Who: Eric, Yifan and Santiago
When: September 4-5, 11-12, 18-19
Activity: Day hiking
Hey y'all!
Long time reader, first time contributor! The newlyweds graciously let me tag along for the first 2 weeks of their epic 3 month honeymoon. Thanks to you two for accommodating for me logistically, and congrats again on getting married! For the first leg, we rented an airbnb for almost 2 weeks and stayed ~1.5 hours away from Glacier National Park. I re-confirmed that I'm not a fan of long road trips and it was a gruelling 8 hour drive to our airbnb in Idaho. Stopping at a steakhouse was an amazing call as they served up a mean piece of meat. We relaxed the first night, started a two week binge of Attack on Titan and had a late start for our first day at Glacier.
Yifan and I kept it easy and hiked Hidden Lake Trail first. It was fairly busy as it's one of Glacier's most popular hikes, and unfortunately there was only about a 20% mask wearing rate. Thankfully, it was really easy to get some gorgeous photos along the way as there were sweeping views of peaks and valleys by Logan Pass.
Yifan amongst the rolling hills and majestic peaks on the Hidden Lake Trail
Not satisfied with just the one hike, we decide to do a short 4km hike to St. Mary Falls. Knowing the hike was short, we elected to bring our tripods in effort to get a nice shot of the falls. The destination was better than the journey since the hike was fairly flat, narrow and the view was nothing to write home about. Arriving at the falls, we were able to carve out a small location for us to take some long exposure shots, which gives the water smoothness effect. Pretty happy with the image as the rock face shows some cool texture and the aqua colour of the water adds to the serenity. I do need to buy an ND filter so the sky isn't as overexposed when taking these kinds of shots.
I didn't end up hiking again until the following weekend, where I did a pair: Florence Falls with Yifan and Highline Trail as a solo hike. Florence falls a fairly relaxing hike, 15km round trip, but it offered up amazing sights on the way. Terrain changes from rocky rivers to savannah-like landscapes made for an immensely enjoyable hike.
The blue skies were seemingly endless on the way to Florence Falls. Taken with Quick Continuous Shooting on the A7II.
That was the last of the good weather at Glacier as the smoke rolled through Glacier National Park. I elected to do the Highline Trail to the Granite Chalet, but the smoke made it difficult to get any nice pictures. Having looked up what I was supposed to see, I 100% have to return to Glacier to do the hike again, since I was missing out on some amazing views. Instead of seeing anything cool, I saw...
Absolutely brutal. At least I got a 27km hike in.. Hmu if you're going to Glacier National Park next year 😅 At least I bought my Glacier National Park pin. That was it for Glacier from me; all in all, sweet hikes, sweet views and an overall great time, smoke notwithstanding.
The following weekend, we stayed close to both Yellowstone National Park and Grand Tetons National Park. A chance to snag a pair of pins for the collection :) First visit was a hike at Grand Tetons. Forecast called for thunderstorms, but it was the only day I could visit, so I went for it anyways! Elected to do Lake Solitude via Canyon Trail in another solo hike since the other two couldn't make it. Solo hiking made me think.. a lot. About life, about work, and about the photo I'm going to take away from the hike. Below is the fruit of my labour:
Attack on Tetons
In all seriousness, the hike was gorgeous and rumours of thunderstorms were greatly exaggerated. Another hike through a valley with high peaks and changing fall colours. Totally worth the 30.5 km hike!
My final stop was to Yellowstone National Park. A quick stop at the Grand Prismatic Spring made for a cool first sight at the third largest natural hot spring in the US:
We headed to Old Faithful as one does when visiting Yellowstone National Park. When we got there, the crowd wasn't too big so we figured we had plenty to wait before it would set off. I took this opportunity to buy my final of 3 pins on the trip. The three of us also have goals to learn languages, so we pulled out our language learning apps and killed a solid hour with that. (Eric: Japanese, Yifan: French, Santiago: Mandarin). As the geyser started to rumble, a bison who had been eating grass begins to move across our field of view. The timing could not have been more perfect - as soon as Old Faithful erupts, the Bison is standing right in front of it! The crowd, and the crowd's cameras go wild.
Santiago drove me to the airport the following day after work and thus ended my 2 week stint in Idaho and Montana. I am happy to report that Delta was really good in that both of my flights, I had no one sitting adjacent to me. Everyone on the plane was also good about leaving their masks on and I made it back to Seattle COVID-free.
