afternoon tea: Glacier / Yellowstone Roadtrip Part I

Is 18 months after a trip too late to blog about it? Well I hope not because today's post is a write-up of our 2017 roadtrip! I actually wrote the text as soon as we got back to LA but sorting the photos out has been a task I have somewhat neglected. It's a common problem for me, going through personal photos on evenings and weekends tends to just feel like work! I edited and printed a couple of the photos fairly promptly but they've sat under the bed ever since... until Art To Frames recently gave me some products so I finally framed one of them! Hooray! So that's what motivated me to get this post up at last, so without further ado here's part one of our epic journey...

Glacier National Park

We had 2 weeks put aside to explore Idaho, Montana and Wyoming and decided driving from LA would mean wasting pretty much 4 days so we opted to fly to Boise, ID, rent a car and start our trip from there! (we considered starting in Jackson, WY but it was way more expensive to fly there).

First off, we started (and finished) our adventure at the Modern Hotel in downtown Boise, I can’t recommend it enough, the staff were lovely, the rooms clean and comfortable with big beds and nice showers AND there was an awesome restaurant! We ate breakfast there both times and it was delicious, I only wish we’d had time to try their dinner menu too.

Modern Hotel, Boise

The main stop-offs on our trip were Glacier National Park, Yellowstone and Grand Teton, the stops in between were largely chosen on the basis of convenience in terms of breaking up the journey but were a good opportunity to see some unusual towns we wouldn’t normally have visited!

First stop was Riggins, ID, we stayed at the Salmon Rapids Lodge, a large hotel (considering the population of Riggins is 413) on the Salmon river, we had a comfortable stay and loved ambling down and exploring around the river.

Riggins, ID

Next up was Lolo Hot Springs, MT, the drive there from Riggins was possibly one of my favourites from the whole trip. A two lane road wound through the Nez Perce – Clearwater and Lolo National forests so we were surrounded by trees and followed the Lochsa river the whole way.

TIP: Gas up and grab supplies in Grangeville.

The Road to Lolo

We stayed at The Lodge at Lolo Hot Springs which had fun (albeit basic) cabin style rooms, and a couple of gorgeous (indoor) natural hot springs to take a dip in, for dinner we drove the 25 mins to Lolo and had a yummy steak at Lolo Creek Steakhouse.

The next day we drove to Whitefish, MT via the breath-taking Flathead Lake…

Flathead Lake

We had actually tried to find somewhere to stay in Glacier National Park but everywhere was fully booked for our dates (I’m pretty sure national park hotels book up months and months in advance). There were also huge wild fires burning in Glacier while we were there which meant the Western half of the Going-to-the-sun road was closed, this is the main road that runs through the park and is the recommended sight seeing route. So instead we drove to the Eastern entrance (St Mary’s) and drove the segment of the road that was open! The fires meant there was a lot of smoke in the park which you could say hindered the views, but we still think the scenery was stunning, and kind of liked the eerie quality the smoke added. Fortunately Logan’s Pass was accessible and we were able to hike the incredible Hidden Lake trail! The views were just awesome and because it was nearing the end of the season (and maybe because of the fires) the trail was thankfully very quiet, we wished we’d got there earlier so we could’ve hiked the extra 1.5 miles down to Hidden Lake itself.