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Trip to Yellowstone

I wanted to share my experiences on the trip to the Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, US for the benefit of the family and friends who couldn’t be with me at the park. Hope it is useful and interesting to anyone who reads it, it was entirely written in my flight from Denver to New York, with photos being added later on.

I was invited by my aunt to join them in visiting the Yellowstone National Park from 29th May to 2nd June. With my family away and nothing much to do over Memorial Day weekend it was a pleasure to be with them

Brief Description of the Park

Yellow stone is one of the most unique and beautiful parks that I have ever seen. It is a unique combination of high altitude, towering snow clad mountains, a beautiful and huge lake, plentiful green countryside, abundant wildlife and most important and unique of all, the geothermal basin that brings so many visitors to the park. It is the oldest and second largest national park in the US. The vistas of the landscape, the powerful geysers that shoot up in the sky, the eerie of the bison walking towards your car leave lasting memories in your mind. If you are a nature lover, you will love it for the experiences that it will offer you. If you are not so much of a nature enthusiast, still it makes a good unique vacation if you are done with theme parks and malls. There is so much that you can do at Yellowstone, that planning the trip becomes quite an essential part of the trip itself

Planning

Yellowstone has enough to give to a wide range of tastes from the most enthusiastic adventurist to the most car happy tourist. It has enough to show you, whether you have a day on hand or a month. However, to utilize the time there, it is better to do your homework before you reach there (well if you didn’t during your school days, now is your chance). There is plenty to research on internet by visiting the nps websites, or browsing through useful books such as Lonely planet or the rough guides. I would encourage you strongly to make an investment in those books. They cover everything from the stay, to planning your trips, where to stop driving and take a look, what to see, where to hike. The photos should inspire you.

The park is amazingly well organized and managed, good job NPS. All junction points (intersections) within the park are well marked, with directions and distances. All you need to find your way around is the park map they give at entrance and a plan of where you want to go. GPS and AAA maps are “good to have”, not must. Of course, keep your eyes open for wildlife and road signs which in other words means don’t drive fast. Yes. The most important advice would be to “slow down” when you drive or see the points. Pull over on the pullouts (plenty of them on internal roads) while driving to see waterfalls, beautiful mountains. Take time reading the descriptions of the well laid out information boards. Take photos, videos, but also open your eyes to the experiences. You are already investing so much in travel and stay, you might want to make most of it. You may be a fast driver, planner or a task master at home, but out here, take time to absorb and appreciate the beauty.

Roughly speaking, we covered a north loop, the south loop, and the Teton.

How many days

If some one was to ask how many days would it take to see Yellowstone, I could answer from a day to 3 weeks, depending on what your interests are and how much time can you spare. You can see the old faithful and mammoth areas and some tourists points e.g. artist point and 1 or 2 waterfalls, all in day and feel happy, or you could spend upto two weeks expanding your excursions on foot or by car to cover grand teton, all interesting points in Yellowstone and some nearby forests and treks, and then another week for animal observations and sightings. There are some tours that Xanterra organizes from the popular destinations. So this question has no easy answer. 3 days to a week would be a good average to spend your time at Yellowstone, if you can make only a trip. If you stay nearby, keep visiting it to cover different parts each time. Our trip was 4 nights and 3 days over the memorial day weekend, which I would say is about just right. I would say we covered major attractions and 20%!(NOVERB)of the total attractions that we would have liked to see.

Stay

This is the most difficult part of the trip. The park itself has a limited hotel capacity at Lake hotel (where we stayed), Old faithful and the mammoth. These have to be booked way ahead in advance, 4 months to an year, depending on when you want to go there. There are some hotels in nearby cities such as Cody, Gardiner, Jackson Hole, but the drive into the park and out of it might tire you. Out of 4 nights, we stayed two nights, first and 4th in Comfort Inn in Cody, and the middle two nights in the Yellowstone lake hotel in the middle of the park.

Logistics - Weather, Getting there, Getting around there

The short answer is mostly Summer (perhaps starting Memorial day), entrance through Cody, Jackson Hole or West and north sites, and renting a car at the airports. The long answer is internet or guide books  . Just bear in mind that the park is in the altitude of 6000 to 8000 ft and hence keep some warm clothes with you. Weather is kind of fluctuating. Car goes to most of the places, except that parking could be tougher in busy days. Entrance from Cody airport into the park (till Yellowstone lake) could be a 2 hr drive, keeping additional hour for stopping by at the different points.

Food

Bear in mind that Yellowstone is a national park, not a city with plenty of food options. Don’t expect Pizza hut, Burger King or McDonalds to rescue you in middle of internal park roads or late at night. Vegetarian options are limited and so are the places that you can have food at. I liked the lunch buffet at the old faithful inn and the salad dinners at the yellow lake stone hotel. Dinner especially, in my opinion, is quite expensive in the Yellowstone

11 Memorable Sights

1. Geyser at Old faithful - this, I would argue is the central attraction of the yellow stone national park. As many sites and books have aptly written, this is not the most biggest, nor the most regular, but the biggest regular geyser of the 300 odd in the basin. The water gushes out through a small opening with large force, spewing steam as well. The central cauldron of the Yellowstone is a thin crust of earth on top of hot liquid rock. When ground water gets close, it gets superheated surging out with a force. After the water has gushed out, there is an interval for the next surge which ranges from 75-90 mins, depending on how much water has gushed out in the previous shoot. There is more to this explanation, please google it. A shooting geysor is one of the sights that you will remember for a long time to come.

