It’s been a few days since I posted anything, mainly because we’ve been pretty busy touring Yellowstone National Park, but I’ll try to catch you up. This post might be a little long-winded, so if you aren’t interested in my ramblings, at least take a look at some of the pictures at the bottom.
Sunday, the first day, started out with a surprise in the weather. We woke up to snow covering all of the pine trees here in the RV park, along with the grass and vehicles. It was just at freezing here in West Yellowstone, MT and the forecast wasn’t going to get much better. We decided that we didn’t come all this way to hide from the cold, so we headed off to the park. We started out going in through the west entrance, of course, and almost immediately had our first bison observation. A single bison was walking along the side of the road, paying no attention to the fact that cars were driving slowly by. But immediately after that, we came across a really large herd of them laying about in a field and Debbie needed her picture taken with them.
After turning south at Madison Junction, we noticed a side road turning off to go to Firehole Falls. The drive was beautiful with really nice falls. It seemed that most people just cruised on by, in a hurry to get down to Old Faithful, and missed out on this nice drive. We then headed on south to join the rest of those folks, but took time to stop and see the Fountain Paint Pots in the Lower Geyser Basin, then into the Midway Geyser Basin for a view of Grand Prismatic Spring. Lots of beautiful colors at both locations. Arriving at the Old Faithful Visitor Center in the Upper Geyser Basin, we not only watched the famous geyser erupt, but we spent a good bit of time wandering around the Upper Basin and viewing the many thermal features that are located behind Old Faithful.
Even though it was still cold, in the low 30’s, we pressed on towards Yellowstone Lake. Along the way, we stopped and viewed the Keppler Cascades, which is a pretty long series of waterfalls and rapids. Then, we arrived at the West Thumb Geyser Basin on the shores of a frozen Yellowstone Lake. It was interesting to see hot water boiling out of the ground right beside a huge frozen lake. The whole day was cold and damp, but it didn’t dampen our spirits as we enjoyed the many beautiful sights.
The second day started just like the first, with snow and 32 degree temps. The forecast the day didn’t look good, so we hung around and rested for a couple hours after breakfast. After a while, we decided that we just needed to head on into the park anyway. We went back into the park just as before, except this time we headed north from Madison Junction toward the Norris Geyser Basin and the Mammoth Hot Springs areas. The Norris Basin is a huge area of thermal activity and it took us a while to walk most of it. Of particular note at Norris was the Steamboat Geyser. It was a massive, continually blowing geyser that you could hear and see from all over the basin. (I have a video, but can’t seem to upload it here.) Moving north of Norris, we pulled off to view Gibbon Falls, which were spectacular.
From there, we continued up to Mammoth Hot Springs. We ran into an area where they were rebuilding the road. Single file northbound, then single file southbound, alternating. It was a muddy mess and the truck was quite the sight after going through it. The weather turned nasty as we got to Mammoth and we spent time in the visitor center until we gave up. Instead of viewing the spring, we headed just a few miles farther north to Gardiner, MT to see the historic Roosevelt Arch entrance. Once there, we walked in the cold rain just to take our picture there. On the way back, we passed some elk feeding alongside the road. All were female, so Debbie was a little disappointed that none of them had antlers. As we passed the Mammoth Hot Springs “mountain”, the rain broke so we decided to give the walk a try. Although much of the area is very beautiful, we found that a good part of it has actually become inactive and has dried up. Unfortunately, those areas just look like a bland, white wasteland. We were impressed with the size of the area and could only imagine how it must have once looked, but a little disappointed.
On the way back through the park to our campground, we came across a traffic jam. It turned out to be one of the famous Bison backups. After finally getting through that backup, we soon came across another slowdown, but this time it was caused by a bear happily munching grass right on the side of the road. Debbie was able to get a picture by hanging out of the window with her phone. That, along with the bison and elk, made three of the animals that she had on her bucket list.
On day three, we once again awoke to cold and snow. We set our sights on the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, east of the Norris Geyser Basin. After the visitor center visit, where snow was piled about six feet deep in the parking lot, we drove around to the South Rim Drive and got our first look at the Upper Falls. We wanted to hike the trail to Uncle Tom’s Overlook, but the trail was closed due to snow and mud. So, we drove on around to Artist Point. This is the spot from which most of the pictures you’ve seen of the Lower Falls have been taken. Fortunately for us, the weather and time of year greatly reduced the crowds throughout the park and we were able to take a lot of great pictures.
From there, we moved around to the north Rim and took the long hike down to the brink of the Lower Falls. The power 0f that water was impressive; I just wish I could have harnessed some of that power on the hike back up. We then decided to take the hike to Inspiration Point on the North Rim Trail, only to find at the end of the long muddy and snowy trek that Inspiration Point had been closed due to damage caused by the winter weather. It was disappointing because what we saw was the best, most modern overlook of any we’d experienced in the park. Because the trail was closed from that end, we were forced us to take a very long walk back around the road to get to our truck.
To close out the day, we decided to make a run through the Hayden Valley, known for all the animals, then down to Fishing Bridge and to Grant Village, only to find out that both areas and visitor centers were still closed until next weekend. On that drive, we ran into a huge snowstorm that lasted for much of the drive back around to the Old Faithful area. The flakes were huge and abundant, with snow covering all of the pine trees. As we headed towards the west exit, talking about the animals we’d seen, Debbie made the comment that she sure hoped we’d see a wolf, a bald eagle, and a moose (although not likely in Yellowstone). All of a sudden, we were surprised to see a bunch of cars stopped along the road with people watching a wolf down near the river. He appeared to be hunting for dinner in the grass. We made an immediate U-turn and I managed to get some long-range pictures. He headed off away from us, parallel to the road, so as I drove up to make another U-turn, I spotted a turn-out and thought maybe I’d be able to get another picture as he passed by me along the river below. As I got to the wall of the overlook, I was surprised to see that he was trotting by, literally within ten yards of me. I was so stunned that I didn’t even have my camera turned on. I was able to get it on and take another couple of pictures. A bit farther down the road, there was a huge crowd of people lining the road, many with huge telephoto lenses and tripods. They were watching an elk carcass along the edge of the opposite bank, waiting for a bear to arrive for dinner. While we didn’t see any bear, we did manage to spot a bald eagle sitting on the top of a dead tree, watching all of the craziness.
Day four once again began with snow and cold. After walking and hiking over 22 miles over the previous three days, we decided to just take a day off and do some grocery and souvenir shopping here in West Yellowstone. Tomorrow will be a travel day down to Colter Bay in Grand Tetons National Park. Now we just need to decide if we should take the short route through Yellowstone N.P., or take the long, “RV Garmin inspired” way around through Idaho.
LyndDebTravel 