Our full-time travel life continued to Caribou-Targhee National Forest in Idaho, only 15 minutes from the west Yellowstone entrance. The area that we camped in had a couple trails that went for miles, so we hiked a lot. We stayed in this forest for 2 weeks and met several other full-time RV-er’s while we were there. Campfires with fellow travelers and friends are always great.

Although it was nice to be so close to Yellowstone, the only convenient grocery store was a gas station 20 minutes away. Nonetheless, the prices were reasonable and we were able to fill up on propane too.

As far as Yellowstone goes, it is beautiful but the traffic was hardly worth it. The main animals that we saw were buffalo and most people stopped traffic whenever one was near the road (which was almost all the time).

From Yellowstone, we moved to the Flathead National Forest that was just outside Glacier National Park in Montana.

Sadly, Going to the Sun Road inside Glacier was closed due to snow and a park ranger told us it would probably not be open until late June or the beginning of July. This meant that we would have to drive 2 hours to get around the park if we wanted to see any glaciers. We did not think it would be worth it, but some of our full-timing friends did and they made the long drive in a day. However, they did not seem to think it was quite so worth it when they returned.

We did spend one full day in Glacier, exploring some of the cabins and lodges and, of course, hiking. We went on a 7 mile hike (round trip) up the side of a very steep hill, which led us to some incredible views of the rivers and surrounding mountains. All of Glacier’s lakes and rivers are incredibly clear and the color of the water is aqua blue.

We do have some exciting news…while camped in this forest, we actually saw 2 cub bears (or the same bear both times). If you have been following along, you know how much we wanted to see a bear.

We have gone for a month and a half of dry camping, which we have found to be very easy and inexpensive to do. In the future, we plan on continuing northwest and finding more boondocking spots. So, join us next time as we head into Idaho again, then to Oregon, and then to the coast of Washington.

 

Caribou-Targhee National Forest

Rating: 

4 out of 5 stars

Comments:

The only reason we did not give it 5 stars is because the access road was a bit narrow and sketchy in spots.

Cell Service: 

– Google Fi (combination of US cellar, T-mobile, and Sprint): 0 bars of LTE

– Verizon: 2 LTE bars (with a booster)

Weather:

– High was in the upper 70’s

– Low was in the lower 30’s

Time of Year:

End of May – Beginning of June

Recommended Places to See & Things to do:

– Go hiking

– Visit Yellowstone

Rating: 

3 out of 5 stars

Comments:

We had a very hard time finding a good spot because of the horrible cell service, and also because there seemed to be some people camping permanently in the forest and the rangers did not do anything about it.

Cell Service: 

– Google Fi (combination of US cellar, T-mobile, and Sprint): 0 bars of LTE

– Verizon: 2 LTE bars (with a booster)

Weather:

– High was in the upper 70’s

– Low was in the lower 40’s

Time of Year:

Beginning – Middle of June

Recommended Places to See & Things to do:

– Go hiking, but bring bear spray.

– Visit Glacier

 

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