their burrows.

After a few minutes, the Badlands reveal themselves and it’s absolutely jaw-dropping - like a huge part of the landscape has been scoured out, creating deep ravines and rocky spears of land that drift into the wider valley beyond. It’s hard to describe in words, but hopefully the pictures will give you some idea of just how special the landscape is - please add it to your itinerary if you’re ever in the area, I promise you won’t be disappointed. 

We drive around a road that edges the northern rim of the park, stopping every few minutes to walk out along the strangely granular ridges that line the ravines, sit in the sun and snap a few pictures of the ever-present prairie dogs. Apart from the couple of cars we pass on the rim road, we feel like we’re the only ones here - it’s definitely a benefit of travelling at this time of year, and more than compensates for the freezing temperatures. 

We decide to backtrack to head to a trailhead that leads to an eight-hour, 35km hike - yesterday, before the firefighters got ahold of us, we had thought to start early and do the whole route, but we decide to set out and see how far we can get. We’re now in the plains a few hundred metres below the edge of the buttes that line the park and the landscape is even more amazing - the scale of the fragmented, rocky spurs make them look like distant mountains, viewed close up. It’s a strange effect and the ragged beauty drags us further into the landscape and before long we’ve decided to try and do the full loop we’d planned previously. 

This makes for a strange hike, through frozen riverbeds and crumbling plateaus, but before long the light is starting to drop, casting beautiful blues and purples onto the distant ridges. We’re less than half way around the loop before the night closes in completely, and we have to put on our headlamps and turn to our phones for navigation as the path appears and reappears seemingly on a whim. We occasionally cover our lamps and look up through a perfectly clear sky at an unadulterated scene of stars - the same lack of light shows how we could be literally anywhere in such a huge environment.

We carry on, largely in silence, our bodies given over purely to making progress, following the route that will lead us home. On home stretch, we notice a huge wolf moon visibly rising behind the bluffs and casting an eerie orange light across the mesas in the distance - we can also hear a pack of coyotes some way in front of us, stopping to yap and howl as the moon frees itself from the landscape. We eventually reach a fence line that takes us almost all the way back to the car - by the time we arrive back, it’s been six and a half hours, and we’re tired, cold and hungry but throughly exhilarated. This feels like it’s been a genuine adventure and an experience that’s unique to us.

Once we’re warming back and underway, hunger really sets in - we head back to the nearby town of Wall that acts as a sort of gateway to the Badlands and find a hotel. The town, yet again, seems remarkably empty and we desperately hoping that there’s a restaurant that’s open - snacks from a gas station won’t really cut it. Thankfully, we find the Cowboy Grill - it’s open and reasonably full - so we get to have hot food (Mac & Cheese burger, Philly Cheesesteak) and a beer which exhaustion makes into one of the most welcome things I’ve ever eaten.

We have no energy for anything else, so as soon as we get back to the motel our evening ends. What a day.

Day Nineteen_Newcastle to Rapid City

After getting up, we head over to Donna’s Main Street Diner for some breakfast - it’s a proper American experience and obviously hugely popular locally with everybody that comes and goes chatting with the waitress - we have French Toast, again, but this is genuinely excellent and one of the best breakfasts so far. Without waxing too lyrical, but these sorts of places feel so uniquely American and we can’t get enough of feeling like we’re part of the local community.

We drive out of town and the plains slowly morph into gentle valleys that are lined with jet black fallen trees, stone of ochre and burnt umber, all iced with snow. It’s so striking that we stop and walk back down the road to take it all in and get some pictures - it’s bitterly cold though, so we hurry back to the car after a few minutes. We head on, into clearing skies and bright sunshine - it’s still freezing, but it’s great to feel some sun on our skin (from the warmth of our heated Range Rover). The hills continue to grow as we move into South Dakota, and before long we see signs for Mount Rushmore - as one of the world’s most well known attractions, we decide we can’t really pass it by.

We head off into the Custer National Forest, which surrounds Mount Rushmore, and drive up a weaving road to the entrance to the monument. From an sparsely used carpark, it’s just a short walk up and immaculately manicured pathway to the viewpoint which looks up at one of the world’s most recognisable sculptures. It’s pretty incredible, with a scale that’s hard to actually perceive, and I’m glad that we’re getting to see it without the hordes of visitors it must attract during the warmer months. One downside to visiting at this time of year is that pretty much none of the wider offers are open, so we can’t really gain any wider understanding of the sculpture’s creation - this is something that Wikipedia can help with so hopefully we leave at least a little educated.

