1) We took over 900 pictures at Yellowstone over the course of 4 days!
2) Internet access since we left Arches National Park has been lacking, to say the least.
3) After Yellowstone we had 2 very long drives, 9 hours to Mt. Rushmore and another 9 hours to Minneapolis, along with completely packed days...so we needed some sleep!
Since we left Arches on Monday morning, July 15th, this is what we have done:
- Monday, July 15th: Drove 10 hours through Utah to Jackson, Wyoming
- Tuesday, July 16th: Toured Jackson in the morning, drove through Grand Teton National Park and arrived at Yellowstone in the late afternoon
- Tuesday, July 16th through Friday, July 19th: Yellowstone National Park
- Saturday, July 20th: Left Yellowstone in the morning, drove 7 hours to Devil's Tower, Wyoming and then 2 hours to Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota for the 9 PM lighting ceremony
- Sunday, July 21st: Toured the Black Hills of South Dakota, Mt. Rushmore, Badlands National Park and drove 5 hours to Sioux Falls, South Dakota
- Monday, July 22nd: Drove 4 hours to Minneapolis
- Today: Went through 900+ Yellowstone pictures!
This post will be a "Yellowstone-only" post and tomorrow will focus on Devil's Tower, the Black Hills, Mt. Rushmore and the Badlands.
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As we were driving through Yellowstone on the 3rd or 4th day of being there, Heather and I asked ourselves how we would describe it to our friends and family. We landed on this: an unbelievably enormous wildlife safari inside the world's biggest volcano. Yes, the Yellowstone caldera is the world's biggest active volcano! We had no idea until my brother-in-law Scott told us!
If you've never been to Yellowstone, you would not believe how astonishing massive it is. To get from the south side of the park to the north side of the park, it takes about 3 hours! And if you aren't sleeping inside the park, it could add about 2 hours of driving to your day. So how did we plan?
The park itself is more or less separated into 4 areas: the Old Faithful area, the Lake, the Canyon area and Mammoth Hot Springs. So we decided to stay in each of those areas, in that order.
So here it goes........
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Day 1 (July 16th)
We started out our day in Jackson, Wyoming, a cute little town south of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park. Most people mistakenly refer to Jackson, Wyoming as Jackson Hole, but Jackson Hole represents the whole valley with Jackson being the only incorporated town within the valley.
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| Elk antler arch at Jackson Town Square |
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| Teton Range at Grand Teton National Park |
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| Jenny Lake inside Grand Teton National Park |
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| Jenny Lake inside Grand Teton National Park |
After the very scenic drive through the Tetons, we arrived at Yellowstone! Where we spotted our first animal!
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| Heather at the South Entrance |
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| An elk on the side of the road |
After calming down from seeing our first animal, we made our way to our first stop West Thumb Geyser Basin where we took a ranger led walk.
Along the walk the ranger explained how people have died over the years due to being burned to death after falling into the thermal features! He also explained how you could tell how hot the water in a geyser is without sticking your hand in it. Essentially, the clearer the water, the hotter it is. This one below must be scorching!
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| Crystal clear thermal feature at West Thumb Geyser Basin |
One of the stories the ranger told us was about this geyser called Fishing Cone. For years, fishermen would come to West Thumb and fish in the Yellowstone River. When they caught a fish, they would stick it inside Fishing Cone to cook it!
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| Fishing Cone at West Thumb Geyser Basin |
I think this practice was going on through the 50s or 60s until the government realized it probably wasn't real safe to have people fishing and walking along the thermal features...
After our ranger-led walk, we drove to the Old Faithful area to check out more thermal features at Black Sand Basin, Biscuit Basin and Midway Geyser Basin. At Biscuit Basin, we were awe-struck at the beauty of Sapphire Pool, a crystal clear pool of bubbling water.
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| Sapphire Pool at Biscuit Basin |
But, the coolest thermal feature we saw (I think even cooler than Old Faithful!) was Grand Prismatic Spring at Midway Geyser Basin. Grand Prismatic Spring is the largest hot spring in the United States and the 3rd largest in the world, but that's not what's so special about it. Check out the unbelievable colors!
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| Grand Prismatic Spring at Midway Geyser Basin |
As per Wikipedia, "the vivid colors in the spring are the result of pigmented bacteria in the microbial mats that grow around the edges of the mineral-rich water." Pictures don't really do it justice for sure.
From Midway Geyser Basin, we made our way to our hotel, the Old Faithful Inn, where we were steps from the world famous geyser. So of course, we checked out an eruption (the 1st of 3...you're there already so why not?) before our 9 PM dinner reservation at the Old Faithful dining room.
