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Published: August 25th 2009
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We left Billings (Montana) early morning and decided to enter through the Northeast Entrance and take the scenic way to Yellowstone instead of the busy interstate. We made our way through a town called Red Lodge and as soon as we started climbing we experienced dramatic changes in the weather, something Yellowstone is famous for. The N-E entrance is at 2 245 meters and the peaks surrounding it can reach over 3 300 meters. No wonder we were greeted by a snow storm, pretty frightening and awesome at the same time.
The park covers north west of Wyoming, south of Montana and east Idaho. The biggest part is in Wyoming. It is located just above what is now believed to be a super volcano. You soon realize the extent of the volcano when you look at the distance from one size of the caldera/crater to the other. The park is much bigger than that though.
As we arrived at the park we were caught in a grizzly bear jam. A full commotion on the road as the bear decided to hang around with humans that day. A grizzly seems to be an elusive sight in the area so we found
ourselves to be fortunate that we were greeted by one.
We eventually got to our little lodge in the park and we were just in time, in the evening for our first meeting with MacNeil, the naturalist from the Yellowstone Association. There we met the other 10 people that also were in our program. We have been hiking and exploring on our own most of the time in then other parks, but Yellowstone is so rich that we found it would be more enjoyable and interesting with a guide, so we joined an educational program with the Yellowstone Association called Trails Through Yellowstone. It is a four day 'tour' with a naturalist and an overload of information about wildlife and geology. Not saying that makes it much easier to visit such a vast territory with someone who knows the ways. Bears do not carry the title of being elusive to humans alone, moose also seem to be pretty hard to see. We actually did not manage to see moose in the park. During the five days we visited lakes, plains, mountains, trails and saw spring in the mountains at its best with a myriad of flowers. Most of the time
On the way to Yellowstone
high in the mountains and no visibility we were out of the beaten track, far away from the busy touristic sites. As Yellowstone is in a volcanic area there are hot springs all over the park. We had great four days learning and the company could have not been better. We really enjoyed the program and besides it was great to be taken care of for a while. We covered so much ground in the park that we cannot really describe in detail in here. However, a highlight of those four days for us is the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River because it was an area that we did not know about and is truly magnificent with its array of colours and landscape.
More about Yellowstone: http://www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm
If you want to see a real geyser watch this: The Old Faithful. The prediction time for the eruption is at the top on the left hand side.
http://www.nps.gov/yell/photosmultimedia/webcams.htm
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Steve
non-member comment
Yellowstone in winter
Sounds like a wonderful trip. I'm jealous. It's been almost 8 years since I was there last. We also snow-shoed through the Tetons in February. Found this link for a cool trip with a great organization to Yellowstone in winter that would be a unique way to see the park: http://www.amnhexpeditions.org/expeditions/show/49