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Scouting the Gardner River from the North Gate of Yellowstone
I wrote last summer about my visit to my old favorite honey hole on the Gardner river in Montana, and this year I decided to hike into the park from the North Gate in the Town of Gardiner. The old road through the park from Gardiner to Mammoth Village was destroyed by the flood of…
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An Update from West Yellowstone
I’ve managed to break my weekly posting streak here at travelingwithtools.com, which started back around this time last October. I’d committed myself to a regular writing schedule (more or less) with the goal of making this website into something more useful. Well, two weeks ago, I set up on the Madison River at Bakers Hole…
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The Gardner River and a Yellowstone Honey Hole
In 2015 I paid my first visit to the Gardner River in Yellowstone National Park. I had an exceptional experience, due to the dumb luck of being in the right place at the right time. I had parked the motorhome at the Lava Creek trailhead, just adjacent to the Mammoth campground, and hiked down to…
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Wyoming Sights and Sounds, Pt. 2
Previous post, Sights and Sounds, Pt. 1 When I got back to camp after that enjoyable day on the Ham’s Fork, the door to my RV would not open. What the hell? The key worked the lock, but it would not unlatch. I had to go in through the garage, and the damn latch would…
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Wyoming Sights and Sounds, Pt. 1
This road trip that I’m two weeks into has thrown some curve balls at me, but has also provided some really interesting audio/visual encounters. The curve balls started with the overheating problem that I encountered climbing the Sierra Nevada on day one. Which seems to have been resolved with the new fan clutch and thermostat…
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Wyoming Rambles: The Ham’s Fork
I’ve made it to Wyoming after a somewhat leisurely drive across the Great Basin in 100 degree heat. I had been eying West Wendover, NV for the first night, about five and a half hours out of Reno. But as I approached one of my regular stops, Carlin Canyon on the Humboldt River, I thought…
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Mountain Passes in a Heavyweight RV
I’ve finally managed to break free from work in California to head east towards the Continental Divide. The heat wave has yet to break, and my motorhome complained to me on the way up CA-20 towards Grass Valley yesterday. For the first time in almost ten years, the temperature gauge moved off the middle and…
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A Green River Homestead
A Wyoming tie hack's property, 50 miles from nowhereIn the Pandemic Year of 2020, I was working in Colorado but had a couple of breaks where I was able to sneak out to visit some of my favorite places. In August I went to Jackson Hole and stopped on the way to fish the Green River, up above Warren Bridge to the headwaters…
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Abandoned Dreams on Ruby Creek
A Montana homesteader's dashed hopesOne of the things I like about my nomadic lifestyle is the ability to frequently explore new grounds, and I enjoy poking around old historic ruins when I find them. In 2021, I was fishing the Madison River in Montana, and I was based for a few days out of the Ruby Creek BLM campsite,…
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Wintering in the Desert
October, 2018: It got pretty cold in West Yellowstone and I finally had to face up to the end of my Montana adventure for the year. I started south towards warmer weather, but lingered on the Teton river in Idaho for a final week, and twice had pipes freeze in my motorhome. It had been…