Yellowstone

Bruneau Dunes the day after the windstorm (Monday, June 5) was beautiful. To see the dunes in the early morning light was special. If we were staying another day, I would have climbed up in the cool morning before the heat of the day hit. But, alas, we have other places to get to. You can’t see everything in 6 1/2 weeks…

First stop, once we hit the road, was to fuel up. Prior to this we’d been fueling up when we weren’t attached to the fifth wheel. Since we’re hitched and looong, we go for the truck stop. We pull up, insert the credit card, and first question “reefer” or “tractor.” Duh. No clue. (The only reefer I’ve heard of can’t be what they’re referring to.) I march into the store with credit card in hand about to launch into my spiel about we’re new at this blah blah. And she stops me and says their credit card machines aren’t working because of the sandstorm last night. “You want diesel?” Yup. Diesel. A word I know. The pump keeps kicking off so I’m back and forth to the clerk a few times before we’re finally set. Then once back on the road, I look up what “reefer” means and it has to do with refrigerated trucks that use a different kind of diesel. Good to know.

We enjoy another pretty ride to get to West Yellowstone from Bruneau. We travel through some National Forest land with grades of 6% and do fine.

GPS lets us know when we’re getting close to the campground, 1/2 mile, 4/10, 3/10, 2/10 annnd we’re past it. Gary was going just a little too fast to safely make the left hand turn. In his defense, the entrance wasn’t overly wide and around a bend in the road. Now we have to turn this sucker around. Wonderful. I look up rest stops or big fuel stations on my Allstays app. Nothing. Then Gary spots a large turnout on the right with an equally large turnout on the left of the road and he does a big u-turn. We safely arrive back at the KOA West Yellowstone which stands at 6,600+ ft elevation. We check-in with the college girl behind the counter who is hysterically laughing over Gary’s pink pen. (Ellen gave Gary the pink pen. It’s a treasured possession.)

We head up to our site using their map and trying not to get lost in the maze of rows of sites. We get there and realize we’re going to be threading a needle. This site is skinny. Gary wants me to direct him into the site. Oh joy. All goes well…. apparently our training is working. But the sites are tight. They basically pack you in, but that’s ok. We’re realizing many private campgrounds are like this. It’s not necessarily unusual.

Tuesday morning, June 6, we travel into Yellowstone, which is massive (3,500 sq. miles) and covers portions of three different states although the vast majority is in WY and the park is atop a volcanic hotspot. We map out our plan for the day… to go from the Yellowstone West Entrance to as far as West Thumb which will allow us to see Midway Geyser Basin, Old Faithful and West Thumb and whatever is in between all that. I’m excited to see the geysers and the hot springs. Midway does not disappoint! It has two of the largest hydrothermal features of their types in the world. Grand Prismatic is a huge hot spring and Excelsior Geyser is one of the largest geysers. The walk is on a series of wide boardwalks so that it keeps everyone on the paths and not on fragile ground surfaces or dangerous hot surfaces. We were blown away by Grand Prismatic… absolutely gorgeous with prisma colors. The vivid colors in the spring are the result of microbial mats around the edges of the mineral-rich water. Gary got some great pics of it. The Excelsior Geyser is also impressive! Takes up an enormous area. We wonder on and see various other hot spring areas…. Biscuit Basin… Black Sand Basin… remarkable to see and hear boiling water coming out of the earth.

Then we finally come to Old Faithful. The most famous geyser of them all, which erupts regularly every day…. every 45 to 125 minutes. We get there with no idea when Old Faithful will be going off. But based on the number of folks lining the area… they keep you well back from where Old Faithful will actually blow… we figure it’s soon. I was going to ask someone, but I was embarrassed. Like I should be prepared enough to know this. What kind of tourist am I! But after standing around in the hot sun for 15 minutes, screw it. I’ll ask. Just then I hear another woman asking the same question. The woman she asks has a “geyser app.” Of course she does. Because there’s apps for EVERYTHING! She says it should be in 10 minutes give or take. Excellent. Shortly thereafter, there’s a couple of little mini water plumes that come out… which gets a few excited oohs. Then the big one comes…. great burst of water and a cloud of steam which goes up and up. That was cool but… is that it? You know how after a great fireworks display, there’s a ton of clapping? Hardly any clapping went on. Either we’re a bunch of hard-to-please-tourists or this was a less-than-stellar performance by Old Faithful. Apparently the eruptions can vary… perhaps ours wasn’t as wow-y as some. Or, Old Faithful is over-rated, although I feel a tad Un-American saying that. However, we’ve been blown away by enough of other amazing hot springs and geysers today so no harm/no foul.

