Week 21 - Yellowstone National Park ("For the benefit and enjoyment of the people")

Hello Family and Friends,

Yellowstone almost disappointed me. The problem with Yellowstone is that it is too big. It's 2.2 million acres. So the only way to explore a park that big is by car. Whether you want to hike, ride bikes, RV, camp; everything and anything you have to drive to it. Even if you stay in the park you have to drive to see other attractions of the park. With every one driving, it created traffic. And let me tell you, the most disappointing experience is sitting in traffic in a national park. We go to the city for people, we go to the park for space. But. thank God for long days (There is light until at least 9:30pm.) Going to Yellowstone in the middle of the day is a test of patience that isn't worth it. Visit the park in the evening time and it is amazing!

The road built ride off of the cliff's edge at Golden Gate Canyon.

We stayed in West Yellowstone, which is 3 min outside of the west entrance of the park. We figured we would stay somewhere in the middle so that we can see as much of the park as possible. Our first evening there we decided we would try to make it to see Old Faithful Geyser, which is an hour and twenty minute drive into the park without stopping. Of course we did not make this drive without any stops.

A herd of buffalo just doing what buffalo do.

By the end of our time in Yellowstone, seeing buffalo would be no big deal. Whenever we saw cars stopped at a random pull off and everyone out of their cars with cameras, we knew it was buffalo. Bear and Elk were more difficult to find, with Elk being the most sparse.

Our first thermal activity photo. Yellowstone has more geothermal activity than anywhere else on earth.

This is the Clepsydra Geyser which we just so happened to be visiting when it went off.

The park has a schedule for approximating when all the named geysers will go off. However, they only post the next approximation after the last one has gone off. So you have to look it up after the last one has gone off, which would be fine except that there is no cell service in the park. Amongst our group we had two different cell phone plans and 3 different phones and for most of our time in the park, none of us had signal. So it's a little difficult to know when the geysers will go off. Just being at Clepsydra when she went off was very cool (I genderfied the geyser as a she.)

A mudpot along Fountain Paint Pot Trail.

A hot spring also along the Fountain Paint Pot Trail. The water is a stunning color and also hot enough to melt shoes.

We did arrive at Old Faithful Geyser and the parking lot there is ginormous. I was hoping to see her (yes I have genderfied Old Faithful as well) go off right then and there, because huge parking lots let you know that they are expecting a lot of people and I didn't want to be there with all the crowds. But this is when we learned that there is no cell signal in the park so knowing when she would go off is not possible. It was about 8:30 pm and I was getting hangry. All the restaurants around Old Faithful close at 8pm so we drove 45 minutes further into the park to Grant Village, because they had two restaurants that were open till 10pm.

LAKE VIEW RESTAURANT (The view was the best part!)

After dinner we drove almost 2 hours back to West Yellowstone.

The next day, we decided to take a break from the car and ride our bikes. We found a treacherous trail that was probably better suited for mountain bikes than our e-bikes, but it was fun!

Probably the steepest part of the trail. We just put our bikes on walk assist and walked them up this incline.

Reaching the top of the incline over looking the river.

The "children" dipping their feet in the river.

After our bike ride, we went back to the car to drive back to Old Faithful as we still wanted to see her go off. It was great!

Old Faithful Geyser erupting.

Old Faithful doing her eruption thing.

On our way out of the park we hit some traffic. There was still some daylight and so we went exploring. We turned off the main road and found a swimming hole and Gibbon Falls.

Gibbon Falls

Brett also finally got to see some Elk.

Captured it through the trees looking straight at us.

Another benefit of staying at the park late is that's when the animals come out.

The next day, Brett wanted to check out the north side of park. That meant a 2 hour drive and I wasn't feeling it. I was like, I will check out the museum here in town, look at pictures and read all about it. I was tired of driving around (I mean riding). With much complaining we headed toward the north side of the park towards Mammoth Springs. It was father's day and I was going to try to be agreeable.

Happy Father's Day!

We attempted to see the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It was a fail, because there was a line just to park and I was not in the mood to sit in traffic in a national park. I'm suppose to be enjoying the outdoors, not sitting in a car in the outdoors. However, we did see a couple of bears (we were happy to stay in the car.)

A black bear and his friend crossing the street.

We took another detour as a way to avoid traffic and ran into Virginia Cascades. However we missed the pull off as it wasn't marked and we weren't willing to take the loop again. Strike two, but we are still on our way to Mammoth Springs. On the way we pass by Roaring Mountain. It's a geyser whose steam at times can be heard from 4 miles away. Well, this day, it was not roaring, it was barely whispering.

Roaring mountain was very quiet when we went to visit.

Now we are on strike three and my bad attitude is now super sour. But I will say the views on the north side of the park are by far better than the south side of the park.

Rustic falls off the main loop on the north side of the park

Beautiful view of the mountain side on the north side of the park.

More stunning views on the north side.

We finally made it to Mammoth hot springs. It was a total dud. There were some decent looking rock formation, but I was expecting an oversize hot tub. Sometimes there is water running, but today was not our lucky day.

The best photo I could get of Mammoth Hot Springs.

By now, Brett was tired of my sour mood and was like Danielle just get over it. But I was nowhere near over riding around for four hours, when I didn't want to go, to miss all the cool stuff and all the secondary stuff was a total let down. I could have read about all this stuff at the visitor center and it would have been better than seeing it in it's less than stellar form.

We get some lunch and start our two hour drive back to West Yellowstone. Brett suggest that we try to get a photo of Virginia Cascades that we missed earlier in the day. I agree.

This time we know exactly where to pull off and get a great photo with the cascades in the background.

Then we decided to try to see the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone for a second time. This time it is a success. OMG! It was worth the wait.

The amazing falls at the look out of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

The river running through the Canyon

Letting Atlas experience the overlook of the canyon

Sarah, Atlas and I took a nice hike to the lower brink of the canyon to see the view from there.

Now I know why there was a line earlier in the day. The canyon is absolutely amazing! The walking trails are a little challenging and reward you with a fantastic view. I told Brett that next time I'm being a sour puss just tell me to run behind the car, get my heart rate up and release some good endorphins. I mean I now have absolutely nothing to complain about. We got to see everything and didn't have to wait in traffic. After seeing the canyon, I was like, "Okay, I can share Nathaniel with this place".

Remembering Nathaniel at Inspiration Point

We even got another bear sighting as they crossed the road right in front of our car.

Our second black bear sighting!

My full review of Yellowstone is that it is totally worth it, but you have to be prepared to drive to all the stuff. So add in some extra drive time even when you're at the park. If I ever did it again I would stay in the park right around Old Faithful. There is some lodging, food, walking and biking trails. I think they have built up the area around Old Faithful the best. There is so much right there and you don't have to waste time driving in traffic. Then spend mid-day at the swimming hole near Gibbon Falls. The water isn't too chilly and it would be super neat to swim there. Then when you do drive, drive to the north side as the views are amazing and you can't miss the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. The view is spectacular and the trails are well established but have some elevation challenges. Plan to arrive in the evening like 5pm. You will still have a good four and a half hours of daylight and you will miss all the traffic.