It’s such a nice day and we’re essentially in a national forest, we decide to hike in the surrounding hills - we park up near another frozen lake, complete with somebody ice-fishing, and walk up into the forest. The mix of the bright sunlight, towering rock outcrops, crystalline snow flakes glinting in the air and the fresh powder on the trail makes this one of the most beautiful walks we’ve had, all the more so by how unexpected it is. We’re out for a few hours, and despite getting lost a couple of times, we return to the car reinvigorated - if you’re ever in the area, I’d really suggest spending a few days in the area as I suspect there are other great walks to be done.

We’ve spent a little longer on this diversion than we might have intended, so we decide to stop in Rapid City, one of South Dakota’s major centres, as it’s just an hour or so away and it’s been a pretty tiring day. I pick out a hotel in Rapid City’s downtown, the Hotel Alex Jackson, which turns out to be a pretty cool hotel in an old building right in the middle of the downtown, so after a quick rest we head out for some dinner. As has become par for the course, availability of places is slightly restricted, so we head to Tally’s Silver Spoon - it’s another more upmarket restaurant, and we have some really good food. My braised bison is tender and rich, and we leave after three courses probably a little too full - we decide to go to a nearby pub, the Independent Ale House, which is pretty quiet. 

We manage to get a seat at the bar and strike up some fun conversations with the bar staff - after catching that we’re from the UK they quiz us on the difference between fries, chips and crisps - which keeps us drinking for a few hours. As we’re getting ready to leave, we get caught up with the table behind us - a group of eight or so volunteer firefighters from Rapid City - and this leads to us all going back to the Irish pub under our hotel for some Irish Carbombs (Baileys and Guinness) as well as chewing tobacco (my companion cannot recommend this - I’ll leave him to explain why), arm wrestling and a huge range of conversation topics. It’s by far our best evening of the trip so far and I have to give a shout out to @UndercoverDirtbags (IG) for such a fun time.

Thankfully, we don’t have far to go to get home and we crash in our beds early in the morning. Tomorrow is going to be tough.

Day Eighteen_Billings to Newcastle

I got up a bit earlier this morning as the motel we’re staying in has a small gym and I’m keen to get some exercise - this part of the trip was always a little looser when we sketched out our route in London a few months ago. We always wanted to spend the majority of our time around the northwest, so these next few days are really about covering distance which leaves us sitting in the car for longer and longer stretches - hence the need to stretch my legs. 

A depressingly tough run later (how quickly fitness fades in the onslaught of American portion sizes…), we head over to get breakfast at Stella’s Kitchen & Bakery - the hotel offers a free breakfast here, rather than in their own breakfast room, which turns out to be pretty great. We have French Toast and bacon, and it’s very tasty and served in a very homely restaurant. Nicely full, we head out into the snow and the wide plains that seem characteristic for this part of Montana - the snow is falling pretty constantly and forcing much of the traffic into just one lane. It gradually worsens, which leads to a pretty hairy moment when we start to lose traction and the car begins to weave violently on the road - thankfully a combination of my companion’s quick reactions and a quiet stretch of road avoids any significant incident, save for a rapid dose of adrenaline.

We keep moving through the empty landscape that surrounds us, save for the occasional mile-long train that travel parallel to the highway and keep us company. It really is a pretty desolate vista, but it makes me wonder how it would be in summer - swaying wheat fields, blue skies and warm sun would make things seem very different I think. Eventually we arrive at a small town called Sheridan, where we’ve spotted a short hike that will let us get the blood flowing after all the time in the car. It turns out to be a walk through a kind of local park, where we stomp through muddy mountain bike tracks and loop around ourselves to get the distance in. A highlight is a small but completely frozen pond that we walk across - it’s pretty incredible to think that the cold is so relentless here that entire bodies of water can freeze for months at a time.

After the walk, we head into Sheridan to get some lunch at the Cowboy Cafe - it’s a great place and serves a mean sandwich, and we’re happy to have a short chat with the waitress who is studying to be a nurse, reluctantly it transpires, as she’s been relegated from police training for breaking her back in two places after a fall on the ice. I love moments like this and it’s a constant reminder that America seems to breed an openness and familiarity that is very welcome when you experience it.

We leave Sheridan and aim to reach a small town in Wyoming called Newcastle - a bit of an inside joke, but both my companion and I studied, worked and lived in Newcastle Upon Tyne, so it seems like a fitting place to stop. We arrive after dark, pick up a few odds and ends from a grocery store and then head to our motel, which is on the outskirts on town. It’s a blisteringly cold night, but we decide to walk a mile or so to one of the only places open for dinner - The Pizza Barn, a restaurant set up by an Italian from New York to serve authentic pizza but has now broadened its menu to serve pretty much everything. We have pizza and calzone, which is pretty great (although a far cry from my favourite in London, I feel I should note) in a largely empty restaurant. It’s so quiet here that the staff are turning over chairs on table when we leave and they seem glad they can finally go home.

