Click on the image to get a more detailed map.

First place where we stopped were The Badlands of South Dakota. From a desk-flat plane the slopes of eroded soil abruptly descends and uncover an interesting landscape.

Morning and evening visitors can admire it, however during a hot day the country becomes a real hell, as it was called by early explores.

From South Dakota we continued through Black Hills to Wyoming. We crossed The Big Horn Mountains, where we get with our car to an elevation of 2800m (and of course hiked up a cliff to get above 3000m). We drove through "cowboys" areas and visited Buffalo Bill's museum in Cody. Not far from there mountains start again and it is just a few miles to The Yellowstone National Park. There is no doubt, why this area became the first National Park of US, as early as in 1872.

The Lower Falls of The Great Canyon can be a real inspiration point for artists.

However, what the park is famous for, is its geothermal and vulcanic activity which keeps changing its face up to these days. There is no question that there will be another vulcanic eruption there, you can read on boards at walks along active Geysers. The only question is when it will happen.

In Mammoth Terrace, deer and elks are attracted to warm pools and rocks rich with minerals.

The colorful slope in foreground with cascade pools and hot water running down is still living, while the back part of the rock dried out and changed its collor to gray.

The wildlife is back in Yellowstone. Even if we fortunately did not meet any bears we saw many other more or less peacefull species, like elks...

or bisons.

It takes only a couple of hours to get from the Yellowstone N.P. to The Grand Teton National Park, a very different geological area. Tall rocky mountains stand above large lakes. We made a one day hike to the mountains. The loop around one range was 20 miles long with altitude change of 1100 m. But the beauty of the mountains is worth such an effort.

Coming down a vallye in the evening we even met a moose hiding under trees from starting rain.

From Grand Teton we travelled through Idaho and Oregon to Pacific coast. More than 50% of the area of the Oregon state is covered by forests, but there are also vast almost deserted planes. We decided to take a shortcut through such an area. We left the interstate and turned to a secondary highway, then to another less important road and another one. We had 250 miles to get back to the interstate and this view in front of us:

We made it through. What kept us amused were trafic signs. The ussual sign "stock on the road" was accompanied here by anothere sign "next 89 miles". After accomplishing these 89 miles we arrived at a small gas station with a bar. When leaving this place, the first thing we met was another "stock on the road sign" with an additional information: "next 69 miles".

When all the stock on the road was behind us, we got back to mountains. The Crater Lake is a vulcano crater filled up by water so clear that there is almost no life in the lake. We never experienced such a blue water anywhere else.

From Crater Lake it is only couple hundreds miles to the coast. We saw the big sand dunes but would prefer warm weather once being by the sea. It was so cold that we did not even feel like trying to swim. Despite being discouraged by local experts that "the more to the north, the colder the weather and ocean are", we did not spend much time by soggy, foggy and cold dunes and headed north. The most north part of Washington coast was much warmer and we even swimmed. It was not any worse than having bath in a mountain creek or swimming in a lake at the elevation of 1500 m.

On the way we also saw many Sea Lions and in the tide pools we watched anemonies, crabs, snales sea stars and other creatures.

We did not only sea interesting places but also met remarkable people. The owner of this "boat-bus" was very proud of his "house". I had to ackowledge that it was an excellent idea and well done work.

In the Washington state we went to The Rain Forest of the Olympic National Park. Fortunately it receives most of its precipitations in the winter, so we could admire its beauty and feel comfortable in warm and sunny weather.

Mosses were covering all the trees trunks and branches and the ground hosted almost only ferns.

The days we had for our trip were counted down. In the remaining time we decided to see Seattle and Vancouver and go back through Canadian Rockies. We liked Vancouver, it was sort of closer with its atmospher to European cities than other towns we visited (but still different).

From Canada we got to Montana and intended to spend some time in Glaciers. However, the rainy clouds covering large part of area we went through in Canada were reaching also here. We mostly had views as the one below. Therefore we drove further. There were only two days and three nights left anyway.

In Montana we stopped by Little Big Horn to see the authentical place of the Custer's last beatlle against Indians. We also learned much more about the background of the fightings and about the life on frontier in 19th century.

Our last stop were Badlands of North Dakota, Theodor Roosevelt National Park. We were probably the only people staying overnight in the backcountry, but we enjoyed. The landscape is not as harsh as the one of South Dakota Badlands. Everything looked much more piecefull (the feeling might have been supported by the nice mild weather we had there). The picture bellow shows a layer of lignit in the sandy rocks. Sometimes lightning may start a fire and then the coal may burn for many years. It then hardens the rock above it and changes its collor to red. Such a rock is less vulnerable to eroding and creates had shaped pillers.

My miscalculation of remaining distance enabled us to spend happy morning in the park, but the 800 miles left took 15 hours of driving. We got back home at 4 in the morning but safe and happy. We did not only see many beautifull places, but also learned a lot about history and nature. Now we can understand and imagine a bit more the feeling of the first people exploring the west and trying to cross the mountains.

Despite the large area we covered, there are still many and many other places left. We are looking forward to exploring them...

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