Shells Bells

Port Townsend is a quaint seaside town which houses the unforgettable shell musuem, where the above wonders can be found (amongst many others). Seeing is believing.

Sleepless in Seattle

So we made it coast to coast from New York to Seattle, after another epic and colourful Greyhound ride, this time from central Montana. We had a lot of ideas and plans for our stay there, especially with it being Am's old territory, but first, we needed to ROCK.

(Also starring our dear friends Amber, Erin and Brendan)

Beartooth Pass and Highway, Montana and Wyoming

Another perfectly sunny, crystal clear morning in Montana saw us heading east along Rout 90 and then south into the Rockies, and along one of the most beautiful drives imaginable.....

We were entirely unprepared for the epic scale and panoramas along a route which had, because of the exceptionally heavy winter snowfall, only been open a few days; walls of snow several metres high towered alongside the road as we weaved in and out of Montana and Wyoming.

The publicity sums it up pretty well, thus:

Heralded as one of the most scenic drives in the United States, the Beartooth Highway, a National Scenic Byways All-American Road, features breathtaking views of the Absaroka and Beartooth Mountains, and open high alpine plateaus dotted with countless glacial lakes, forested valleys, waterfalls and wildlife.

Visitors have the rare opportunity to experience and explore pristine, untouched alpine and montane landscapes, lush forests, and alpine tundra in the space of a few miles. It is one of the highest and most rugged areas in the lower 48 states, with 20 peaks reaching over 12,000 feet in elevation.

The Beartooth All-American Road passes through what is known today as the Beartooth Corridor. Surrounded by the Custer, Gallatin, and Shoshone National Forests, traveling parallel to the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, and abutting Yellowstone National Park, the Highway sits in a million-plus acre wilderness.

In the surrounding mountains, glaciers are found on the north flank of nearly every mountain peak over 11,500 feet high. The Road itself is the highest elevation highway in Wyoming (10,947 feet) and Montana (10,350 feet), and is the highest elevation highway in the Northern Rockies.

The picnic site (under snow), and part of the picnic (at altitude...)

Yellowstone, June 2011

many more wildlife shots here.