Lori's Travels

Yesterday morning we said goodbye to West Yellowstone, drove through Yellowstone Park again, crossed the Continental Divide twice, and descended southward to Grand Teton National Park. The weather was beautiful and so was the drive. Along the way, we made stops in both parks to see the sights. One of those was at the Jackson Lake Lodge, which has a fantastic view of the Tetons.

We continued driving through the expansive valley into the town of Jackson, where we found our Motel 6. Our room is quite a bit smaller than the West Yellowstone hotel room, and with our boxes of food, cooler, and luggage, it’s a tight fit but it works.

Today, we ate breakfast in our room from the food we brought and then took off for some Grand Teton sightseeing. Among the places we stopped were Mormon Row, where we saw some beautiful mountain bluebirds and pronghorn antelopes, Oxbow Bend (of the Snake River), and Schwabacher Landing. The landing turned out to be a great birding spot. At this quiet place, beavers had dammed a small side stream of the Snake into large ponds. Among the birds we saw were a yellow warbler, Barrow’s goldeneye, trumpeter swan, and Bohemian waxwing. It was the best birding of the trip so far, and we both really enjoyed the time there.

After a full day of sightseeing, we returned to the hotel about 6 p.m. Linda made a delicious spaghetti dinner. Then we went out to get gas and see the downtown area of Jackson, which has really busy traffic during the day, but in the evening was much better.

My car is a little dirtier than when we started, huh?

It was another cold day at the park, with a recorded temperature of 29 degrees at Yellowstone Lake overnight. The cloud layer was thicker than yesterday, and Linda and I saw a few tiny snowflakes outside the restaurant window as we ate breakfast.

We entered the park around 8 a.m. again and were driving from the entrance along the Madison River toward the Madison Junction intersection when we saw lots of cars stopped or slowed ahead. We’ve learned that likely means visible wildlife nearby. As we approached the spot, we saw five mama bison and their calves grazing in a meadow near the road. Of course we stopped and took pictures too. The babies were cute.

Then we made our way toward Yellowstone Lake, which is quite a long drive toward the southern part of the park. Along the way, we stopped at some more thermal features – roiling hot springs, mud pots, and sulfur fumeroles. We walked on the boardwalks at each site, breathing in the steamy, sulfuric air and marveling at the active, changing earth. We also made a stop along the Yellowstone River at Lehardy Rapids. There, we enjoyed seeing the lush greenery along the river and the rushing rapids. But at each stop, we were glad we had a few layers of clothes on, and we had to brace ourselves against the 20-30 mph cold wind.

At Yellowstone Lake, we viewed the stuffed bird exhibit at the visitor center, took some pictures in the wind at the lake shore, then retreated to the warm car to eat our picnic lunch. After lunch, when driving to the nearby butte that provides an overlook of the large lake, we stopped at another scene of lots of people stopped to view some wildlife. We learned it was a sow grizzly a few hundred yards off the road. Our binoculars have been really handy for these wildlife viewing opportunities. After a few minutes there, we continued on our drive up the butte for an excellent lake view.

The wind was still blowing hard by the end of our sightseeing day but the temperature had warmed up to maybe 50 degrees. We had a few rain drops fall during our 2-hour drive back to the hotel. Then a more steady rain began after we were back in our warm, cozy room.

Sunday started surprisingly cold, at about 40 degrees, after the previous day’s high in the mid-70s. We again got up early and ate breakfast about 7 a.m. in the hotel restaurant, but there were noticeably fewer people eating there. Our food came quickly. We finished, and drove into the park about 8 a.m. The destination for the day was the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River.

We first stopped at the visitor center near the canyon to get a recommendation from the ranger. Then we drove to Artist’s Point on the south rim. It was cold and windy, but we were ready for the cold. It was a gorgeous view with amazing colors.

Next was a drive along the north rim, with a few spots where we parked and walked to viewpoints. One of them was at the brink of the falls as it went over the cliff. Spectacular! We were also lucky enough to see a grizzly bear. We knew something was up when the cars jammed up ahead. Driving slowly past a crowd of pedestrian watchers, we heard it was a grizzly. We found a place to park and saw the bear down in a grassy valley maybe 200 yards away from the road, contentedly eating something in the grass. My camera, without a big lens, couldn’t capture the image well. But both Linda and I were thrilled to see it through our binoculars.

