Yellowstone Part 2 (Days 3 & 4)

Part 2! Once again, click to enlarge. :)

DAY 3:

While we were hiking a few short trails around the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone I saw this flier for the night skies programs. The last night we were going to be in Yellowstone there was a program in Norris Geyser basin's Porcelain Basin. Yes! Remember this because there aren't any pictures. :P

The morning of our third day we woke up and drove to Mammoth and out of the park to see the Roosevelt Arch that is just before the North Entrance to the park. J loves Teddy Roosevelt and here he is with his arch. :D

Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces. Super interesting and marvelous landscape.

After Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces we parked off a road somewhere just south of our campground and road our bikes along a gravel trail. We locked them to a bike rack and then hiked up a short unofficial trail near the Grand Prismatic Spring (remember that from the night before) to see it in the day time and from above. Look at the color!

From the unofficial Grand Prismatic Spring overlook J and I hiked back to our bikes and then continued to hike along the trail to Fairy Falls, seen here. Just past Fairy Falls is a back country geyser, Imperial Geyser. We decided to go for it...

Heading along the trail and the small Fairy Creek. Spray geyser was the first geyser we made it to - it was small and awesome. (No picture of Spray geyser.)

The landscape is so awe inspiring! it was cold out, and J decided to test the waters with his fingers. They didn't melt off so I did the same. The air was so chilly but the water was like bath water!

We finally made it to Imperial Geyser. This thing erupted like crazy and then would sit still. All the sudden it would start bubbling and spraying again. It did this every few minutes. We just stayed and watched it erupt a few times. It was probably my favorite geyser I saw! It was secluded because it was backcountry and there weren't many people on the trail. It also erupted almost continually so there was always a show or something to look forward to sooner rather than later.

The pool of Imperial Geyser. Look at how ridiculously clear that water it. You could see so deep!

We hiked back to the bikes and started our ride back to the car. Here you can see the gravel path (kind of freaks me out because we were on our road bikes, but I did fine!) Also: buffalo!

We went back to Old Faithful hotel for showers (again) and drinks. This is the closest I've ever come to "glamping" (glamor camping).

Refined (and not stinky!)

We decided we wanted to see the Old Faithful Snow Lodge that stays open in the winter. On our way to enter the building (which we figured out wasn't the actual lodge on our way out) we caught the leftover steam of an Old Faithful eruption.

View from inside the building. From here we headed to our night sky program. It was wonderful. Freezing cold and I wore all my layers, but still amazing. The moon was completely full and lit up the steam so beautifully. The best part was during a lull in the ranger's story when one of the geysers went off and surprised everyone just a little bit.

DAY 4:

I believe this picture was from the next morning. We woke up early to head out and beat the traffic.

On our way we caught a muted dawn. This is Lewis lake, and that is the reflection of the moon.

Another view of Lewis Lake and low clouds.

Lewis Lake and fog.

A panorama, because it's BEAUTIFUL!

This was just on the other side of the road from Lewis Falls. The whole landscape was just like our tent when we woke up: crispy with ice. (We just folded the ice coated tent as best we could and through it in plastic garbage bags. We took it out, dried it off, and folded it back up at home when it was thawed.

Yep, crazy, beautiful trip! It was totally worth it and I'm so glad we made it happen. July and August is a super popular time to go, which is why we waited until September and it was still relatively busy sans all the traffic jams we'd read happen in the warmer summer month.
The biggest traffic jam we saw was when we were headed towards Norris from Canyon Village and everyone and their brother was pulled over. We did the same. Off the road there was a grizzly, probably eating something, because he never even looked up. A ranger had a spotting scope and you could see him clear as day in it. Such a strange looking animal, but so cool! We did a good job with wildlife. Saw a lot of the little critters as well as pronghorn, coyotes, buffalo, moose, and bears. We did not see wolves, however, though we heard they were difficult to find. Maybe next time...

