Montana/Glacier National Park 2021 Index Page

 With both adults vaccinated, in late June 2021 we finally felt safe enough to travel. We didn't think the kids could keep their masks on the plane for a transatlantic flight, so we opted for visiting Glacier National Park. This is the index page for the day to day travelogue.

Full Photo Album

• June 24th->25th: Prologue
• June 26th: Mt Aeneas
• June 27th: Going to the Sun Highway and Hidden Lake Overlook
• June 28th: Avalanche Lake
• June 29th: Two Medicine to Upper Two Medicine
• June 30th: Upper Medicine to Noname Lake
• July 1st: Noname Lake to Two Medicine Boat Launch
• July 2nd: Whitewater Rafting
• July 3rd: Bowman and Kintla Lakes
• July 4th: Cabinet Mountains
• July 5th-6th: Ross Creek Scenic Area and Epilogue
• Tips and Tricks

Equipment Reviews:

• Day Hiking Glacier National Park and Western Montana
• Camping Solar Shower Bag: 5 gallons
• Big Agnes Fly Creek UL1
• Clevermade Collapsible Cooler

Yosemite/Hetch Hetchy Ranchiera Falls

Yosemite just re-opened with massive numbers of restrictions, including reservations required for day-entry, which meant that for the first time in ages, I would consider a visit in the summer. The drive-in permits are first come first serve, but I had my eyes on the wilderness permits, which are available only by lottery.

I submitted 2 applications, one starting on the 3rd (which was a holiday), and one starting on the 4th. For each one, I listed Cathedral Lakes and Sunrise Lakes as my first two choices, and Ranchiera Falls as my second. My application for the 3rd was denied, but my application for the 4th came through for Ranchiera Falls in Hetch Hetchy, a place I had never explored in Yosemite National Park. I hurriedly made arrangements to borrow a bear canister, acquire backpacking equipment for Xiaoqin, and reservations for a hotel on the 3rd, since she didn't want to stay at the Backpackers Campground the night before.

Photo Album Link

The Wilderness Permit actually lets you enter the park the day before your stay. We drove from home to the park entrance, getting there around 11:30am, but then discovered that the line at the park entrance was more than a mile long. What happened was that they're indeed checking everyone's permit against both a computer database and a photo ID before you're even allowed to buy your entrance permit.

Once in the park, the experience was wonderful compared to previous visits. Vistas like the tunnel view and Bridal Veil falls had plenty of parking, though attractions close to park lodging like the Yosemite falls were still full of people.

We stayed in the park until late and then stayed at the Yosemite West Gate Lodge, buying awful take out from the diner next door. After so long in shelter-in-place order, it felt strange to see a restaurant with indoor seating, so we opted to eat in our hotel room, after the requisite 20 minute airing out of the place.

The next morning, we woke up early put everything in the trunk, and then drove out to Hetch Hetchy. The drive through the National Forest was pretty, and one location was so stunning I had to stop for a few pictures.

I expected to be one of the first people waiting at the Hetch Hetchy entrance when it opened at 8am, but there was already a line there with 5-6 cars ahead of us. When the gate opened we all drove through but there was still a 10 minute wait, with the rangers checking on our permits even though we already had our paid for entry-permit hung on our windshield. The number of wilderness permits handed out hasn't changed despite the situation, and the backpackers parking lot was full so we had to use the overflow parking area.

Knowing what I know now, I should have just driven my family down to the dam, unloaded the backpacks, and then driven the loop back to drop off excess food at the bear lockers before hiking back down myself. It would have saved about half a mile of extra walking with packs on, which everyone complained about., Even I felt the load, since I was carrying 3 sleeping bags, 2 tents (my plan to use the hammock for camping was derailed because REI's expedited shipping option for the mosquito netting for my ENO doublenest didn't live up to its promise --- one of many reasons why I feel punished every time I buy from anyone not Amazon), Boen's sleeping pad, clothing for both kids including wet suits, and all the other sundries including the hammock and straps, which Bowen had volunteered to carry but whined so much about that I took it off him by the time we got to the dam.

