We arrived in Yellowstone around dinner time via the West entrance. There were some severe storms earlier in the summer that temporarily closed the entire park. They were very similar to the storm BC got last fall where snowpack and rain combined for flash flooding that took out roads in a way that could take years to fully recover from. By the time we arrived, the north entrances were still closed. It didn't impact our trip too much though it would have if we had come when we originally planned as we had wanted to go back via Glacier National Park which was to the north. We'll have to do that trip some other time.
The hotel we chose had quite a story before we even arrived. We had booked late so we paid a lot more than we ordinarily would but because it was only a couple nights and we felt it made more sense to stay in the park, we bit the bullet and paid more. When we postponed our trip and rebooked, the new nights were a lot cheaper. After about a week of hard work Barb managed to convince Hotels.com to refund us $624.57. We ran into a bit of trouble when we arrived because Hotels.com hadn't paid the hotel yet but that later got sorted out. We're glad we picked this hotel. It's conveniently located and only a few years old.
We were out the door by 6:30a. We're glad we left early because it meant the first few sites were pretty empty and we only had a day to take in as many sites as we could. We started on the South Loop and went to the Upper Falls. We missed the 'Grand Canyon of Yellowstone' but the falls were pretty spectacular. The amount of water going over meant it was very loud. There were steps that took you down to a location just over the falls. It was at this point we realized what an elevation of 8,000 feet meant. It was noticeably difficult to get enough air so we decided we would take it easier on any hikes for the day.
Our next destination was Hayden Valley where we were told it was a good location to see the bison. We were not disappointed. We started off with a single lone bison and thought that might be all we would find. We then accidentally saw a second when we were looking out the window on one side of the road. The car we were looking at to try to see what they were looking at pointed to the other side of the road. Just a short way up the hill was a bison waking up from his overnight sleep location. He had a quick dust bath before starting to walk up the hill where we soon found dozens more.
We tried not to be the stupid tourists that get gored by a bison however it was admittedly difficult. We finished watching the first set of bison and then headed to Mud Volcano where we got out of the car and took a walk on the boardwalk to see some of the mud springs. It was at this point that several dozen bison started to move towards our vehicle. One looked like he was interested in challenging it for Yellowstone dominance. I felt it was safe enough for me to walk to the car and drive it to the other side of the parking lot. Callie insisted that only one of Kerry and I be near the bison at once.
Our next destination was Yellowhead Lake which is quite large. We only saw a tiny portion of it. We did see a marina so you can probably charter a boat and see areas of the park you can't see by car. Even though we only did our trip in a day we felt you would need at least three to do it justice and you could probably spend a week if not more especially if you decided to do any day hikes. While we were walking the boardwalk I saw Kerry start to approach someone. She always find a way to find someone she knows almost everywhere we go. This time was different however because she found someone who had Surrey on their shirt. Her hunch was right and it was Surrey, BC.
You can't go to Yellowstone without seeing Old Faithful. It's the one attraction everyone knows about even if they don't know where it is. We weren't exactly sure when it would blow even though it was faithful, mainly because there were many conflicting signs in the park about when the next eruption would be. In the end, the one near the geyser itself was the most accurate. It predicted 11:33 and it happened about 11:30. It was fun to be able to watch it but even as we were waiting, another one behind it went off for much longer and was much higher. It was also fun being one of about 1,000 people sitting and waiting.
After Old Faithful it was lunch time so we went to one of the restaurants to get food. The park seems to not be at full capacity and although there is plenty of food, it wasn't exactly good food. Most places were just trying to make as much food as quickly as they can with as few staff as possible. The line up after the eruption was fairly long but once we ordered our food it was ready in about 30 seconds, implying they did not exactly cook it to order. Lunch was still fun though as a local raven joined us. I know there is no feeding wildlife, but these guys were there for a reason.
We had almost seen all of the must see destinations that we knew about but there was one more remaining. Grand Prismatic Spring is one of the first pictures that comes up when you look up Yellowstone and we got to what we thought was the parking lot. It seemed like quite a walk to get there and we got a bit confused when we realized there was no way for us to get to the boardwalk from where we were. Turns out we were in the best location after all. It wasn't the right parking lot but where we were allowed us to hike up a hill and see the spring from above. It was absolutely one of the prettiest nature sites I've seen.
We were about to finish up the South Loop when we had a decision to make. Either head back to our hotel, continue on to the North Loop or go check out West Yellowstone which is just outside the park and had all the touristy places to shop. Callie hadn't eaten lunch so we decided to head to the town to see what we could find. It was a good thing we went because Carter was able to check something off his list. He wanted to see Yogi Bear. I guess Jellystone and Yellowstone really are two different locations because Yogi was nowhere to be found inside the park but we did find Yogi's Waffle House that was good enough for Carter.
We decided we had enough time after West Yellowstone to try to do the North Loop. We didn't have time to stop at many locations but we could at least drive it. One of the places we did stop was the Mammoth Terraces. This is a spring on the side of a hill that sends water downhill and as a result there are a number of terraced pools. This is the type of formation that creates Travertine. There was a boardwalk taking you up the hill and through the pools. We almost missed the best part as we considered turning around but saw a number of people up higher. We made sure to tell people it was worth it to continue up the stairs.
After the springs we headed to Mammoth Springs. It appears to be a small town within the park but I think it's where the workers must live. It didn't seem like your typical town. Unfortunately it appeared to be mostly closed. Since it's on the north end and those entrances are closed, I think they chose to keep this portion at a low staffing level. At one point Kerry thought she saw a statue of an Elk but as we got closer, it moved its head. We soon found a couple dozen of his friends. We had briefly glanced at some Elk early in the day but was good to really see some up close. Still watching for moose and wolves.
The last item we had marked on our map was the Petrified Tree. It was starting to get close to dinner time and it had been a very long day but it was off the highway and you could drive to it so we decided to check it out. As we approached the parking lot we could see the tree on the hill. It's a very interesting rock but we quickly decided it was not worth getting out of the car for. We can look up online what its story is. We took a quick picture from the road and headed back to our hotel.
We arrived back at our hotel around 7:00p and left early the next morning. We had originally planned to break up our trip home however Kerry and I had to get back to work so we had to drive all the way from Yellowstone to Oliver in a day which took about 14 hours. On our way home we got trapped by billboards advertising a 50,000 Silver dollar collection. It was not what we expected. People could buy a dollar and add it to their wall of dollars. I was expecting something interesting with an actual collection of silver dollars and although there were a few real ones purchase it was really just a big gift shop.
We had a great time with our two night stay at Yellowstone but hopefully we can come back some time in the future and stay longer.