When we get back to the motel, the evening is still quite young, so we decide to watch something - we settle on The Rescue, a documentary about the twelve Thai boys and their coach that get caught in a cave in northern Thailand. It’s fascinating stuff, and an amazing validation of some peoples’ dedication to going in to the unknown places, but I cannot overstate how it’s reinforces my phobia about caving - there’s no way I could do any of this and I have so much respect for the people that can.

Hopefully I’ll be able to sleep tonight, but I loosen the bedcovers just in case…

Day Seventeen_Gardiner to Billings

It’s a slow start, with my companion nipping out to make a few calls before me meet up at a coffee cabin on the other side of the bridge next to our hotel - coffee is something that is increasingly becoming something we seek out on this trip and whilst it’s something I take for granted in Shoreditch, I’m glad of the luxury whenever we find an artisanal barista here. We order breves, muffins and bagels which are really excellent and give us some fuel as we pack up the car to leave Gardiner behind - it’s been a great few days and I don’t mind admitting I’ll be sorry to leave Yellowstone behind.

That said, we still have some more of the park to see as we’re intending to drive on the only remaining east-west road left open so we can continue our journey across the state. We carry on past the Lamar Valley and head to the start of the Bearclaw Road to find that it’s completely closed to traffic by the snowfall and accessible only to snowmobiles. Given our off-road adventure a few days back, we’re loathed to test the Range Rover on a snow-covered road, so the only thing we can do is turn around and head back to Livingston. From there it’s another long drive through the plains to Billings, Montana - one of the larger cities in the state and a significant working town due to the oil deposits in the surrounding hills.

We arrive and check into our motel before heading out again - my companion has decided, after yesterday’s exertions, to get a massage at a place some distance away from the centre where we’re staying. I couldn’t imagine anything worse frankly, so he drops me at a Walmart several blocks away so that I can engage in some retail therapy (and see the sights, it is Walmart after all) - Montana is one of the few States to have zero sales tax, so I want to see if there any bargains.

Presently I start the walk down an arrow straight road that’s lined with shops, malls, fast-food places and car dealerships - these sorts of urban elements are so ubiquitous in the States that, other than the freezing temperatures, I could be anywhere in the country. As I move block by block, the quality and nature of the businesses start to change and when I arrive at the spa in which my companion is getting oiled up by a stranger, things are looking a little tired. That being said, and the weather not being the best, I wait in a cute little juice bar where I order an apple and lime juice - this is seen as some sort of advanced juice order by the extremely helpful staff, as they don’t usually serve it and assume I have secret juice-based health knowledge that’s underpinning my recipe. The reality is I don’t like overly sweet juice drinks and that’s the end of it.

When my companion finally emerges, surprisingly a little more tense than he expected - the quality of the experience leaves a little to be desired it turns out - we head back to the hotel to get changed and find dinner. The hotel is in the centre of Downtown Billings, but is eerily quite - a hallmark of many of our urban experiences so far. We head to Jake’s Steakhouse, which is pleasant enough, and gives us the chance to eat elk, but doesn’t quite hit the heights of some of the meals we’ve had thus far. We head for an ice cream at a retro-looking parlour, and then on to a quiet Irish bar for drinks - in a surreal clash of cultures, the group before us is composed of four cowboys, replete in the full Stetson, boots, and jeans.

A couple of beers later, we leave to try and find a livelier venue, but all of our other recommendations are either empty or closed - it really feels like the town is on hiatus during the winter season, so we head back to Jake’s for one last drink before hitting the hay at our hotel.

Day Sixteen_Gardiner

We woke early again, a new record so far, because we’re going to attempt a more significant hike - the Sepulcher Mountain loop. It’s recorded at 11 miles on the flyer we were given yesterday, but climbing over 3,400ft as we head up to the peak of Sepulcher Mountain. It should take between 6-8 hours and we’re keen to make the most of the light. It’s a beautiful sunny day when we leave, with blue skies and little wind, so we leave in good spirits.

We drive back to Mammoth, and get all our gear together - there’s a reasonably short debate about whether we’ll need snowshoes as the trailhead starts from the town and looks reasonably well travelled by other hikers, but we decide we might need them so sling them on our backpacks.