Despite starting by 9:30am, the day was already warm when we crossed the tunnel onto the trail proper. I'd started everyone on relatively little water, reasoning that the waterfall was only 2.5 miles away. There were patches of shade where we could rest, but the wide exposed areas had the best views and we all ran out by the time we got to the waterfall. I dug out the BeFree water filter out of my backpack and filled everyone's bottles and brought my camelbak bladder up to 2 liters for good measure. A woman came up and asked if I felt safe drinking the water straight out of the falls: apparently the BeFree looked so much like a water bottle that she didn't notice the filter.

Past the waterfall, the climbing started, taking us over the ridgelines that characterized the area. The view of the dam started retreating behind us until it disappeared completely. The number of hikers had also dropped by a lot. When the elevation started dropping I thought we were close and was heartened by the sound of running water but it turned out to be Tiltill Creek, about a mile but some elevation away from Rancheria Falls. The trail passed through a heavily burned section, which added insult to injury as our shade was taken away from us during the hottest time of the day.

By the time we got to the view of the Rachiera Creek apron, we'd all run out of water again, but fortunately the campground was shaded. A lot of spots were taken so we had no choice but to take one within sight of the main trail. With shade, the pressing need for water was not as urgent so I setup the hammock, pitched the tents, inflated most of the pads, and then we got everything ready to go visit the river, which was full of backpackers soaking to stay cool.

It was cold as a Sierra creek could be, but with wet suits the kids could stay in there far longer than I could, and I started setting up for dinner. Once the kids saw me setup they suddenly became hungry, and we ate all the backpacking dinners I brought with us, my favorite flavor being Sweet and Sour Pork, which is sadly now out of stock and available only at exorbitant prices.

After dinner, Bowen went for another swim while Boen couldn't wait to play with the tent and went back, but when he came back and saw Bowen in the river again he insisted on joining Bowen, and what could I do but put on my swim suit and join them!

It was surprisingly late by the time we went back to the tents but now the mosquitoes were out in force, so we completely our evening setup, with the sight of bear poop on the trail making me super paranoid about putting the bear canister far away from the tents, and went to bed. Despite opening the fly on the tent to the maximum extent it still felt warm and I tossed and turned a bit before dozing off with my CPAP machine running off the battery. (I'd thought about leaving it behind and saving the 1100g, but then realized that after I was done with the trip I'd have to drive for 4 hours to get home and decided it wasn't worth the risk)

I woke up at 6:00am the next morning seeing mosquitoes gathered on the mosquito netting on the tent, justifying my decision to bring 2 tents. We ate a quick breakfast, and quickly tore everything down as fast as I could for an 8:15am start. Despite that start we still felt warm in the burnt area, but once back in the shade it felt nice, and we could feel a nice headwind blowing towards us cooling us off. It had taken us 6 hours of walking to get to Ranchiera Falls the day before, but we were going at a far faster pace today with the slightly cooler temperatures and the mostly downhill walk. I slipped on a rock and skinned my knee, but it was a minor wound and I'd luckily brought a first aid kit with antibiotic cream.

At the falls again we still had sufficient water, and so pushed on, getting back to the tunnel at noon. Being smarter than the day before, I left the backpacks, wife and kids at the dam in the shade of a tree and walked back unladened to the car to drive down and pick everyone up.

Strangely enough, the mileage yesterday was more than the mileage today, and my guess was that spending a lot of time resting in the shade causes GPS jitter that grants you more miles for the same distance.

If I had to do it all over again, I'd stay overnight at Hetch Hetchy at the backpackers camp so I could get an earlier start, and also drive everyone else to start at the dam to avoid the extra half a mile of pack hiking. I would also avoid giving Boen the Camelbak --- he'd done so well with it on the previous trip, but this time I ended up carrying it awkwardly. Nevertheless, as a 5 year old he's now already done tougher hiking trips than his brother ever did at ages 6 or 7. This was a challenging trip because of environmental conditions, and there really aren't any easier hikes in the Hetch Hetchy area, so we probably won't revisit until the kids are older.