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| Old Faithful |
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| Eruption of Old Faithful |
Day 2 (July 17th)
We started our 2nd day off with another ranger led walk around Upper Geyser Basin (where Old Faithful is located).
Thanks to the ranger, he led us to a secret viewing spot on the other side of Old Faithful where there are less crowds and a better view. So...we witnessed our 2nd Old Faithful eruption.
After the eruption, we took a walk around Upper Geyser Basin where the ranger explained the differences between each of the thermal features. One of the features was Beehive Geyser because...well...take a look.
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| Beehive Geyser with Old Faithful Inn in background |
After our walk, we went back for our last Old Faithful eruption. You may ask why in the world was there a need for us to witness 3 Old Faithful eruptions? Well that's because of me. My anal self wanted to make sure we got the best possible pictures of the eruption. I think we did a pretty good job of it!
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| Eruption of Old Faithful |
After seeing Old Faithful blow for the 3rd time, we continued on our way through the Old Faithful area driving along Firehole Lake Drive and Firehole Canyon Drive.
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| Firehole Spring along Firehole Lake Drive |
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| Pink Cone along Firehole Lake Drive |
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| Firehole River along Firehole Canyon Drive |
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| Firehole Falls along Firehole Canyon Drive |
And we also took a walk through the Fountain Paint Pots, a very peculiar area of mudpots and a perfect name for the site. From Wikipedia: "A mudpot — or mud pool — is a sort of acidic hot spring, or fumarole, with limited water. It usually takes the form of a pool of bubbling mud. The acid and microorganisms decompose surrounding rock into clay and mud."
As you can probably presume from the below pictures, it looked pretty nasty.
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| Fountain Paint Pots |
And with that, we completed our tour of the Old Faithful area so we made our way to the Canyon and Lake areas on the eastern side of the park!
Our first stop was checking out the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
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| The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone intro sign |
We took a ranger-led walk along the South Rim of the Canyon, which led us to a viewing point of the Lower Falls (which shaped the Canyon) and then to........Uncle Tom's Trail!
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| Lower Falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone |
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| Uncle Tom's Trail |
Extremely difficult? Steep? Pfffft. We did it. At least I did.
Heather went down about 50 steps and then decided it was too scary (remember...she's in better shape than me so the "extremely difficult" part didn't phase her in the least).
Although it wasn't easy getting back up, the effort was definitely worth it!
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| Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone along Uncle Tom's Trail |
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| Close-up view of Little Falls |
But I have to say, the best pictures we got of the falls, Yellowstone River and the Canyon was from Artist Point, a cliff on the South Rim. Even when we were taking them, the scenery looked fake!
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| Little Falls and Yellowstone River from Artist Point |
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| Little Falls and Yellowstone River from Artist Point |
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| Little Falls and Yellowstone River from Artist Point |
Absolutely stunning scenery to say the least!
But enough with the scenery already, right? What about the wildlife??!
By this point, I had enough of geysers and wanted to see some moose (which didn't happen unfortunately) so we made our way to Hayden Valley at dusk for some wildlife viewing.
Our first encounter? A bison laying on the side of the road (by the end of Yellowstone, we saw enough bison to last a lifetime!).
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| A bison in Hayden Valley |
Our next encounter? A herd of bison holding up traffic.
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| Herd of bison crossing the road in Hayden Valley |
And then we got into the heart of Hayden Valley and saw tons and tons of bison!
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| Bison along Yellowstone River |
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| Bison in Hayden Valley |
And another bison holding up traffic...
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| Bison holding up traffic on Hayden Valley |
Bison were everywhere! It was absolutely ridiculous. Up close, they look like huge stuffed animals that move ridiculously slow, but did you know bison can run up to 40 mph? They can also be extremely aggressive towards humans, which makes them the most dangerous animal in the park. One ranger even told us that bison are at the top of the food chain in Yellowstone. The wolves, the park's top predator, go for the elk because bison are too tough to take down therefore not worth it!
So that was our encounter with wildlife at the end of Day 2.
After Hayden Valley, we drove down to our lodging for the night at the historic Lake Yellowstone Hotel where we had quite a night.
When we arrive, we find out that the power is out, but goes on right after we check in. We drop off our stuff in our room and head down to the dining room for a 9:15 dinner reservation...and then the fire alarm goes off. The whole entire hotel evacuates. Now it's 10 PM and Heather and I are starving with no end to the evacuation in sight. So what do we do? We eat our stash of PB&J for dinner...in our car.
A wonderful and romantic end to a great day to say the least!
Day 3 (July 18th)
So this is not something you see everyday...
We wake up, go downstairs to grab some breakfast, sit outside on the porch to enjoy the scenery of the lake and there's a bison walking around. He decides to sit right on the lawn in the back of the hotel! Meanwhile, there was a group of people about 100 feet away setting up a breakfast spread as the bison arrived. Amazingly, the bison decided to ignore them completely!