The trail starts reasonably enough, with a brisk uphill stretch into the forests that line the outlying hills around the mountain. It takes us through snowy valleys and exposed ridges, with a trail that seems to be marked erratically with worn orange tags - more than once we have to stop and check our GPS route as we’re going. An unwelcome surprise occurs when my companion’s phone (our primary source of navigation) suddenly loses a significant amount of battery life - perhaps due to the cold - but luckily our proximity to Mammoth’s mobile antenna means I’m able to pick up the route on my phone.

We continue up, with the altitude increasing in pretty much a straight line, before reaching a steep, snow deep dish. It’s clear that we’re meant to scale it somehow, according to our map, but there are no visible signs of previous tracks on the face. At a suggestion from my companion, I take a pretty much straight line up a what must be a 50-55 degree slope, aiming for a broken tree stump at the midway point in the ascent. My thighs are screaming with every step I have to kick into the slope to gain any purchase, and my legs have become jelly by the time I’ve scrambled bear-style to the stump - I turn around and see that my hiking bro, having seen me struggle, has taken a much more sensible weaving route instead. From the stump, adrenaline forces me in a straight line to the top, where I have to sit on a fallen tree for a few minutes to allow my pulse to settle and my mind to recompose itself.

Somewhat restored, the route continues straight up - the torture of my thighs is far from over. Finally, after what seems like an endless climb, we reach a flattish overlook - amazingly, from this point we can see back down to Gardiner and our hotel. From here, we’re back into a hair-raising climb through deep snow that edges onto a deep ravine - this route would be pretty exhilarating in  the summer, with clear trails, but is pretty intense when you’re stood on packed snow with no visible edge.

After another hour or so, in the admittedly glorious weather, the route levels out a little and we arrive at Sepulcher’s peak. It’s a great moment and we sit for a few minutes taking in the amazing views across the national park - the clear skies give perfect visibility to all of the surrounding peaks that seem tantalisingly close. After a quick top up on water (we’ve drank all the beers we had on previous hikes), we start the what turns out to be a rather quick descent.

The path downwards takes us along a deep, snowy ridge, with lots of sudden drops that allow our snowshoes to act a little like skis - it’s a lot of fun, and a few face plants aside, makes for quick progress. After this, we arrive at a long, deep hillside - normally this would be a winding series of switchbacks and traverses, but the snow means we pretty much take a straight line down the side. The weather is so good, and the slope south facing, that I’m actually regretting no bringing sunscreen as I can feel my face start to prickle in the sun.

The last stretch of the return is through the forests again, which after a while developed the noticeable smell of eggs - Yellowstone is famous for it’s geological activity and the trail leads us right past some some examples. Large pits in the ground pour smoke and steam into the sky, hot water creates veins in the snow and yellow-blue chemical deposits lace the ground - all held together by the pervasive smell of sulphur. It’s strange to see a herd of deer drinking the hot water, which must be incredibly rich in minerals, and they bolt as soon as we near them. We even pass the shelved springs that Mammoth is famous for and they mark our eventual return to the car - it’s been a long, tiring walk, but a very worthwhile one and we make our return to Gardiner exhausted but happy. 

Given our tiredness, we decide to stay another night in Gardiner and make the dinner we’d bought a couple of days before - sausage pasta in a tomato sauce - it’s not the best food I’ve ever prepared, but we are ravenous and the entire lot disappears alongside a few icy drinks that we’d left out on the balcony. Having eaten our fill, showered and making the mistake of lying on our beds ‘for a couple of minutes’ it’s not long before we’re dead to the world.

Day Fifteen_Gardiner

We get up at 6.30AM, a brutal start but we’re keen to improve our chances of seeing animals - although we’re a bit groggy when we leave the apartment, it’s only a short journey over Gardiner’s bridge before we at the gates of Yellowstone National Park. As we drive through, it’s clear that we made the right decision as the sky is on fire with pinks and deep purples - the sunrise is staggering and only can be conveyed so much by our cameras. 

We drive on through the park, heading towards the Lamar Valley which seems to be the best place for seeing some of Yellowstone’s selection of mammals, including bison, elk, moose and the elusive grey wolf. Bears are also resident in Yellowstone, but given the time of year it seems unlikely we’ll encounter any. About thirty minutes into our drive, we crest a rise in the road and see several cars parked up in a siding - the reason for this is that a herd of what must be over one hundred bison are plodding their way around the cars, heading back up the way we’ve just come from. They are huge, ponderous things, with shaggy fur and a pair of significantly sized horns - at least significant from my vantage point. The bison pass right by the car as they move on by, and whilst their sheer size is impressive enough, the quantity and proximity makes this feel like a pretty special encounter.