Cabo San Lucas Trip Report

I was very jealous of Arturo's whale shark snorkeling trip. The last time I tried to see whale sharks I got completely unlucky  with weather and my trip got canceled. For thanksgiving when Xiaoqin suggested we go to Cabo San Lucas, I decided up front that we would try to see the whale shark. I'd arranged with Cabo Expeditions, who were kind enough to make an exception for Boen even though he was well below the age cut off. They requested that we brought our own life jacket and snorkel for Boen. I would later discover that VIP Tours out of La Paz would have taken kids of any age and supplied all the necessary gear.

I also organized a snorkeling trip for Saturday, using our hotel credits to do so. While in previous years, Bown had been happy to do ziplines, this year he stated "no ziplines." I guess the San Diego trip had made him to sea world had made him scared of heights with the roller coasters that flipped upside down which even gave me a little bit of a thrill.

For this trip, we brought along the Nikon W300, and the EOS M5 with just 2 lenses, the 22/2mm and the 50mm/1.8 with adapter. (Photo Link for the trip)

We arrived and had a free day, but immediately after that a storm blew in and cancelled our whale watching trip. Fortunately, we had a week, and promptly rescheduled for Friday and opted for a yellow submarine trip on Thursday that turned out to be not very interesting because of murky water. On Wednesday, we paid a visit to downtown Cabo San Lucas as well as San Jose de Cabo. Both obviously catered to American tourists on medical vacations, with lots of pharmacies targeted for Americans.

The Whale Shark trip happened and we did get to see a Whale Shark:

The process was a long wait, with a 2 hour drive to La Paz, and then when  we cleared into the National Park waters, we were told there were 19 boats ahead of water, so the tour operator just parked the boat on a beach and we ate lunch while waiting. When we got a chance to do it, the guide would direct the captain to steer near the whale shark, and then we'd get in the water and the boat would swing around in circles until we were ready to board. Our first encounter spooked the whale shark and it swam away, so we had to get back in the boat to repeat. Fortunately, with an hour trip we were able to scan around and finally found one that was moving slowly and we got plenty of pictures.

The next day we did a snorkel trip, but the water was murky. On our last day, we were supposed to visit Cabo Pulmo for a snorkel trip, but the tour operator canceled on us despite perfect weather. My guess was that it being a Sunday they wanted the day off and just made up some excuse to not do the trip. We booked a taxi to Santa Maria beach where Boen finally managed to see some fish.

On our finaly afternoon I finally persuaded Boen and Bowen to try the water slides and they had a fun time.

We did achieve all our objectives, but I'm not sure I need to repeat this trip. The Carribean is still a better place to visit.

July 7th: Bridgnorth to Worcester

Under partly cloudy skies we departed from Brignorth, following the signs along National Bike Route 45. At the first intersection where the bike route signs differed from the GPS directions, I decided to take a chance and ride the bike route, as the road looked smaller and quieter. To my surprise this was a mistake:

The bike route quickly devolved into single track, and I hoped for relief when the bike route finally re-intersected with our GPS route, only to discover that the GPS route at this point also took up the bike route single-track around the Chelmarsh reservoir. The single track was mostly rideable, but the stinging nettles by the side of the path would occasionally brush against my bare legs and hurt! Fortunately, Bowen was wearing pants over his bike shorts and was spared some of the agony.

After the single track was over, the route descended and brought us onto Hampton Lodge, where the Severn Valley Railway had brought us to the evening before! The path was guarded by leaning gates that were narrow at the top and wide at the bottom so our panniers would clear, but still necessitate a stop and wriggle to get through. Once on the railroad grade, however, the path was very pleasant, shaded and woody with no cars in sight.

In the town of Highley, the bike route went on the Highley Trail, which dumped us out into a parking lot with a sandy playground. Bowen took some time to spend on the playground, which would warm and cool depending on whether we had cloud cover.

To my surprise, after the playground the bike route did some gentle climbing and then quickly descended back down to the river. At the river, the road dead-ended, but it turned out that we had missed a bike route sign directing us to get off the bike and get onto a pedestrian bridge over the Severn river.

The bridge was pretty, but a group of passing cyclists warned us of the steep grade ahead. We climbed the grade, which while steep was nowhere near as hard as the single-track hiking trails we'd already traversed that day. In fact, we caught up with the group when they rested at an inn after the steepest section, whereupon they said, "We did not expect you to catch us!" I took the opportunity to get them to shoot pictures of Bowen and I while we were riding, something that happened only rarely.

