Yellowstone National Park

29 Jul 2013               Yellowstone National Park

            We scored a last minute deal on a campground in Yellowstone.  While in Bozeman, Katherine did a desperate search for a site in the park and came up with one place that had one sight left.  It must have been a cancellation.  Whatever it was, we took it.  This allowed us to leave at a normal time from Bozeman and not forced to rush into the park to score a site.  The drive from Bozeman to the Park was a wonderful twisting road up to higher elevation along the river.  We started to see less and less houses and the true beauty of the land came forth. 

            The line up to get into the park was smaller than expected, being that this is the most popular park in the USA.  Once we flashed out National Parks Pass, we headed to the site.  It was still early in the day, so we set out to tour a few sights.  We traveled through the large geyser basins stopping at numerous pullouts for brief hikes to the geothermal features.  This proved to be a little harsh on Katherine’s sprained ankle, so we shortened the walks each time, but were able to see dozens of bubbling  geysers, colorful hot springs and steaming fumaroles.  The fumarole steam vents are all visible from far away, and it was interesting to take in the big picture at a distance.  One of the craziest things are the mud pots.  These vents don’t really blast steam, but bubble up heated mud and clay, and make a neat plopping sound.  It’s like boiling chocolate on the stove and looks like something out of a sci-fi movie.

            Later in the day, we made it to Old Faithful.  This geyser is the site for a huge park encampment, you might say.  There is a lodge, hotel, educational center, food, stores, etc.  The immediate area around the geyser is quite nice with a large viewing area circling the geyser at  a long distance.  We showed up not knowing when the last eruption was, so we just chilled out on a downed tree.  We had no idea that we just missed the geyser show, so we sat for a about an hour people watching.  Once again, the international crew visiting the park make for quality entertainment. 

            After a long, but relaxing wait, Old Faithful boiled up and put on a show.  It blasted water and steam to the sky for a few minutes.  The wind blew the top of the water column away downwind.  It was awesome!  We found it funny that even before the geyser was done, people started turning around to get back to their cars.  Typical.  You make a pilgrimage all the way to Yellowstone and see one of the biggest sights, and leave early?  OK.  We sat still and took in the whole thing.  It was worth it.

            That first night in the park, I set everything up for a classic Dutch oven meal.  I wanted to try a meal that my pal Jeremy recommended, a yummy Mexican casserole dish.  Yummy it was. 

            The next day we hit a few more sights, saw our first bison, and then saw herds of bison!  Those things are HUGE!!! That morning we left the Madison Campground and got a place nice and early at Norris Campground.  Katherine had to work her magic with a European family to agree to give us their site before they left.  All we did was leave our chairs and put our payment stub on the post.  Then we were free to explore, instead of driving around the campsite over and over waiting for someone to depart.

We drove to the south and checked out Yellowstone Lake.  The drive took us through an ever changing landscape.  We went in and out of the caldera and were on the constant lookout for wildlife.  The speed limit in the park is set at a slow 45 Mph, which is nice so you can avoid driving into the animals.  You sure can’t get anywhere quick. 

One our second full day in the park, we drove around the north loop from Norris Campground.  Once again, the terrain was ever changing and wildlife was everywhere.  We saw pronghorn, elk, osprey with chicks, other birds we could not identify, mule deer, a marmot and hundreds of bison.  Katherine even spotted a grizzly bear!  Once she did, the passing cars saw us spying on the beast, and soon there was a wildlife viewing traffic jam.  Luckily, the beast was far away and minded his own business jumping and smashing the ground looking for dinner.  I guess he was eating grubs, mice, roots, or something under the earth.  It was entertaining, but so far away, I didn’t get any pictures.  Sorry.

The last day in the park, we headed out the NE entrance.  This took us through the Lamar Valley which is known for pronghorn and………  wolves.  But, we were not getting an early start, and we thought there would be no way we would see these beauties.  We were soon proven wrong.  The road has numerous pullouts overlooking the river.  We would stop, scan with the binoculars, and move on.  We kept doing this, scanning the tree line and looking closely.  Then, we saw a bunch of people at one pull out with spotting scopes on tripods and radios.  What the?  Yes, it was a wolf spotting class watching a black yearling taunting a bison.  Oh wow!  We pulled the H3 to the side, jumped out quietly, sat down, and spied the incident through the binoculars.  The wolf was much larger that I thought and it was quite a ways away.  He quickly figured out the bison was too big a match for him and wondered to our right into the forest.  Then....  another wolf!  This time it was the grey alpha female.  (We only knew this by talking to the class members after the viewing.)  She trotted along the river behind the black male, but stopping a few times to check out the fly fishermen in the river.  This kind of freaked me out.  The fishermen just looked at her and continued to fish.  The wolf was only 30 yards or so away from them.  I would have been a “little” scared.  I mean, this wolf was like a giant dog from a horror film.  It could easily rip the head off any human, but it just checked out the situation and moved on to follow the path of the black one.  (Once again, sorry no pictures of my own, too far away with my camera’s optics.)  Now, they were both in the forest conducting some sort of business about the bison, and we then heard them howling!  Holy geeze weeze!  Howling?  Not only did we just see two wolves, but now we can hear them.  How cool.  We sat around for another 20 minutes, but they never reappeared, so we moved on down the road.  Katherine was in awe about how we just happened to see one of the coolest animals in Yellowstone.  

           

            Yellowstone was much more than I thought.  I always knew that someday I would make it there, but after going, I am wondering why it took me so long.  I want to get back soon, and this time come prepared to do some serious wildlife viewing.  If you do some research on the animals, you can get an idea of where and when they will be somewhere and your chances will be really good to see them.  The wolf viewing is super popular I found out after the trip.  People track them with their radio collars and know all the info about the packs.  Sometimes they wonder out of the park and get shot by ranchers.  This is a common problem and is something we will face in the future even more as the population of wolves increase and step into private lands.  

            One more thing.  The last night in the park, we found out the Steamboat Geyser erupted while we were only 5 minutes away.  It was quiet for 8 years previous, and decided to “go off” while we were there.  I thought I heard something like a long roll of thunder, but there were clouds in the sky, so I didn’t think much of it.  Then, when we got to real WiFi land, and checked the news, we saw all about it.  Katherine did a little Youtube search and saw videos that had been posted.  WOW!  We missed out, but to view it would have been total luck.  This is a very strange land.