Yellowstone Natl. Park
Trip Start
Nov 19, 2007
1
94
165
Trip End
Ongoing
Loading Map
Fishing bridge,,
Wyoming,
United States
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
On our way to Yellowstone National Park, we stopped in West Yellowstone, Montana to check out the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center. The center features wolves and grizzly bears that have been "bad" in the world of humans and have therefore wound up incarcerated in large outdoor areas. Rather than just a zoo type atmosphere, the center has numerous exhibits to educate the visitor about bears and wolves. We took about an hour to walk through, but we could have spent all day if we had'nt been so anxious to get into the park.
We arrived at the west entrance of the park and drove 55 miles to our campground. This park is enormous..... 2,200,000 acres. It has over 1,000 miles of hiking trails and hundreds of miles of roads that get you close to thousands of the thermal features, including geisers, mud pots, paint pots, steam vents and boiling springs. We encountered herds of bison (buffalo), some of which were causing traffic jams, elk, deer, coyote, bald eagles, osprey and hawks all before we reached our campsite. We were stopping and getting out of the RV every 10 minutes or so. It took us 8 hours to drive the 55 miles.
Since the park is so spread out and the speed limit is between 25 and 45 mph, we were trying to figure out how to "see it all" in 7 days (not a chance, as we learned). We bought a driving tour guide CD from one of the many visitor's centers and used that as our main guide. We also called our friend QT, a/k/a Lynn Martin, from NY and asked her advice since she lived outside of the park for many years.
note from Jodie: I also have an equal number of pics with Andy in them! Just want to say how my friend Raymond so succinctly put it, "Anyone going to Yellowstone is putting themselves into an active volcanic caldera. One must be crazy!". This is true and yet millions of us cannot stay away. Standing in the Caldera area of Yellowstone's 2.2 million acres, with geisers and hot springs EVERYWHERE really lets you know you are actually standing in an active volcano. Extraordinary. Foolish but amazing.
Rather than spending hours trying to describe all of the stops and hikes and occasional opportunities to do some biking, we included hundreds of pictures taken over the 7 days we spent busy trying to get it all in.
Comments
Amazing
I must say, that is one of the most amazing places. Magnificent Thank you for sharing them and your experience. There is one sunset photo with the deep red which is particularly unusual and beautiful. If you ever live in a real house again you should frame it. By the way, I ran into someone yesterday who must have been from Yellowstone as they called me an old geyser.