Mat and Carrie invited us to go with them on a frozen waterfall adventure in Montana. I had no idea just how cool this was going to be! Amazing is the only way to describe it. I fell in love with the Montana mountains, and I want to go back and run in this same area in the summer. We drove to Bozeman, and headed to the Gallatin National Forest. Hyalite Canyon is like a winter playground for snowshoers, ice climbers, ice fishermen, skiers, etc..
Our first waterfall was Grotto Falls. So beautiful!
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| The forest trail leading to Grotto Falls. |
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| Grotto Falls. They had a recent snow, so half of the waterfall was covered in fresh powder. |
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| Mark |
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| Mat is resting on his soft bed in the middle of the creek. |
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| Tricia |
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| You could see right into these pillars of ice. Some spots you could get close to and hear water flowing or dripping inside the ice. |
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| Mat & Carrie |
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| One last picture before we moved on to the next waterfall. |
The next waterfall was up the side of the mountain. It was quite a steep hike to get there. Dribble Falls was a popular one for climbers, and we got there in time to watch a couple climbers going up, and a couple coming down. It gave me a little bit of anxiety just watching them.
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Dribble Falls
Look closely and you can see the ice climbers. |
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| Tricia |
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| Mark |
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| It was really steep, so I fell right away on the way back down. When I fell, I just kept sliding down the trail. We realized this was a great way to get down. |
Mark's laugh in this video of us sliding down the trail cracks me up.
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| Right as we left the waterfall, it started snowing on us. |
We think the next waterfall we saw was Amphitheater Falls. There were a few right in a row, so we're not positive which was which.
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| Amphitheater Falls |
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| This one was super cool. We don't know if it has a name. |
After touring around the trails in the area, we decided to be done for the day. We were starving, so we drove to Bozeman, checked into our hotels, and went to dinner. We ate at the Whistle Pig; a fun Korean place where we all tried bibimbap.
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| Bibimbap with purple rice. |
The next morning we heading back to Hyalite Canyon to see Palisade Falls. This may have been my favorite waterfall of the trip.
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| It had snowed a lot during the night, so all the trees were freshly frosted. So pretty! |
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| 😍😍😍 |
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| We had to snowshoe up the road just to get to the trailhead. |
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| Carrie & Tricia |
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| Mat & Mark |
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| This picture doesn't even do the waterfall justice. It is so big! |
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| Mark & Tricia |
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| The view across the canyon was awesome! |
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| A close up of the frozen falls. |
After Palisade Falls, we started heading home. We took a detour in Big Sky to see Ousel Falls.
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It was a really pretty hike to the falls.
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| This was a frozen waterfall on the way to Ousel Falls. We had more fun at this one! We went behind it, and it looked so cool. |
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| Mat, Carrie, Mark, Tricia |
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| Behind the waterfall. |
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| Mat & Carrie |
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| Mark. Mat, Carrie |
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| This was part of Ousel Falls. It was mostly covered in fresh snow. |
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| Mat & Carrie |
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| Mark & Tricia |
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| One last picture at Ousel falls to end the trip. |
I'm so glad we were able to do this. What a unique winter experience. We'll be visiting the area again for sure.
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