We move on from here to West Thumb and pass the Continental Divide (8,200+) elevation and the spot where on one side water eventually drains into the Pacific Ocean and the other where water drains into the Atlantic Ocean…. pretty neat. We saw three different spots in the park where the Continental Divide was marked.

We arrive at West Thumb…. awesome spot. West Thumb Geyser Basin is one of the smallest geyser basins in Yellowstone but its location along the shore of Yellowstone Lake, ranks it as the most scenic. Once again wide boardwalks cover the area and enable us to meander down and walk along the shore and see the geysers. Sooooo interesting, and you actually see some geysers in the lake.

This is our final stop of the day and then we head back to camp.

I forgot to mention wildlife… throughout the day we’ve stopped for bison on the side of the road. When there’s a traffic slow down, invariably it’s because of bison or elk. Everyone wants a picture. To see these behemoths up close in their natural habitat is remarkable. We saw many throughout the course of the day. Initially you stop for EVERY bison you see… then ho-hum another bison. How incredible is that… to even utter those words! At one point, there was a line of slow cars in front of us because a bison was walking on the side of the road… within almost arm’s length. Everyone was snapping a picture as he went by. Gary says “get ready, he’s coming.” I’ve got his big camera on my lap with a telephoto lens on it that ways a freakin ton. I aim…. push the button…. nothing. I cuss and refuse to use his camera ever again. We agree he needs to give me another lesson on how to use it. One missed bison shot, but we have lots of others…

That evening we’re out walking Kya back at the campground. One of our past times is checking out license plates to see where everyone is from. Very few New Englanders, which could be because our kids are all still in school. But we do come across one other NH plate. The husband is outside cleaning up the grill. We catch his eye and Gary asks where in NH he’s from. Gorham, and thus begins the conversation. He and his wife had walked by our trailer but we hadn’t been around. They also noticed a fellow NH plate. They left on their trip mid April. The husband retired 3 days before they left, the wife a month before. They are loving it. The wife says she’s been brought to tears several times from the shear beauty. I said “I know the feeling”…

Wednesday (June 7th) and we’ve got another day to enjoy Yellowstone. We decide to get an early start and leave camp by 7:30 AM. We still head in the West Entrance (closest to us) and are headed North to Norris, then Mammoth Hot Springs, Tower Fall and on down to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Basically it’s a big loop.

We get into the park early and see about six bison grazing by one of the large hot springs. Just an amazing site. Apparently it’s a popular spot for them because you can park your car, walk on the boardwalks and get fairly close to them. Then we move on to Norris Geyser Basin which includes Steamboat, the world’s tallest geyser, and in my humble opinion way cooler than Old Faithful. For one thing, you can get a lot closer to it. We wander around there for a bit then mozey on to a pretty waterfall and then on to Mammoth Hot Springs, which is a large complex of hot springs on a hill of travertine terraces. Like nothing we’ve ever seen before. You have water gushing over these terraced areas and in some places it looks like the water froze because it’s solid. Amazing and huge. We also took a ride along the Upper Terraces in the truck. The sign said “No RVs”. We’ll be ok, right? We’re a big dually but not an RV. The sign can’t possibly apply to us. We fit… but it was a tight squeeze. Next time, maybe we let that go.

Next we attempt to park at the Tower Falls but the parking was crazy so we have to let that go. It’s a waterfall that drops 132 ft. Oh well… next time.

Today we are climbing in elevation once again to around 8,500 ft. with steep drop offs on the passenger side of the car and no guard rails. I was told by a visitor center staff person in WA that guard rails stop on mountain passes West of the Rockies. I’m beginning to believe this. I manage to slide over as far as I can to the driver’s side of the car because, of course, that’ll make a big difference if we fall off a cliff.

We manage to safely arrive at the “Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River.” Spectacular. There’s a 3/8 mile walk down 650 ft. which leads to overlooks of the Lower Falls (308 ft). Steep downward hike to magnificent views of the canyon and overlooking the falls. Then we have to have the steep climb back up. We’re both out of breath. Gary says “it’s the elevation.” Yeah. Let’s go with that and not that we’re sadly out of shape. The view was totally worth the climb back up. We also enjoy other vantage points of the Grand Canyon at various overlooks.

That’s the final stop of the day then we make our way back home.

Wildlife viewing for today included lots of bison, a few elk at a distance, and a bear and her two cubs who were just the cutest.

Yellowstone is truly amazing. Far exceeded any expectations we might have had. A remarkably unique National Park that we are blessed to have in this country.

Tomorrow we head off to Dubois, WY and the Grand Tetons.