4 Seasons in One Day. What’s next around the bend?
We headed into the National Park from Cody, Wyoming. Cody itself is beautiful; not only in natural beauty, but in humans too – we’ve met some amazing local folks here. The drive to the East entrance from Cody is about an hour, and what a wonderful hour it was traveling through the Wapiti Valley.
And just seconds into the gate, we spotted a Bison! We took that as a good sign. 🙂
Yellowstone – pics from Day 1
Not knowing what type of weather to expect (but warned about!), we packed for every weather contingency and good thing since we utilized just about every piece of clothing we planned for. We quickly found ourselves in a Winter Wonderland, driving by the still frozen Sylvan Lake and seeing the peaks well over 10,000 feet in elevation. A little further down the road, something was up off to the side; excitedly pulling over and “prairie-dogging it”, we learned it was a Grizzly bear Mom and her two cubs! Very hard to spot though, as she was bunkered down in a sea of fallen trees and even being only maybe 200 feet in she was camouflaged extremely well. Snapped pics just turned out to be duds. Yet we did manage to study her and the cubs moving their heads about via binoculars.
Next up around the bend revealed the stunningly large Yellowstone Lake. Not as large as the Great Lakes, but it can certainly tout being the biggest natural lake at a high elevation (at 7,732 feet above sea level) in North America and was jaw-dropping: 132 miles of surface area and 140 miles of shoreline. On our way to to Lower Loop which highlights thermal activity, Steamboat point was spectacular. Although cloudy, windy, and cold, the hiss and warm steam rising up from below was unbelievable. Throw in a few Bison roaming around, it was quite the scene.
Although pleased with the fact that every road in the Park was green (open), there was still much road construction going on repairing pavement impacted by winter. We didn’t hit traffic delays until near West Thumb. With the park being over 2 million acres, one cannot see everything. We decided to keep on driving, missing the Geyser Basin there.
The sun every now and then peeked through the gray cloudiness, and really showed the glorious sights at their best. But it was always short-lived. By the time we reached the pinnacle highlight – Old Faithful – the clouds were back. We timed it just right however, as the famous geyser goes off about every hour, and we had just about 60 minutes to trek the trails around this area featuring many geysers before circling back and seeing the headliner.
Beyond “Old Faithful”, the most emotionally charged stop was the Midway Geyser Basin featuring the Grand Prismatic Spring. Being so colorful for one, this was the stop I was most giddy. Emotions felt here were firstly a bit scary, because it wasn’t just a bit sprinkly-wet here, but lightning and loud rolling thunder were upon us. As soon as we hit the trail the winds picked up and hail actually fell. Cold too. But the boardwalk was so cool and surreal. The many geysers here were so unique; no two were alike. The steam giving off from each one was a welcome sauna bath in between cold needle rain. Some people amongst the few and brave along the trail would argue that the geysers were disappointing (because you really couldn’t see them very well at all due to the weather), but we found the experience to be thrilling and otherworldly. Granted, the Grand Prismatic Spring was nothing but steam vapor, it was happily a rare ( I guess) experience unto itself. It felt as if we were trespassing on another planet; certainly didn’t feel as if this was a natural place humans should be walking.
At this point in the Loop, we realized we were only about at the midway mark of our day, yet we were way behind the 5 hour out of 10 hours planned. Thank goodness for the cooler full of sweet and salty snacks, Onwards! The next stretch of road we knew we’d re-visit since we will have to navigate it in the RV itself when moving on and camping in the West Yellowstone area after visiting the Grand Tetons, so we bypassed a few stops with the hope we will have the time to actually stop.
By the time we were on the final portion of the loop, my personal steam was finally giving out after the Sulphur Cauldron (yes, it was very stinky!) and the intermittent snow. I had to stay in the car to thaw out (my socks and sandals were wet and my feet ice-cold) while Jim took in the Mud volcanoes. 9 PM, we found ourselves driving back through the Wapiti Valley with the sunset shining last lights upon the wildlife and mountain ranges. Stunning.
That was yesterday. Wow, what a day. Today’s plan was to head up to the Beartooth Highway, but we took a much-needed day of rest. Altitude sickness I think caught up with me – or was it just the breakneck speed we’ve been doing. Whatever it was, it gave us a chance to decompress, reflect, catch up, and prepare to move onwards for a few days to explore the Grand Tetons south of here. We then will re-trace a few roads back northwards to land in West Yellowstone to explore all of the Upper Park for several more days. 11 days total in this area and it will still leave us wanting more I’m sure.
Yellowstone – pics from Day 1
Advice from a Geyser….
Rise to the occasion
Stay active
Find your inner strength
Vent when you need to
Enjoy the quiet moments
Be Faithful
Let off a little steam
