Now we kick off the camping and hiking portion of our trip! We figured for the first nights out in the camper we should stick close to Bozeman, just in case (turned out that was a good call, although it had nothing to do with the new camper). Hyalite Canyon is only 15 miles south of Bozeman in the Gallatin National Forest. There are several campgrounds, a large reservoir, and multiple trails. We spent our first night at Langohr Campground and the next morning we hiked to Hyalite Lake, which was around 12 miles round trip and 2000 feet elevation gain (out and back hike). This was an easy going hike with a ton of flowers, multiple waterfalls, great views, and a lake in a pretty basin. The first four miles of the hike are through the forests of Hyalite Canyon. Then the trail gains in elevation to climb to Hyalite Lake. This is where the views kick in and we stopped often to look back into Hyalite Canyon, admire the mountain views, or marvel in the explosion of wildflowers on the mountainside. We found the lake itself anti-climatic, although it had a beautiful setting in the basin. You can extend the hike to Hyalite Peak - no surprise I couldn’t convince Norah to do so. We had a nice lunch break at the lake before retracing our steps back down the canyon. On our way back we stopped to get a closer look at a few of the waterfalls. Arch Falls and Grotto Falls were both terrific!

After our hike we grabbed our campsite at Hood Lake Campground. Feeling good - we had a great hike, a nice campsite, loving the new camper - then I sliced my hand while cutting an onion for dinner*. This necessitated a trip back into Bozeman. After a trip to Urgent Care and then the ER, I ended up with 16 stitches. Although I sliced quite deep into the palm, I luckily missed any really important bits. Still, not exactly how I wanted to spend summer vacation!

* Norah thought the cut looked like a mini shark bite. We decided that getting bitten by a Montana river shark was a much better story than cutting an onion!