In the town of Bewdley, the route looked like it was going to cross the river again, but it was near lunch time, so I stopped a pedestrian and asked about a local bakery, whereupon he walked us to the nearest one! There, we bought a selection of savoury and sweet pastries, and asked about a picnic area. "Just walk across the street, through the visitor center/museum, and there's a nice park there!" Before doing so, I stopped at the local pharmacy to buy a replacement toothbrush for the one left behind at Market Drayton.

Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Gardens turned out to be a wonderful place to have a picnic. With shaded benches, a garden pool, gorgeously tendered flower gardens, and even statues of bunnies, it was very pretty. There's a frequent statement that children don't appreciate scenery, but Bowen has always liked flowers, and was happy to look at them after finishing both his sweet and savoury pastries. Passerbys would stop and ask us about the bike and where we were going, and never failed to be impressed that we were on a long trek from Manchester to London. One even made sure that I understood that Hindhead was past London and we'd have to double-back to catch our train, he was so concerned that we didn't know what we were doing.

After lunch, the ride took us into Burlish Top Nature Reserve, where more single-track riding awaited us. Fortunately, this wasn't lined with stinging nettles this time, and we made reasonably good time. Past Hartlebury, the route took us on the side of a busy A road once more, which meant that the riverside bike path alongside thee Drotwich Canal provided us with relief when we found it.

 To our chagrin, the bike path soon left the river, through a series of increasingly rough hiking trails, and finally terminated in a steep inclined which forced Bowen to dismount and me to get off the bike and push with all my effort (I was straining so hard that Bowen felt compelled to help push) to get off the bike path, where at the top we saw signs confirming that yes, we were indeed still on National Bike Route #45, and tourists following the route were indeed expected to get off and push! I don't know who the people are who designate the National Bike Routes in England, but they clearly have no expectations that anyone's going to ride tandems on these trails. They might be well-signed, but reasonable they are not!

Fortunately, that was the last of the crazy bike routes for the day, and the approach into Worcester on the bike route had us on quiet side streets without many grade changes until we got to our AirBnB. Our hostess, Jain, was clearly in the middle of either a remodel or a move, and was busy clearing the house. She was happy to do laundry for us, which is a sign that the major hotel chains are missing the boat when it comes to servicing customers: for the rest of the trip, we would abandon hotels and stay with AirBnBs whenver possible because when you stay in somebody's home, you almost always got access to a laundry machine, which is a big deal when you're touring with a 5-year old. While adults might not get their clothing so dirty that hand-washing was straight-forward, a 5-year old manages to get stains on their clothing that a hand-washer would be hard put to fix. I asked Jain when the shops downtown closed, and she asked me what I was looking for. When I mentioned that I needed a USB charger (so our devices could charge even when I was using the CPAP machine), she didn't even think twice and pulled out an old Apple charger for us. Wow.

We walked to the local supermarket but on the way there, saw a newly opened bike shop. I asked if they would take a look at our shifting since I'd failed for 3 days in a row now to fix the indexing on the tandem. They said they'd do it while we waited, and so we brought the tandem to them, bought ice cream, and visited the local playground which was full of kids since it was a Friday afternoon and it was late enough that school was now out. Bowen's been spoiled since he'd gotten all the playgrounds to himself thus far, and said: "This playground is too crowded!" I learned that school lets out in England somewhere around mid July to late July, and only starts in September, so American school districts usually let out earlier and start school earlier than English school districts by 6 weeks. This is nice, because Americans vacationing in Europe during the summer don't have to compete with locals for lodging, etc.

When the bike was returned to us the shifting now felt better than when we'd left the USA, so I was happy to pay the fee. We then took the bus downtown, where we bought some Hydrocortisone cream for the stinging nettles, and sat in a cafe drinking drinks while searching for our next destination on AirBnB. Booking.com wanted $500 for some hotels that were in pretty poor places for touring, so I compromised on an AirBnB in Winchcombe, which was some 27 miles away. I figured we could make up the deficit on another day, and risking no lodging on a Saturday night wasn't acceptable, especially since we knew that the Costwold was heavily touristed.

