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Published: April 30th 2010
From Laurel, Montana we had a shortish drive to Yellowstone National Park. We would be going through the North entrance as it is one of the 3 entrances that are open at this time of the year and also it is the closest to the campground we would be staying in. The weather on our drive in was pleasant with sunny skies but a fairly strong breeze. When we arrived we decided to find a campsite and set up our tent 1st. We would be staying in the Mammoth campground. The campground was decent with the sites spreadout nicely and the toilets being clean and heated. There are no showers in the campground but there are in the nearby hotel - when the hotel is open. As it is still early in the season the hotel hadn't opened yet so our nearest showers were located over 5 miles away in a shop that also doubled as a laundromat and arcade.
We spent the rest of our 1st day there driving along the road towards the North East entrance. We had read that this was a good route to see some wildlife and we weren't disappointed. We saw bison, elk, badgers,
pronghorns and mule deer. What I think surprised us most was the number of bison we saw. There were literally hundreds of them. We were also in awe of the sheer size of the park. The road from Mammoth to the North east entrance is about 50 miles (80km) and it must be about 100 miles (160km) from the north end of the park to the south.
We also walked around the Mammoth Hot Springs. This is an area of geothermal activity and the hot springs and pools are quite remarkable. Personally I don't think they were as spectacular as the Rotorua geothermals but it was interesting to find out that Yellowstone contains 60% of the worlds geisers. That evening we made a fire and cooked our supper. The food still tastes better when you have cooked it over a wood fire you made yourself. We retired to our tent early that night and were pleasantly surprised that the temperature didn't get as low as we had expected and we were more than comfortable.
Over the next couple of days we spent our time exploring the park. On day 2 we headed south to Old Faithful. This is
probably the main tourist attaction of the park but fortunately it was quite quiet whilst we were there. Old Faithful is probably the most famous geiser in the world and it erupts roughly every 90 minutes. Unlike our experience in New Zealand, we got to see this eruption naturally. There was no Park Ranger dropping soap into it to set it off. The eruption is quite spectacular and I am glad we got to see it. The entire area around Old Faithful is full of geisers, hot pools, fumaroles etc. We spent the rest of that day walking around all the sights.
On day 3 we explored the Canyon area. This part of the park is at a higher elevation and so there was still a lot of snow on the ground. Due to the amount of snow, most of the roads from Canyon were still closed but on a whim we thought we would drive down a stretch of road that was closed 2 miles further on. As we rounded a bend we saw a couple of cars and as we slowed down we saw what they were looking at, a massive Grizzly bear. The bear was a
bit far away but we could see it clear enough. We spent the next half hour watching the bear forage around looking for food before we moved on to look at the upper and lower falls that are at the top of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. On our way back to the campground we saw another bear, this one was sitting by a carcass. We aren't sure if it was a grizzly or a black bear. All in all in was a very good day.
We dedicated the next day to doing walks around the Mammoth area. Our 1st walk was on the Rescue Creek Trail. This is an 8 mile one way trail so we would only be walking a bit of the way and then turning back. The walk was pleasant enough but it was a bit off putting seeing old skeletons lying around and knowing that wild animals are roaming around free and we eventually lost our nerve and turned around after about an hour. The next walk we did was a 5 mile trail called the Beaver Ponds trail. This trail took us up through some of the Aspen trees and across some meadows
before we came across the beaver ponds. Unfortunately we didn't see any beavers. All we say really were elk.
With the weather turning a bit miserable we thought our last full day in the park would be spent driving to the North East entrance again in the hopes that we would see more wildlife and once again we weren't disappointed. This time we saw another bear. This one was sitting by a lake and we sat watching it for a while. We also came across a herd of bison that had quite a few new born calfs with them. We are no experts but they couldn't have been more than a couple of days old. It was a wonderful sight.
The day we left Yellowstone the weather had turned foul. The wind had picked up during the night and it had started snowing. The drive out the park was very interesting. As we got higher in the park the snow got heavier. At one point a couple of trucks had pulled over to put snow chains on. As we don't have snow chains I was glad there were a couple other cars ahead of me that didn't have
chains on either. The snow started coming down so much that eventually the road was completely covered and I was purely following the other cars tracks. Once we got out the park the weather didn't ease up for quite a while. At one point we couldn't see more than 15 meters ahead of us. Eventually the skies cleared and we made it to Twin Falls, Idaho safely.
Today we drove from Twin Falls to Bend in Oregon. It was about 440 miles and for the weather was fine for the most part but we did go through a couple of snow flurries. Tomorrow we head to Crater Lake National Park which should be amazing, if we can get through the snow. There could still be 15ft of snow on the ground there - wish us luck.
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Ali
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Happy Birthday Sandra!
HI Sandra and Billy, I think it was your birthday last week? hope you had a lovely day. What an amazing trip you're having. I'm in awe!! lots of love Ali xx ps it's beautiful spring here in Oxford, with sun and beautiful flowers.