This day started earlier than most. I remember waking up between two and three in the morning and noticing our tent was collapsing on us. In trying to identify why, I realized that our tent was covered in sleet, freezing rain, and snow. After beating off a lot of the weight, the tent returned to its original shape.
We’d decided the previous night that no matter what, we would hike to the summit of Mount Washburn, one of the key scenic hikes in the park. Neither Lea nor I are usually ones to give up on commitments. As we were warming our numb fingers from packing up our campsite in 35-degree weather, we decided the Mount Washburn hike was something we’d forgo, citing the reasons that we would be miserable the entire time and the low visibility meant we would miss out on scenic views at the summit. We promised we’d be back to the Yellowstone and Grand Teton area for a trip on its own in the future, somewhat easing our guilt on giving up on the hike.
We drove North through Mammoth Hot Springs, out of the park.
We enjoyed lunch at the Eat Café in Gardinier, Montana, just outside of the park. We decided our final destination would be Missoula, Montana, about a four-hour drive from the northern park limit, and a 2.5-hour drive tomorrow to Glacier National Park. We booked our hotel on the drive up, and upon arriving we asked the front desk if we’d be able to set our tent up on the lawn to let it dry out. The sun sets in Missoula at 9:29pm, so even though we arrived at the hotel at 5pm, there was still a ton of sunlight left to dry out our tent.
After a couple quick showers, we were off to get some dinner and we settled on the Tamarack Brewing Company. We ate more than our fill and headed back to the hotel to plan out our next adventure in Glacier National Park.
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