Yellowstone
The journey started on Saturday where we picked up Pat & Garrett and headed from Denver to Thermopolis, WY. Wyoming had dinsoaurs, jackalopes, buffalos and cowboys perched alongside the highway to entertain us on our journey. Thermopolis is a small town with the world’s largest mineral hot spring (they proclaim this with white rocks on the hillside). After driving through town a few times lost, we finally found our campground where we’d pitch our tents in the median between two gravel roads. Classy camping (they had wifi and showers!). We quickly ate and headed over to the hotsprings and chose Starplunge! because it wasn’t in an enclosed igloo and it was open. The retro sign hinted at what was to come… To sum up the Star Plunge I can state the following, rickety, lack supervision, wild, sketchy, and fun. We retired for the night and fell asleep quickly
Sunday, we drove to Cody where we stocked up at a Walmart. Then we made our way to Silver Gate to purchase the Yellowstone Passes and check into the cabin. We were instantly greeted by herds of buffalo as we entered the park. We encountered a bear jam, but alas we were too late and there were no bears, only people stopping traffic hoping to see a bear. Further down the road was the first of many wolf scoutings. So we stopped at the wolf jam and ended up getting the scoop from Wolf Boy (he would be seen at each of the future wolf watches). We waited for the wolves, but they were late and didn’t show up at 6:30 like the should have. So I ended up taking more pictures of the majestic buffalo.
Monday, We left the Silver Gate Cabin for a full day of adventure in Yellowstone. First we drove over on the passes next to the area of the historic 80’s forest fire. You could still see the burned taller lodge pole pines, but they re-growth of the new trees was extremely thick and healthly. We did a quick hike up a trail on the Dunraven pass. I stopped halfway on some rocks and was surprised by a pine marten. We hung out together for a while before the next stop beckoned. On the way to Yellowstone Falls, we where halted by yet another Wolf Jam. Here we were able to get our first view of wolf (approx. 1.5 miles away). Basically we saw a black dot walk around. However we looked through the Park Rangers spotting scopes and were able to get a good glimpse. Wolf Boy was also in attendance. Afterwards we viewed the Falls (upper and lower) to get some good pictures. For the Lower Falls, we took Uncle Tom’s Trail to descend a bunch of metal stairs to view the falls head on.
Next, we continued around seeing Yellowstone lakes attractions and the upper loop stops.
- Fishing Bridge (not allowed to fish from)
- Mud Volcano /with buffalo
- Gesyers at the Norris
- Obsidian Cliffs,
- Sheep eater cliffs- (little bit of free-soloing)
- Mammoth Hotsprings Terraces and Thermals
- Petrified Tree
- Beaver Jam, most popular beaver in Yellowstone
Tuesday, we packed up and headed to camp at Madison. On the way, we were halted by another wolf jam in the morning. Wolf “XXX” was seen lurking around a new buffalo carcass. We also saw that the official wolf guy was here this time, so we knew we had a good chance of seeing one. We waited a bit, and I ended being the first one to spot the wolf lounging around the tree line in the shadows. From here we stopped to visit the Old Faithful area. We saw Old Faithful erupt twice, and some others surrounding the area. It was quite an odd environment, which I didn’t fully appreciate how large it was until I was there. You could walk for several miles and locate many geysers and steam vents. We were lucky enough to see both the Castle Geyser and the Riverside Geyser. The old hotel next to the geyser was quite impressive, the main ball room was impressively tall, and built solely out pine logs. After tiring of spewing hot water, we drove to West Yellowstone and picked up some items. On the way back to camp though, I spotted a couple evil golden eagles. They looked very pissed off, but were very impressive.
Wednesday, we left left Yellowstone driving over the contenital divide several times. Our goal was to get a camp at Colter Bay. Once we secured the camp site we decided to try and take in some of the Tetons views. However we were thwarted by a smoke storm from fires in Idaho, Utah and California. All that we could see was a gray hazy non-view where the Tetons normally stood. So we made our way down to Jackson, WY. This $$ cowboy town was pretty packed. We got our picture with the Elk antler arches, and got a drink at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar. Inside the bar, they had a Grizzley bear killed without modern weaponry. A guy jammed his arm down the bear’s throat and then bit its jugular. The we closed out the evening watching for animals as the sun setted on the Teton Mtns.
Thursday, we tried to watch the sunrise from Signal Mtn, where there was an iconic picture taken. It didn’t work out how we planned, so continued to tour the rest of the park. We stopped at Menor’s Ferry and iconic Mormon Row and saved all the fun hiking for the afternoon. Our first attempt was to hike Phelps lake and go swimming, and cliff jumping. However, our hopes were dashed as the road to the trailhead and the lake was closed due to bears aggressively foraging. Next option was to visit a warm pond for swimming. The pond end up being fed by a hot spring, which kept it at warm temperatures all year long. We talked to some park biologists and the pond was filled with tropical freshwater fish. Apparently people have been dropping them off over many years and the fish have thrived. After this we tried our third option, of hiking up to Taggart lake. Here was a quick hike up into the rolling hills right below the Tetons. We dawned our swim suits and swam in the refreshing glacier melt lake. Ahh very refreshing. Since we were so close to Idaho, we decided to go try the potatoes. They were good. Idaho looked about the same as Wyoming. On the way back to camp we finally saw a family of Moose, a mom and 2 twins. This caused quite a moose jam.
Friday, was the last day and we packed up and made our way to Denver. We filmed the drive back with a go pro, and were strictly force to listen to a single radio station for a solid hr. Each us drove 2.25 hrs, and at the end of our time, we Chinese fire drill-ed and rotated positions. On the way back we saw a giant Lincoln head, and a tree in a rock. We dropped Garrett and Pat off at the airport hotel for their flight back, and the national park trip was complete. (almost, we did do a quick tour of Rock Mountain Nation park on Sunday). Alexis left on Tuesday, after working remotely from my office. She got to experience the catacombs.
