Let me tell you a story. A story of someone who cannot really stay away from the beauty of North America and when back cannot help but want to leave again.
This time the goal was to follow the Rockies, a mountain formation comparable to the Alps, but actually much much lower in height. We flew to Colorado, usual starting point, where we spent a day recovering from the jet lag and another day visiting Boulder. I loved this little city so much. I “know” some people living there, like the climber Sasha diGiulian, and it always appealed to me like a pretty city next to the mountain, where people are always ready for adventures. Let me tell you, if I ever manage to move to the US, Colorado is on the list big time.
First National Park of the trip: Grand Teton. The beauty of this place is unreal. The thing about a lot of the rock formations in the US is that they rise standing alone in the middle of nothing, which makes them appear like beautiful totems. Lakes in the area are also beautiful and it’s impossible to resist the call of a canoe or kayak on the water. Grand Teton also has a lodge very similar to the Grand Canyon one with a beautiful view over the mountains, where I typically love spending my time drinking a local beer or a cocktail.
After spending a couple of days in Grand Teton we headed for Yellowstone, which is less than a couple of hours away. Its reputation of course precedes everything in the park. It was fascinating to see such an extensive piece of land with so many different characteristics. Of course the main ones are geysers and hot springs. Around 500 of over 900+ geysers of the world are concentrated here.
Bisons are also obviously the attraction. I’m deeply against stopping your car in the middle of the road to take pictures of bears and bisons, but we were lucky enough to have easily spotted some of these fascinating animals.
The park is HUGE. We camped in two different parts of the park to make sure we optimized our route, first at Grant Village and then in Canyon Village.
Whoever knows me also knows how much I advocate for camping/sleeping inside the park. It’s just half of the magic already there and also allows you to be flexible when visiting and skipping sometimes enormous queues of people entering the park by car every day.
Headed for Canada!