2. Beautiful colors of the springs and small ponds, mudpots and spouters - The walkway around the old faithful takes you across multiple ponds and springs with beautiful colors. The colors are due to heat loving bacteria that thrive in the hot water (I used to think it was because of the minerals in the deposits). Please don’t step outside the walkways constructed. If your leg goes through the small layer of rock/sand, the water below is only 200 F hot. The steam coming out of the old faithful, other geysers and springs, give an area a misty and eerie feeling. The mud pots and spouters are due to addition of mud with hot water. Besides old faithful, there are many of them at the mid geysor basin and the basin near mammoth.

3. Teton mountains - As you drive south from Yellowstone through the teton park road, you will be greeted with a wonder range of mountains to the right, called the teton range. The highest teton peak is Grand teton at more than 13,300 ft. The mt. Moran which you can see from the highway is more than 12k ft altitude. There are 3 beautiful lakes, viz. Jenny, Leigway and Jackson, with Jackson being the largest, and Jenny being the most quiet and tranquil. These 3 lakes in teton aren’t that cold as compared to the Yellowstone lake or Lewis lake that are frozen even in end of May. The combination of serene lakes and snow clad Teton mountains make amazing photographs. For the trekers and hikers, this region is full of trails, so you might want to plan for a longer time in the Tetons.

4. Landscape and expanse of the upper basin at Mammoth - the basin at the Mammoth have amazing views to offer of the valley and mountains in the north, and township in the valley below. This basin has also a lot of geothermal activities so it is easy to spend 2 hours here looking at different creations, colors, shapes that have been made.

5. Bisons crossing the road - Bison is perhaps the most abundant form of wild life that you can see. There are bison herds easily sighted on the different valleys such as Hayden valley. Though they mostly found in groups, you can see a solitary guy roaming on the landscape. They look so strong and bulky, it is important to stop if one comes your way and then pray that he doesn’t think that you are a threat to him. Remember, they are wild, not domesticated. In 3 days, we have had 3 encounters where the bison thankfully didn’t feel threatened by the presence of our car. DON’T try to attract them, call them, or do anything on car, such as speeding, honking or turning on/off lights. Just freeze and let them pass. You should appear boring to them. Besides bison, we saw the rare sightings of black bear, a coyote, two wolves and a mountain goat in our trips.

6. Drive through the duravan pass - While going south from Roosevelt to Canyon in the northern loop, you will cross the highest point on the grand loop rd, called the duravan pass. The sights on both side of the roads are very beautiful with snow clad mountains and valleys. We did not go to the Mt Washburn, but I read that it is a very good trek.

7. Artist Point with the lower and upper falls - While returning from Canyon to Lake before passing the Hayden valley, you will get a bifurcation (south rim rd) for Tom’s and artist point on left just minutes after you leave Canyon. This drive (or trek), takes you first to upper falls (with a huge water gush), and then to lower falls (300+ ft) and then to artist point. The artist point was very beautiful, with valley full of colorful rocks (though mostly yellow), with the lower fall in the distance.

8. Walk on the Yellowstone lake in front of the hotel - Yellow stone lake is the largest high altitude lake in US. It is so huge, a mere north south or east west ride around the lake can take 25-30 miles and an hour to cover. All around the lake are snow clad mountains. The lake itself was mostly frozen, with small parts starting to melt, when we had visited end of May. I think the parts to melt first are those near a geothermal activity. The winds and low temperature made the walk a little cold, but it was worth every step. Unfortunately, a lot of bear activity around the lake has closed the trek routes, hence there is not much we could venture out from the main road into wilderness of the lake.

The hotel on the lake is built in later 1800’s with a new wing built in early 1900’s. the hotel itself has been recently renovated and was a pleasure to stay. The stay and food is expensive, but worth the vacation.

9. Drive from Cody to Yellowstone lake - As you leave the western influence town of Cody to the Eastern entrance, there are very beautiful sights as you travel the 50 miles. The small Shoshone canyon, tunnel, dam and blue water, the Snow Mountains on the left, the vast ranches and local places to stay, the amazing rock formations. Then as you start climbing up in altitude, you get snow cleared roads, pine forests, and you can also see an avalanche gun. The you come out of the mountain ranges to see the beautiful and huge Yellowstone lake at a distance.

10. Summit point on teton park road - While going south from the Yellowstone to the Jenny lake along the teton park road, you will see a road going to the summit point. This takes you at an elevation called summit point where you can see the Snake river valley in front and the teton mountain range to your right.

11. Burned trees all around the forest - An interesting backdrop as you drive through the park, is a lot of dead trees burned in the 1988 fires. It is a disturbing site in the beginning and one wonders why was such a huge fire that caused large destruction not stopped or curbed? But, then on reading further in the lonely planet guides and then later on internet, I realized that the forest fires are important in order to create a new vegetation and give forest a new life, like a new birth. I realized this is true, when we were seeing baby pine trees growing all along the land where once their ancestors stood high before being engulfed in the fire. Forest fires are natural, and sometimes I feel it it is best not to interfere with nature, and let it do its work. But, I could be wrong, since I am no expert on subject to offer any opinions.

Parting Thoughts

As perhaps said in the series “America’s best ideas - National Parks”, the parks are the national treasure. They preserve and nourish the flora, fauna and geo wonders for generations to enjoy and learn. The rest of the lands are anyway getting utilized in either harvesting, urbanization and so called “progress and growth” of mankind. We live on such a delicate balance of ecosystem that is in constant flux in terms of geological timescales. It is perhaps important to take a peek out of our daily lives spent in earning, living, running families to understand, appreciate the nature through the national parks. The experience is very humbling and rewarding to know that we are not the whole, but a part of the ecosystem called earth which is a small part of the large ecosystem, the universe.

Let the inquisitive child in all of us have a ball of a time.

For all photos see - http://picasaweb.google.com/ajay.mahajan.in/YellowstoneNaturePhotos

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Photos

DamOverShone
On way to Yellowstone

Old Faithful
Reliably large Geyser