We ate a picnic lunch back at the visitor’s center after we had watched a couple of short films about the park and gone shopping in the gift store. The picnic table we chose was close to the visitor center building, out of the cold wind. The high for the day reached only about 50 degrees.

Then we drove about 12 miles to the Norris Geyser Basin, where we had stopped on a previous day. We walked around a boardwalk loop that we had missed before, seeing steaming fumaroles and mud pots.

By that time, it was about 4 p.m. and we were tired. We headed back to the hotel to rest and have dinner in the room.

Friday and Saturday were long days of seeing the awe-inspiring sights of Yellowstone. The weather both days was beautiful: sunny and in the low 70s. We started early to beat the crowds, eating our free hotel breakfast in the adjoining restaurant at 6:30 a.m. and then heading to the park before 8:00.

On Friday we went to Old Faithful first, staying to see it erupt twice at 9:45 and 11:17 from different viewpoints. We also walked around to see the other nearby geysers. We went inside the beautiful lobby of the venerable Old Faithful Inn, built in 1904, using wood and stone from the park. One of the room maids was even nice enough to show us one of the guest rooms that she had just prepared.

Then we drove to several other hot spring and geyser areas, seeing the Biscuit Basin, the Fountain Paint Pot, the Black Sand Basin, and geysers on the Firehole Lake Drive. Such amazing places. Due to afternoon crowds, we couldn’t park at the Grand Prismatic Spring site, so instead we ate a pleasant picnic lunch at nearby Whiskey Jack picnic area in the shade of the lodge pole pines.

At several places along the road we saw bison. Big individuals grazing in the grass, a herd with calves among the trees, two bison chasing each other near Old Faithful, and even bison trotting along the road, causing a long line of cars in both directions to stop and wait for them to clear. A “bison jam.” And everywhere among the geysers, there are bison hoof prints and “patties” that show they spend time on the warm ground very close to the boiling thermal sites. We also saw a marmot near Old Faithful and interesting birds all around.

At the end of the day, we drove to the Norris Geyser Basin to see a few more geysers, stopping along the way to see Gibbon Falls. We returned to the hotel after 7 p.m., worn out. But Linda still managed to make a delicious dinner with a baked chicken from Issaquah PCC, broccoli, and a rice/quinoa mixture.

On Saturday, we saw a very different part of the park, driving north to the Mammoth Hot Springs. We experienced another “bison jam” on the way there, plus a road construction delay. Once at Mammoth, we drove along the Upper Terraces Drive and then walked to see the lower terraces. The warm wind and sun sucked the moisture out of us as we walked along the boardwalks and trails.

In Mammoth Village, we saw several elk cows relaxing in the grass at the center of the village. Rangers made sure pedestrians kept their distance, since the elk had kicked two women in the past couple of weeks, sending both to the hospital. We went to the visitor center, ate a picnic lunch in the shade of trees just outside the center, and then enjoyed some ice cream in the nearby restaurant.

The route back to the hotel took us on the eastern side of the loop road, through high alpine areas and over Dunraven Pass at 8859 feet. Along the way, we saw more elk and even a black bear and her cub across a river. The bears drew a big crowd of photographers, several rangers to direct traffic, and caused a slowdown on the road.

We returned to West Yellowstone by 6 p.m. I filled up the gas tank and Linda bought another memory card for her camera. We’re ready for another day of Yellowstone sightseeing tomorrow.

Thursday morning was sunny and beautiful in Missoula. After taking in the hotel’s free breakfast, we checked out and drove into downtown. There, we parked at Caras Park, on the bank of the Clark Fork (of the Columbia River) and started our self-guided walking tour of the historical buildings in downtown. We also saw a couple of wake boarders in the middle of the river at the park, which was something we hadn’t seen before.

After a couple of hours of walking around the historic yet lively downtown, we departed Missoula for West Yellowstone. It was a beautiful drive on I-90 and smaller roads through Montana and Idaho. It truly is Big Sky country and was wonderfully verdant this time of year.

We reached West Yellowstone around 4 pm, and found our hotel in the middle of the town. We’ve noticed the streets are very wide and the blocks are long in Montana. Like they’re trying to fill all the wide open space they have.

We unloaded everything into our hotel room where we’ll be for the next 5 nights. After Linda made us another delicious dinner, we drove around to explore the small town and scout the entrance to the park before tomorrow’s adventure begins.