Bowen had a hankering for duck, so we went to the Singapore Restaurant in Worcester, which actually had pretty good reviews and delivered duck in plum sauce that Bowen devoured with unusual enthusiasm.

Next

July 6th: Market Drayton to Bridgnorth

Our second day started with a great breakfast served by the Four Alls Inn, and we got going by 9:00am. South of Market Drayton, we rode through tiny towns, avoiding main roads. We had been told to avoid Telfords, but the tourist information center the day before had told us that Ironbridge is a good destination, since it was the home of the industrial revolution, and would have lots to do. That sounded intriguing, so we planned to visit.

Near Ironbridge, however, I chose to ignore the GPS and follow the street signs, which turned out to be a mistake. To direct car drivers to big parking lots, the road signs would lead you into Madley, which wasn't at all what you wanted. We recovered by asking a couple of pedestrians, and made it to visit Iron Bridge.

There, we visited the museum of the gorge, which included model displays and a film outlining the area. There was a coop supermarket near the museum, and we bought lunch to eat at the nearby park, which was beautiful and featured a playground.

After lunch and a playground stop, we rode onto the bridge, and visited the tollhouse at the other side.

 From there, the bike route signs pointed us along the old railroad track which then abruptly terminated just a couple of miles down the road, with the bike route sign pointing up the hill, signed for Bridgnorth. We would discover later on that there was a disused rail road path that was mapped, but not signed!

The resultant climb, coming late in the afternoon heat wore us out, and by the time we rode into Bridgnorth we were ready to stop. At the tourist information center, we again found no one to help us, except a couple of staff members who told us that it wasn't in their job description but pointed us at a list of B&Bs in the window. I called a few that all turned out to be closed, and eventually just booked The Croft on booking.com.

Upon checking in, I discovered that I'd left my MoKo travel charger in the Four Alls Inn! I fortunately still had the rapid charger for my Moto G5, but I still needed a plug adapter. Fortunatlely, the inn keeper had a stash of plug adapters (some of which no doubt were left behind by other customers) and simply gave us one. "It's a small town, so I wouldn't even know where you could buy one of these!" he said.

After asking where the nearest ice cream shop was, we walked to it and bought ice cream. Then we walked over to the "cliff railway" in town, which turned out to be a funicular taking us down to the river side, where a 15 minute walk took us to a bike shop next to the Severn Valley Railway. The bike shop told us that the next day's trip to Worcester was going to be hilly, and surprisingly enough couldn't help us with a good route. They claimed that the bike route was no good, and suggested staying on the roads, but all of the roads looked like they would be busy ones not suited for cycling.

I was reminded that the next day was a Friday, so I'd have to start searching for lodging early, preferably today. In fact, Saturday was going to be an issue as well! As a result, I started putting in queries on AirBnB, since Worcester was a big city and I could expect to find reasonable lodging there. I sent a few queries and hoped for a reply.

The Severn Valley railway turned out to be a steam train, though we arrived only in time to catch the last train of the day, with a round trip to Hampton Lodge (the first stop) being the only possible round trip we could do. So we paid for the ticket and hopped on the heritage railway. Bowen wasn't about to pass up a train ride no matter how short it was.

Upon returning from the train ride, the sky started becoming overcast with the thunderstorm in the forecast becoming more believable after the heat of the afternoon. We discovered there was a bridge from the railway station that took us halfway up the hill to where the town castle grounds were, which we took advantage of rather than walking back to the funicular.

The castle grounds/city walls garden turned out to be beautiful, with a mini bridge, wishing well, flowers, and a monument. We walked along side it, and Bowen threw in a coin to make a wish. He started getting tired, so I carried him into town where we looked for a restaurant to have dinner. We settled on Casa Ruiz, a Spanish tapa place that served excellent food in small dishes that suited Bowen. He was very excited about an impending thunderstorm, and quite disappointed that it didn't materialize.

At bedtime, I discovered that I'd forgotten another thing at the Four Alls Inn, which was Bowen's toothbrush. Luckily, I'd brought along the teeth-cleaning gum, so that's what I gave him, but I was determined to buy a replacement toothbrush the next day. I was not having a good tour in terms of leaving stuff behind that I didn't want to leave behind!

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