For our summer trip (and our first big trip in RC), we went to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. We planned the trip last year, when we decided to challenge ourselves with running the Caldera Triple Challenge, which involved running the Grand Teton Half Marathon, the Yellowstone 5K and the Yellowstone Half Marathon, all in just 8 days. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but as it got closer we realized it really was going to be a pretty big challenge. Luckily, we survived all of that running and had a great time exploring the parks in-between races.
On the way, we camped one night at Bruneau Dunes State Park in Idaho. The next day, we stopped by Craters of the Moon State Park before heading into Jackson, Wyoming to stay a couple of nights and run our first race. After walking around the town and a little hiking in the Grand Tetons, we moved on and camped for four nights at Canyon Campgrounds in Yellowstone. We were able to visit out a lot of the major sites in the park, and we hiked around ten miles almost every day. Exhausted and with two more races coming up, we were happy to have three nights in a nice log cabin in West Yellowstone. We rested up before running the 5K on Friday and the half marathon on Saturday.
After the races, we spent the rest of the day relaxing before leaving for home the next day. A one night stopover in Farragut State Park was the last night in RC, and we made it back to Portland without any issues at all. We took her down freeways and tiny two-lane roads and over a couple of mountain passes, and she did great every time. We came out pretty well, too, but we probably won’t be doing three races in one week again anytime soon.