With the bison on their way, we continue on through the park, only moving a few kilometres before suddenly stopping again - a large group of tourists with significant telephoto lenses and scopes are all searching furiously on the far side of the valley, a sure sign of an animal. We don’t have much in the way of magnification gear, but we stop to see if we can spot any movement - we don’t, unfortunately, but we can clearly hear the howls of wolfs off on a distant slope. It’s exciting to imagine that these animals, that were only reintroduced to Yellowstone recently, are finding a place out in the frozen hills.

Eventually, we arrive at the Lamar Valley trailhead and get our hiking gear on - it is bitterly cold, well below freezing, and I’m struggling to keep my hands warm even with my gloves and coat. Toes feel icy in our boots and the wind seems to cut through all our layers as we trace to path of the Lamar River through the valley. We quickly come across a significant herd of bison scattered across our path - the advice says to leave two bus lengths between you and a bison, and as we watch their blank, bovine stares and occasional movements towards us as we near, I can see why. Bison, it seems, can be quite territorial around humans with several documented attacks over the last few years - not wishing to tackle over a ton of angry buffalo, we decide to give them a very wide berth and clamber up a hill before carrying on.

We keep walking on deeper into the valley and whilst it’s a particularly serene place at this time in the morning, it quickly becomes clear that we’re not going to meet much more in the way of wildlife so we start to turn back after ninety minutes or so. This takes us to (and around) the same large herd we passed before, as they have continued their own journey along the river, whilst we follow a different trail back to the road. We realise, as we get close to the river itself, that the trail is probably meant for horse riders and summer horse riders at that, as the trail clear requires us to cross a not-quite-entirely iced over ford before we can climb up out of the valley. We cross with gentle steps, one at a time, with the occasional creak and groan of ice focussing our minds on getting to the other side. Icy plunges into a fast flowing river avoided, we climb up the opposite bank and hear distant barking - at first it sounds like a pack of dogs, but the barking is interspersed with long howls - it turns out this mix of barking and howling is the sound of coyote somewhere up in the surrounding hills.

We decide to slowly head back towards Gardiner to see if we can see anything else - on the way we pick out another trail and decide to stretch our legs again. This requires a quick U-turn in the car and we overshoot the edge of the road, obscured in snow, which leads us to having two tires spinning uselessly on compacted snow and ice. We try to free ourselves but more movement just leads to us dragging the car along the road at an angle, so I leap out to push. In a true demonstration of American goodwill, I’m quickly joined by three or four passers-by who give advice, help push and eventually get us back on the road. It’s hard not to be moved by the willingness and immediacy with which people help each other here - it leaves me wondering how a similar situation would have unfolded back at home.

With the car back in action, we head back up the road to the start of the Blacktail trail which should take us over some small hills and into a river valley a few miles away. We head out without our snowshoes, as the way - from the road - seems to be pretty clear and leads us right past a couple of elk stags perched helpfully on a small rise. After some pictures, we carry on up the first big hill only to find that the snow is much, much deeper on the following sides. I push on in my boots, trying to make some progress, but after an hour or so we both agree this is pointless without the right kit. 

So we head back again, turned away from a trail two times in one day, and head back to the car, stopping in the Park town of Mammoth Hot Springs to see if there are any other hikes worth completing whilst we’re here. A kindly ranger - who immediately recognises our accents as he has family in the UK - suggests the nearby Beaver Ponds loop, but we spot a larger route and ask if it would be possible to tack this on. He confirms it would be, quite nonchalantly, so we plan to do this tomorrow, given our frustrations today, with the possibility of another night in Gardiner if the going is tough.

Arriving back in town, we decide to grab an early dinner at a local cafe - which is pretty good, despite the painfully strong cowboy themed interior - and then head back to Livingston to catch a movie aft the theatre we’d spotted yesterday. We drive the hour back out of the mountains, arriving quite early, so we head to a local bar that had been recommended to us - as we chat, we notice a lone woman at the bar who seems a bit worse for wear and we’re stunned when we see her get into her car and drive around the block to a Mexican restaurant (so stunned in fact, that my companion heads into the restaurant to warn them she’s probably had enough, although we’re not sure they’re too bothered).

After a brisk walk around town, both in terms of speed and temperature, we head to the movies to watch the recent Spider-Man - which is really great, for anybody wondering - and then get in the car to head back. This journey compounds our most exciting car-based day so far, as we have to dodge several elk that decide to throw themselves in front of that car a number of times on our way back to the hotel.