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| Bison on the back lawn of Lake Yellowstone Hotel |
After our laugh of the morning, we went on a scenic cruise on Yellowstone Lake. It was really cool seeing Yellowstone from that vantage point. And of course, as we passed by the Lake Yellowstone Hotel an hour or so later, the bison was still there!
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| Lake Yellowstone Hotel from Lake Yellowstone with bison on lawn |
After our cruise, we made our way to the north east corner of the park to see wildlife in Lamar Valley. Before doing that though, we stopped in Hayden Valley for a scenic shot, the Mud Volcano area for a quick hike and at Tower Falls.
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| Hayden Valley |
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| Mud Volcano |
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| Tower Falls |
Everything I read prior to the trip was that Hayden Valley and Lamar Valley were THE places to see tons of wildlife. I read that the best times to view wildlife were early and late in the day, but in Lamar Valley, they were everywhere, all the time.
Yeah...not so much. Guess what we saw? Bison. And of course, one decided to cross the road.
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| Bison crossing the road in Lamar Valley |
So yeah. The 2+ hours of driving up to Lamar Valley was a bit of a waste so I wanted to make sure we got back to Hayden Valley for some more wildlife viewing at dusk! I wanted to see a moose!
But since we had some time to kill before dusk, we decided to check out our lodging for the 4th night, the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, and get some food. On our way, we made a quick stop at Undine Falls.
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| Undine Falls |
We were pleasantly surprised by the area at Mammoth Hot Springs. Unlike the other areas, Mammoth Hot Springs is like a little city. The Park Headquarters are located at Mammoth and it's the main entrance to the park, open year round.
We were also pleasantly surprised to see a ton of elk surrounding the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. We were told that the elk come down from the hills to relax in the shade. It's actually safer for the elk to come down to the Mammoth area because they know we won't bother them and the wolves won't dare follow them into human territory!
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| Elk laying outside Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel |
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| Elk on lawn of Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel |
After a pleasant dinner at Mammoth, we headed back towards the Canyon area (where we were staying for the night) and Hayden Valley. We got there at about dusk, but no moose, bears or wolves! Only elk and bison once again.
I was determined to see something other than bison and elk so I urged Heather to do something I never would do at home.........choose to wake up at 5:30 AM.
Day 4 (July 19th)
Day 4 started at 5:30 AM. Yes, we actually woke up at 5:30 AM (well technically Heather slept in the car) and it was awesome.
I didn't see anything other than elk and bison once again, but I met this guy who works for The Wolf Project at Yellowstone (http://www.ypf.org/site/PageServer?pagename=WHAT_wildlife_wolf). He was there because a pack of wolves lived in Hayden Valley and his job was to watch them. So cool!
So for 3+ hours, we watched for the wolves to come out. Although they never came, we did see a herd of elk walk through the valley. We thought for sure the wolves would come out for the elk, but they never did.
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| Elk herd wandering through Hayden Valley |
Even though we didn't get to see any new wildlife, we did manage to get some pretty neat sunrise photos.
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| Wildlife watcher walking through Hayden Valley |
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| Sunrise in Hayden Valley |
Because of the guy from The Wolf Project, I was hooked and determined to see more so I asked Heather if we could go back later that night, even though it was 2 hours out of our way! She obliged (I think she secretly wanted to see some wildlife other than elk and bison too).
For the remainder of the day, we toured around the west and northwest part of the park from Norris Geyser Basin to Mammoth Hot Springs. We checked out the Norris area, Roaring Mountain and Sheepeater Cliff finishing up at the really neat Mammoth Hot Spring Terraces.
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| Sheepeater Cliff |
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| Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces |
And then we turned around and went back to Hayden Valley at 6 PM! I was ready for some wildlife viewing despite the fact we didn't exactly have the right equipment!
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| 9x zoom binoculars and a 55-200mm lens - Not exactly suited for viewing wildlife |
But guess what happened this time? We saw some wolves!
3 wolves came out of their den at exactly the place where the guy from The Wolf Project said they would be. It's hard to see in the below picture because our camera isn't exactly geared for wildlife viewing, but you might be able to make out a white speck in the middle of the photo along with 2 other specks alongside it. Those are the wolves!
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| Wolf sighting at Hayden Valley |
Unfortunately, we didn't see much more than the wolves walking around, but it was still pretty neat seeing wildlife other than bison and elk!
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And that was our Yellowstone adventure. I know it was a long winded post, but hopefully enjoyable to read!
Tomorrow will be a recap of Devil's Tower, Mt. Rushmore and the Badlands!
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