Today we decided to sleep in a bit and we had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel then suited up and headed out to South Plateau Trail.
It was snowing when we woke up, and it snowed for almost the entire day. We got to see various types of snow - from wet slushy globs to large ice pieces to small pieces of sleet-like pellets. We stopped several times for the kids to play in the snow, to turn around to make course corrections because my map reading and navigational skills were a little COLD, but we did not have any mishaps before lunch. We stopped at Meadow Creek Lodge in Idaho (trails here are like some highways - interstate!) and had burgers and fries, no cherry pies though! Food was good but we must have hit there just 15 seconds after all nine hundred other people on snowmobiles today did - waited 20 or so minutes for a table, then waited 55 minutes for food! It was good, the place was warm and people were friendly though!
After our burger stop we decided to retrace our steps to go to Big Spring - which we had originally skipped to cut the trip shorter. After hearing oohs and ahhs from folks who had just come there, we decided to make our way there. One mishap on this leg was that Chuck was trying to avoid the ruts in the trail, and managed to find an airpocket of sorts in the snow and got stuck -- but the nice friendly group that happened by at that time did not laugh, they got off their sleds and pulled his sled out! What nice people we have encountered here! We made our way to Big Spring and it really was pretty. Kids got to throw bread to ducks, we saw muskrats, and kids got to play in the snow again.
After leaving Big Spring area, we found the most awful trail in the area - it was rutted beyond belief, we could only go about 15-20 miles per hour and by the time we finally got off that trail, we knew that we had been shaken! We encountered several snowmobilers on the trails, and one who even had an open backpack on his and was leaving most of his gear along the trail!
As the sky was getting darker, and the snow was picking up as well as the winds, we made our way back to West Yellowstone and shucked our snow gear. It didn't take long for the kids to decide that they needed to soak in the hot tub to make up for the day on the snowmobiles. I was relegated to laundry and posting to the blog while Dad got observation duty.....but all in all it was a great day of adventure.
I uploaded more photos to the album from yesterday - click here to see them!
Tomorrow we ride with our favorite Yellowstone guide Dan -- we're either going to Grand Canyon of Yellowstone or Old Faithful - either way, it will be a picture-taking day!
Be safe and have a Happy New Year - we'll be up here!
The Frolicking Featherstons
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