Originally Grand Tetons and Yellowstone were combined into one post, but each National Park deserved its own post!
Wednesday: Geyser day at Yellowstone! And Lexie joined us, even though she couldn’t walk along any of the trails. V: she was good in the car and we let her out pretty often for short walks and she got to ride with us. I wonder what she thinks in her doggy brain, especially when she sees the bison, a younger elk that was right next to the car, or other creatures. She didn’t bark. We’re not sure if she really noticed them.
John D Rockefeller Parkway connects Grand Tetons NP and Yellowstone NP.
The most memorable part of this parkway was all the dead trees. Some were blackened from fire. But many were not showing signs of fire. They seemed to have been pushed over by some mighty wind. A beetle infestation also killed many of the trees.
After the Parkway we entered the Yellowstone National Park south entrance.
The first thing we saw when we got into Yellowstone was all the snow around the trees. This probably was the reason that the south entrance (the one we used) doesn’t open until May.
We stopped at Moose Falls just after entering Yellowstone’s South Entrance. Falling water is always fascinating.
We saw more of the wilder side of the Snake River as it went through canyons. And we were driving close to the edge of that canyon! Vicki closed her eyes for part of this trip. Steven kept his eyes on the road and was grateful he was driving the Mini Cooper and not the RV.
We crossed the Continental Divide three time on the way to see the geysers. Note the elevation.
We stopped at Old Faithful’s visitor center, located in the upper geyser basin. This geyser basin had hundreds of hot springs, pools and geysers. We only saw a fraction of the geothermal features, and each was unique in its own way.
We waited for Old Faithful, along with many people. There are benches for people to sit and watch. We waited for thirty minutes, during which time we could see plumes of steam shooting into the air from different places in the upper geyser basin. Old Faithful gushes every ninety minutes (more or less) and gushes for five minutes. There were some smaller gushes of only a few feet high before the big, sustained gush. The pictures, of course, don’t do it justice.
After watching Old Faithful, we walked around other geysers in the Upper geyser basin. We really liked Castle Geyser, which was constantly steaming but we didn’t get to see it truly gush.
We did see Sawmill Geyser gush up close and personal (i.e. we got wet)
Grand geyser gush (from afar, we didn’t expect it to gush) Grand geyser’s fountain was over one hundred feet tall!
Beehive geyser gush (another one from afar)
We saw some very colorful pools: Blue Star Spring, Crested Pool and Scalloped Spring. The photographs don’t do the geothermal features justice, many of the colors were modified when the pictures were resized. There was no pink steam anywhere!
Old Faithful started geysing again as we were walking around the upper basin.
While walking around the upper basin we saw a big bird use the thermals to gain height. Lots of height. Dark feathers with a white head: we saw a bald eagle!
On the way back to Colter Bay Village we stopped to admire Kepler Cascades.
The weather forecast for Thursday looked miserable with snow predicted during most of the day. Our original travel plans were to head east and cross the continental divide that day (meaning we would be ascending and descending mountains in snowy weather). We decided not to chance going up and down mountains in snowy weather in a 30 foot by 12 foot by 8 foot RV, so we changed our travel plans to stay at Colter Bay for an additional day.
This would be great news except that the RV’s furnace isn’t working and the temperatures are getting below freezing. So we are using our space heater to warm the RV. It tries but isn’t able to keep the RV temperature into the 60’s. Brrrr. V: the heated mattress pad with dual controls is a must-have when glamping in mountainous and high-altitude regions and of course, during cold weather. Sleeping was comfortable.
Thursday morning: There was some snow outside our RV in the morning, but it melted by the time we moved the RV to the new site, still at Colter Bay. We had to get a different site when we decided to stay an extra night. The new site was open before our checkout time of 11am, so we went there directly. The move went smoothly and quickly and we were ready for day two in Yellowstone!
The first thing we noticed when we got into Yellowstone was that there was more snow on the ground:
We decided to visit the Canyon Center in Yellowstone, which was almost two hours away! And the weather had its moments: there was some falling snow and the temperature dropped to freezing. But the Mini handled this well, especially since the roads remained dry.
As we traveled north in Yellowstone, we saw a female elk crossing the road.
Today’s route took us along Yellowstone Lake, a very large lake with mountains in the background.
We stopped to see the mud volcanoes, including the Dragon’s Mouth Spring.
We also stopped to see the upper waterfall of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.
The Canyon Education center was awesome! Vicki watched three films and loved the exhibits that talked about the supervolcano of Yellowstone.
Returning south, we saw some pronghorn deer.
And we stopped quickly to look at Lewis falls, which we had noticed the day before.
Just before we entered into the campgrounds we noticed a bunch of cars, tourists and rangers at the side of the road. We didn’t stop but we did glimpse a bear in the distance.
There were so many sights in Yellowstone, and the sights were so varied. One could spend weeks here doing a different kind of adventure every day. The pictures we took do not do the parks justice, but they do bring back memories to us of our adventure.
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