“The best thing one can do
when it’s raining
is to let it rain”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
After 3 weeks we’ve arrived
to the granddaddy of national parks, Yellowstone. Everyone prior to setting sail, told me I’d
love this place. I was skeptical, not
generally preferring the beaten path. I
can happily admit I was wrong to feel this way.
This place is nature’s freak show.
A menagerie of sites, all wrapped into one park. Mountains, rivers, lakes, hot springs, geysers,
elk, bison, moose, grizzlies, wolves, meadows, waterfalls, canyons, crazy rock
formations of every color. All of these
collected together on top of a megavolcano, and not some Syfy channel movie,
I’m talking giant volcano that is 60,000 years past due to erupt and when it
does it’ll take out half of the US. So
let’s get started on this two parter.
When I last left you we were
heading out from Crater Lake. The drive
was over 800 miles to Yellowstone. We
had the option of driving all day and then setting up camp at night, but
knowing how not fun that would be, we opted to stop in Idaho Falls about 2
hours west of the park. The drive was
long, but Oregon was a beautiful state.
The majority of its eastern side is desert, but pretty desert, not New
Mexico desert. Along the way I used
Hotels.com to find us a cheap hotel and we lucked out with one for $75 at the
Shilo Inn. It ended up being one of the
best hotels yet. We showered off our
camp grime and then stopped at Jaker’s Bar and Grill for some appetizers and
their own brewed beer.
The next day we made the
final drive to Yellowstone. We first
stopped in West Yellowstone, stocked up on food and headed in. The 4 toll entrance was an omen that this
would be a crowded park. The entrance
had a list of campgrounds that had vacancies, so our first job was to find a
place to stay. The first campground had
filled when we got there, so we decided to head north to a less crowded
section. As always we got one of the
last sites, set up camp and then headed to do the northern loop of the
park. Our first stop was the Mammoth Hot
Springs, an area of calcium carbonate terraces with bubbling water. We got a few glimpses of them before the
promised afternoon shower started up. As
the rain poured, we saw that the eastern sky looked brighter so we decided to
head that direction to the canyon.
Now along the way we were
hoping to see some of wildlife this park is known for, but there seemed to be
nothing. We drove around peering into
the meadows and forests for signs of life.
Like the visitors in Jurassic Park, we’d have to wait a little bit
longer. Our first bison siting was in
the parking lot, but the thing looked half-dead, so we did not get too
excited. Our second was in the
road. We stopped at the Canyon Visitor
Center and got a recommendation for an easy 3 mile loop hike along the South
Rim of the Canyon for views of the canyon, and upper and lower Yellowstone
Falls. The beginning and middle sections
of the hike had parking lots so that people could drive to two of the
viewpoints.
We parked at the upper falls
and then made our way along the rim of the canyon. The water fall was impressive, a powerful one
with white water rapids above it and a cloud of mist below it. The crowds were rough but once we got on the
path things thinned out. The canyon is
nothing compared to the canyons visited earlier but it was unique in that it
was a mix of yellow and white stone with occasional sections of smooth pink
stone. The middle section gave us a view
of Artists Point, an area that took in the river, canyon and Upper Falls in the
distance, but this area was crowded.
Along the way we met 3 ladies from Cherry Hill New Jersey on a 3 week
road trip. We chatted briefly and then
went along their way. We met up with
them a little later on the hike once we had entered the section where no one
was going and they seemed lost. We
looked over the maps and figured out the route and then lost them as we tend to
hike faster.
This part of the hike lead
along part of the rim but then headed into a forest and meadow section with
random clearings with fumaroles (steam vents), mudpots (waterless hot springs
with bubbling mud) and hot springs. The
air in this area smells like sulfur, a smell I’m sure made our New Jersey
hiking friends are familiar with (If you’re keeping a tally I’ve now insulted
New Jersey twice, LA once, and Pittsburgh once). This would have been the highlight of the hike
but the first siting of a giant bison walking through one of the springs just
50 feet away got our attention. This
would be the first a few we would see.
During one of the stops at a hot spring I also caught site of a Moose in
the forest. All of the stopping for
pictures allowed the Jersey girls to catch up.
They too had seen our bison friends, but were a little more concerned
with how close they were. They asked to
join us, as if we could protect them from these beasts.
Now I did not mention that
during this hike, dark clouds were positioning themselves overhead rather
quickly. We still had about a mile and
half to go when the thunder and lightning started. The 5 of us walked together swiftly but were
stopped suddenly by a 2000 lb road block.
We had come across a herd of bison scattered throughout the forest,
grazing the meadows and using our path as their own. I had seen just one sign recommending staying
25 yards from all wild life (100 yards from the dangerous wildlife), but I had
somehow not read up on bison behavior and safety. All that was going through my mind was scenes
from When Nature Attacks. The bison did
not seem concerned about our need to get back to our cars before the flood gates
opened. So we tiptoed around them as if
they were T-rexes unable to see us if we moved slowly enough. The bison were pretty good a hiding too
because every once in a while we’d turn a corner and there would be one just 20
ft to our side.
We finally made it of the
forest to an open meadow just in time for the rain, the cold torrential down
pour kind of rain. The last half mile
was spent running through a meadow with no cover as lightning struck around
us. We survived and got to the car. A rainbow at the end of the hike was our only
consolation, but I must say that was one fun hike, I almost asked if we could
do it again. We headed back to our
campsite to make dinner over the fire as quickly as possible as the clouds were
now positioning themselves overhead. We
grilled some chicken and asparagus. The
rain held out for us to sit down eat and watch an amazing lightning show in the
distance. There was a slight chance we’d
get missed, but the winds changed direction and blew it all towards us. We spent the rest of the night in the car
watching the hail, lightning and rain come down until it finally ended and we
got to bed to get ready for tomorrows adventure.
TO BE CONTINUED….
Stats:
Miles Driven: 6585
States: PA, MD, WV, VA, TN, NC, AL,
MS, LA, TX, NM, AZ, UT, NV, CA, OR, ID, MT, WY
National Parks: 13
Miles Hiked: 55
Animals Sited: Bison (13), Elk (7),
Moose (1)
Shortest Distance Between Us and
Bison: 20 ft
PS.
On our drive back we were going through some of the pamphlets were got
when entering the park and this was in there…
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