Miles driven so far on this trip = 2,724 and that includes a good bit of driving in Yellowstone for the past two days.
Weather in Yellowstone - it changes very often here but basically the nights have been in the high 20's or low 30's - below freezing each night. The daytime highs have been in the high 40's and low 50's. We have seen alot of rain, some sleet since arriving here but all in all the weather is acceptable. It rains frequently but not for long. It is not uncommon to have two or three rain showers a day followed by sunny beautiful weather. We packed for the weather and in addition to that, so far all of our souvenir tee shirts have been long sleeve or sweatshirts :-)
Yellowstone - I'd describe it as beautiful, huge, crowded, and at times you feel like you are on a different planet! You can travel around the park and experience so many different looking environments, all within a relatively short drive....and we've only scratched the surface on the first half of the park.
We have basically divided the park up into quadrants and have focused our efforts on the top two, northeast and northwest quadrants so far. We are staying at Fishing Bridge campground. The North East portion includes Fishing Bridge, Canyon village, Tower Falls, and Roosevelt lodge. The North West includes the Norris Geyser Basin, Mammoth Hot Springs and the town of Gardner, Montana which is outside Yellowstone Park.
May 26th (Day One) - I got up pretty early and headed out with my camera for the some shots of animals in the park in early morning light. After getting back to camp and having breakfast we both headed out with cameras, bear spray, maps and hiking gear. We visited the highlights of the northeast corridor and did some hiking.
Animals we saw were Buffalo (they are everywhere), Black bear with cub, pronghorn (antelope), grizzly bear, and elk.
Day one lunch was at the Canyon Village restaurant....we arrived early (11:30) and it took over an hour to get seated and served.....but when we left there were many more people waiting. Lesson learned - pack a lunch to avoid losing time in the food lines.
We came rolling in late and tired after a long day of exploring the park.
May 27th (Day two) - We had a little maintenance issue with the water pump that I worked on and also had to refill the propane tank - heat is important here. After that, we headed out for our daily adventures around 9:00.
We focused on the Northwest corridor of the park and by 2:00 or so we had visited the Norris Geyser basin and hiked it (only two miles) and toured the Mammoth Hot Springs - the springs and the museum and had lunch. We then left the park on the north entrance road and had a look around the town of Gardner, Montana....beautiful setting and kinda touristy as you would expect. Once back in the park we discussed our next move over a well deserved ice cream.
We decided to head back to the north east entrance and head outside the park again (since we didn't have time the day before) and take a look at the Bear Tooth Highway that our neighbors Tom and Kay Lindgren told us about. Wow - this was a beautiful drive. It is a winding road with many switchbacks and it climbs to over 11,000 feet. There were some beautiful views on this ride. When Kathy wasn't busy snapping photos she was holding on white knuckled telling me to slow down. The higher we climbed on the beartooth, the thicker the snow was....at some points it was taller than our vehicle on both sides of the road where it had been plowed all winter. Temp at the top on 27 May was 36 degrees. We also saw a guy wind-skiing, like they do at the beach (wind surfing with a kite) only he was on snow with skiis. I told Kathy I'd be worried a gust of wind would drop me off a cliff.
That was a VERY long day with alot of driving....we arrived back at camp at nearing 8:00 starving to death but what a great day.
Oh, and after each day I get to work through the photos and hopefully come up with a few that might interest be of interest to those of you reading the blog.....assuming we have good enough internet connectivity to post them.
Some photos over the two days below:
Grand Canyon of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Grizzly
Bear Tooth Highway Panorama
Bear Tooth Lake
Bear tooth view
Norris Geyser Basin, Yellowstone
Elk at Mammoth Hot Springs Village
Yellowstone Stage Coach
Wind Skiing
Cold photographer
Yellowstone bull elk
Mammoth Hot Springs
Big Horn Sheep
Bison and babies
Mount Washburn view, Yellowstone
