Yellowstone National Park

While Yosemite was the first land set aside in the world as a protected area, Yellowstone was the first to be named a National Park. The park was created in 1872 and consists of 2,221,766 acres of mountains, rivers, and lakes, and is a hotbed of geo-thermal activity. The park is also a gigantic area for wildlife to roam freely and elk, moose, bison and bears are in abundance. In a park so enormous it comes as no surprise that driving is an important way to view the main areas and no matter how hard you try, you will always come away feeling that there is much more to see.

We drove in through the southern entrance from Grand Teton and our first intended stop was Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin. Little did we realize that this was 40 miles from the entrance! We drove past Lewis Lake, one of the first vantage points as you enter from the south. Looking at the map the lake was quite small but as we drove around the waters edge we realized this was big – an indication of what was to come. Along the way we crossed the continental divide three times. The divide is not a visible marker but simply a geographical line where on one side all water flows towards the pacific and on the other to the Atlantic. Despite the fact that Yellowstone is much closer to the Pacific Ocean, most of it's waterways drain to the Atlantic, meaning that the water always flowed the opposite to our expectations.

We reached the Old Faithful parking lot in good time and we had a relatively short wait to the next eruption of Old Faithful in the flesh. Old Faithful is not named because it is easy to predict, rather for the steadiness of the water flow as it erupts. The geyser is constantly emitting steam and frequently “burps” some water to tease you into thinking it's about to erupt. When it finally does, water gushes straight up about 150 ft in the air. This lasts for at least 10 minutes and is accompanied with oohs and aahs from the large crowd gathered to see it in action.

Old Faithful is only one of many geysers and hot springs in this area. In fact, the Upper Geyser Basin contains the world's greatest concentration of geysers. We set off on a long walk around the area viewing Grand Geyser, Castle Geyser, Grotto Geyser and many more. Our favorites on our walk were Morning Glory Pool and Riverside Geyser, which we were lucky enough to see erupt.

 

Having inhaled as much sulfur as we could handle on our first afternoon we set off to our campsite to pitch the tent and settle in at the campfire. Along the way we hit one of the frequent traffic jams in the park – this one caused by a solitary Elk grazing along the roadside in the evening light. This was to be the first of many encounters with the wildlife at Yellowstone. Our next was as we sat by our campfire in the moonlight - a pack of howling wolves or coyotes were making their presence known not far away.

The next day we set off towards the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and the Yellowstone Lake area, a mere 110 mile round trip. Our first stop was Fountain Paint Pot Drive, an active area of hot springs and other geo-thermal features that seems to be constantly smoking. The "Paint Pot" is simply a cauldron of hot reddish-pinkish mud which bloops and spits at random.

After so much driving we were keen to do some exercise so at the Canyon we decided to do “Uncle Tom's Trail” which quickly drops 500 ft over 300 steps and some steep inclines to a vantage point about 3/4 of the way to the bottom of the canyon. From here you get spectacular views of the Upper Falls. Needless to say the way back up was not as easy as the descent.  ;)

Having briefly explored the canyon area we continued our tour through the valleys, woods, and along the river banks trying to spot some wildlife. We did manage to see a grizzly bear run across the road about 100 meters in front of us and of course stopped to see if we would be lucky enough to get a closer view and a photo. He was too quick though and safely eluded us.

Yellowstone Lake is North America's largest mountain lake. It is 20 miles long, 14 miles wide and 430 ft deep. As you can imagine, driving around it does take time but there are plenty of spots with spectacular views where you can take a picnic.

Another geo-thermal hotspot in Yellowstone is the Mammoth Springs area in the north of the park. This area has dozens of steaming terraces in all sorts of colors. The terraces are made from mineral deposits left behind as the water from the hot springs cools and trickles away. These formations were different from those we had seen in other areas of the park but equally amazing.

During our visit to Yellowstone we were lucky enough to see Elk, White-Tailed Deer, a lone coyote cross the road in front of us, the above-mentioned brief glimpse of a grizzly bear, and a wonderful encounter with a herd of bison. The bison encounter was so fantastic it will get a post of it's own soon.

Yellowstone was our last scheduled National Park. From northern Wyoming we need to head toward Indiana for our last days in the US before the next leg of our adventure.

- Nick and Jo