;)

-TJ

Yellowstone Part 1 (Days 1 & 2)

In September (I know, I know) J and I drove to Yellowstone National Park for three nights of camping and two full days of exploring (though we were able to fit in a lot of exploring on day 1 and saw some gorgeous ice-covered landscape on day 4 as we left early in the morning). I decided to do this mostly as a photo essay, as I think I was able to document all the big moments, activities we accomplished, and sights we saw, with a pictures. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND enlarging for detail. Part two will hopefully be published tomorrow when I can gather a few more pictures to fill in some blanks in our plans.


DAY 1:

On the first day J and I drove up from Colorado to Yellowstone. Not for the faint of heart, it is about a 10 hour drive. This was our view as we drove from the south through Grand Teton.

After entering the park from the south entrance we decided - instead of heading to our campsite - to head in the opposite direction and see Lake Yellowstone since we weren't sure where that would fit in and we also wanted to have drinks at the beautiful Lake Yellowstone Lake Hotel. Lake Yellowstone is huge.

Lake Yellowstone Hotel.

The grand sitting room area where we enjoyed our drinks. :)

After leaving Lake Yellowstone we could either partially retrace our drive and head to Madison taking the south portion of a large loop around the park or we could do the north loop (our campground was on the opposite end of where we were). Since we didn't have a reason the rest of our trip for us to drive the road between Lake Yellowstone and Canyon Village we opted to take the northern route. On our way we pulled over and J took a photograph of his first buffalo. We also saw pronghorn, coyote, buffalo, and a bear of some sort (we couldn't tell if it was a black bear or grizzly).

DAY 2:

We set up camp late just as the sun was setting and were up early the next morning to make the drive all the way to the Lamar Valley, where wildlife watching is great at dawn. We had to wake up at some ridiculous time like 4:45AM to make the drive out there, which we did in the dark. We saw a bear on the side of the road and didn't stop but now we wish we had. As dawn unfolded we saw lots of buffalo and moose (here is a moose with a baby!)

Lamar Valley.

The buffalo were so prevalent that a ranger actually came out and herded them off the road using the car and a giant speaker making buffalo noises.

So many buffalo!

Our next sight to see was the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, ridiculously huge, with several waterfalls and, my personal favorite, shear drops.

Downstream.

Upstream.

This is the same fall from as seen from the platform picture a few images above. You can see the platform to the right of the top of the falls.

The weather was cold and wet but we decided to carry on and see Norris Geyser basin. Home to a ton of geysers. Jeremy is excited about geysers. First up, a tour of the Back Basin.

The gray day, combined with all of the steam, made for a dazzling a chromatic landscape.

Looking out over the geysers. Right in the middle of this image is one of the pools it is bright, bright blue.

Another view looking our over the geysers.

Then we moved on the Porcelain Basin. Keep this view in mind, we would night hike here the next evening along the wooden paths as we went on an astronomy hike.

We then left Norris Geyser Basin to head past our campground and down to the Old Faithful Hotel where we heard that one could buy warm showers. After our cold, wet day we decided that was a splendid idea. But first we stopped at Artists' Paintpots along the way. More bubbling water and mud.

The weather took a new turn and it started snowing while we were at Old Faithful Hotel. You could see Old Faithful off the side of this deck (to the right of this photo). We actually saw a full eruption at this same time, but enjoyed the view and didn't take any pictures (although I don't know how well they would have come out with the white water and steam from the geyser blending with the snow and white sky.

On the way back up to Madison campground the sun was spectacularly setting. And then this gorgeous scene happened. J and another buffalo.

Classic Yellowstone.

As we were driving up the light was so unbelievable that even though we were warm, showered, and had changed into our Chacos, we still decided to make a run for it and see if we could view the Grand Prismatic Spring at dusk. It was worth the frostbite on our toes.

Sunset at the Grand Prismatic Spring.

Panorama.

The light was awesome.

The whole landscape looked like another planet.

More of the sun setting.

Oh yeah, and then as we went to leave the Grand Prismatic Spring we almost ran in to this guy!

Sunset along the road between our campground and Old Faithful.

After the early morning it was time to go to sleep. I think we slept for ten hours uninterrupted. It was a full and beautiful day. :)