Welcome to our “Yellowstone Trip”. This page will describe our Yellowstone-Grand Teton experiences.

Today we finally reached Yellowstone. Getting there was half the fun. Rose was driving when we drove through three tunnels to get around a mountain. Some of the scenery was beautiful. Once inside the park, we headed over Sylvan Pass and up towards Canyon Village. Our goal was Yellowstone Falls. We didn't get there until early afternoon because there were so many great vistas and many more buffalo. In fact, we were caught up in several "buffalo jams" in our travels. Both the Upper & Lower Falls are gorgeous; pictures don't do them justice. After supper, we went looking for wildlife without much success. So far we have seen buffalo, 1 elk, deer, trout & Canada geese & ducks. We ended the day at our Lake Lodge cabin to rest up for Day 2. We have over 350 pictures between us just from today!

Yellowstone, Day 2, found us up very early to see if we could have any luck seeing moose, elk or bear. We drove up to Hayden Valley, saw pronghorn antelope and what we think was a swan as well as buffalo crossing the Yellowstone River. The scenery alone was worth getting up extra early. Our goal for today was Mammouth Hot Springs to view the geysers. Today, I think we were up around 9000' above sea level. We climbed and climbed and the little Prius was like the little engine that could. It never quit. Again, the scenery couldn't be beat, but we didn't see much wildlife - a few hawks was about all. As we rolled into Mammoth there were the Elk, having taken over the lawn in front of the old Fort Yellowstone buildings. We saw them again after supper and the bull elk put on a nice show of gathering his herd of females and threatening a young male elk over one of them. The rangers warned everyone to stay clear as it is mating season and the males can get a bit crazed. The geysers are very quiet & some have dried up, so they were not as spectacular as Bill remembered. We walked around the Lower Geyser basin on the boardwalks & then drove around the Upper Geyser loop. They are interesting & since they are not very active, there is not a great sulfur smell. The view from the geyser area is fantastic. We are staying in the cabins at Mammouth Hot Springs tonight

Today, Yellowstone Day 3, turned out to be geyser/hot springs day and a lot of walking. But it started out with elk having breakfast outside our cabin door! Soon Papa Elk was rounding up his herd and they disappeared. We headed off to the Norris Geyser Basin area and walked out around the area. The colors are amazing. And it really makes you think - "What am I doing here walking around on top of a potential volcano?" We stopped for lunch (Yellowstone has many picnic areas) and shared our lunch with a theiving bird. We arrived in the Old Faithful in mid-afternoon and viewed lots of hot springs, but nothing was really "geysering." After checking in and having supper right at Old faithful, we walked outdoors to discover that it was about to erupt. In about 5 minutes, it did. At the same time, another geyser, called Beehive, also erupted and both could be seen at the same time. What luck! And what a good ending for our last full day here.

Today, Sept. 4, we had a second case of good timing. We had just checked out and walked outdoors to realize that Old Faithful was again ready to erupt. Sure enough, it did. We spent some time viewing several additional geyser areas. Grand Prismatic Spring is huge and has many different colorations. Black Sand Basin was much smaller but we saw an osprey who had just captured a fish from the river. We finally headed south and discovered that the only road was under reconstruction. We had about 10 miles of one way travel - cars going North & South but only one way at a time. Grand Teton NP has no North entrance gate and so we are not really sure just where we entered it. When we finally saw the Tetons, they were very hazy and the sun was high overhead, making picture taking difficult. We finally got several good shots at Jenny Lake. Traffic in the park was very light and we wondered where everyone was. When we got to Jackson Hole, we found them - It seemed as busy as Quincy Market on a hot summer day in tourist season. This is as far west as we will go, tomorrow we start the trek east. Stay tuned forthe next installment.

Created ... September 4, 2009
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