Escaping the July and August heat and humidity of Dallas was one of Elena's major goals when we ordered the camper van. Therefore, we chose to run up and down the spine of the Rockies over 5 weeks. In general, we've had good weather for the trip. It was hot (but dry heat) in a few places that were down around 3,000 ft elevation, but it still cooled off nicely at night. Our large battery pack allows us to run the A/C for many hours, so we've been very comfortable for the entire trip.
Some nights it got into the lower 40s outside, but the van stayed above 60ºF inside with no heating. Last night, as we end week three, was the coldest night. It dropped to 38ºF outside overnight. The van temperature only fell to 53ºF without any heat on, which is much warmer than inside the tents I see outside our windows. I tested the heater out this morning - mostly because it needed to be tested for a bit anyway. It worked well with a mix of propane and electricity from the battery pack.
The constant weather story has been the smoke and haze from all the wildfires in the west. The second and third week of our trip has been hazy the entire time. The mountains all look like they are doing an impression of the Smoky Mountains.
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| The sun setting behind the haze obscured Tetons |
We did see some rain in the panhandle of Texas and NW Colorado. The CO rain gave us our first weather adventure as we almost got stranded on a dirt road that turned to slick slime (see previous post Adventure . . . Abort). Recently we had our most interesting 24 hours of weather. We were camped at Henrys Lake State Park in Idaho, just west of Yellowstone. Friday (Aug 6) evening, some collapsing storms sent out fierce, sustained winds. We had to remove our exterior windshield cover lest it suffer the fate of a nearby tent that relocated far across the campground. We watched a motorized boat on the lake really struggle to get back to the dock. The silver lining was some clearing of the smoke haze by the storms.
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| Post storm clouds over Henrys Lake, ID |
I wanted to get up early the next morning and beat the crowds into Yellowstone. I was up early - with blowing rain, thunder, a little hail, tornado warnings, and fierce winds. We waited until it settled and headed to the park. The crowds were muted a bit by the weather, but it was drizzling and 50ºF with a strong wind in the morning. We basked in the warmth of some geyser mist. It turned nice in the afternoon - up into the 60s.
Before we left Yellowstone, we checked the radar for our 100-mile drive south. It was clear. As we exited Yellowstone, I saw dark skies to the south, and Elena tried to check the radar. No signal on AT&T or Verizon. As we entered Grand Teton NP, it got really ominous looking. She got enough signal to load a single radar frame and there were red cells ahead, but we didn't know which way they were moving. She was able to load the weather warning, and we realized we would intersect it. I looked for a pullout to turn around and, just as we found one, the hail started falling. The pellets were small, but it was almost a whiteout. We pulled into the Jackson Lake Lodge area and tried to get partially under a tree. The ground was white and rivers of slush were flowing across the road.
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| Hail piling up on the road |
It finally stopped, and we made it to our campground for the night. For most of the trip, we've had good weather, but it can get interesting pretty fast.
- Paul
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