Yellowstone National Park

Old Faithful
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I got to Yellowstone National Park just in time, as all of the services close after this weekend. The drive south through Montana was just as impressive as the other states Ive seen so far. As you get closer to the park, its so breathtaking that you wonder what the park looks like. Unfortunately, there was a huge wildfire in Yellowstone in 1988 that burned almost half of the park, so there are a lot of dead trees and burned areas throughout the landscape.

I was so tired when I got to the park that I only stopped a few times to take pictures of buffalo on the way to look for somewhere to sleep. I stayed at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, which I think was the only place open in the park.

Wild Encounters

Excelsior Geyser
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Old Faithful is really incredible, since you can basically predict when it will erupt, which is currently every 92 minutes. Apparently the cycle is getting longer, due to small earthquakes in the area that affect the underground plumbing. It was fun just waiting for impending thermal activity and talking to the other visitors at the park. I met a Canadian camera crew that was making a book about all the national parks in North America. They were at the end of two weeks in Yellowstone. I was so jealous of their job, but they reassured me that the pay sucks. Even so, the company pays for your travel, food and lodging, and they get to use all these incredible cameras, so they couldnt complain. They bought me drinks on the companys tab at the hotel bar, which made for a pretty interesting evening.

Prism Rock
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The next morning I headed out to explore more of the park. There are geysers everywhere! It was pretty cold, and I dont have a hat that offers any warmth, not to mention gloves, so the steam coming from all the geysers and hot springs was much appreciated.

There are also buffalo all over the place, which means, of course, that there are buffalo droppings all over the place. Most are dried up, but you had to be careful where you stepped.

I pulled off to take some pictures of a herd of bison. Unfortunately I parked right next to some dumpsters, which I didnt realize until I looked up from fidgeting with my camera and saw a bear next to one, looking at me and my car. When the bear took a step toward me, I jumped back in my car and was 0 to 60 fast enough to run away in terror. I then remembered that the speed limit was 45 and slowed down after the adrenaline subsided. I wish I had some bear spray so I would have at least had enough courage to snap a picture or two.

Yellowstone Falls, from Artist's Point
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Later I was hiking through a forest area, when I turned a corner and came within about a foot of a buffalo. He was a lone, and looked about as scared as I felt. I immediately executed an about face and walked, then ran, all the way back to the car. Its about time that all those hours of ROTC drilling became useful. After my second wildlife encounter, I was done hiking.

Next I checked out the Yellowstone River and Canyon. The falls are incredible. The entire area is really spectacular. I spent an hour just exploring the canyon and river area. When it started snowing, I decided it was time to leave Yellowstone.

Yellowstone Canyon
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They were doing road work on the east side of the park, so you had to follow a pilot car through 15 miles of unpaved road right on the edge of a cliff. It was the beginning of a very harrowing 100 miles or so.

At the end of Yellowstone National Park, you enter the Shoshone National Forest, which is just as beautiful as Yellowstone, but with more trees and, I found out, more bison. I was driving, maybe a little too fast, when I almost hit one that was standing in the middle of the road, staring down the car in the opposite lane. A few miles later, as I turned a curve, I saw a buffalo with what I considered a wicked grin about to run across the road. Instead of crossing the road, however, the buffalo was trapped by the roads guardrail, and I realized that the grin was maybe a look of pain. I got through the rest of the park with only one more near-accident with a buffalo, and this after I had slowed down considerably.

White Dome Geyser
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After Shoshone, I drove through lots of different landscapes in Wyoming. First it was huge mountains, then a nice valley, called the Buffalo Bill recreation area, then an area that looked like the moon but had the distinct smell of sulfur. It seemed as untouched by humans as the moon, with the exception of the oil wells spotting the hills.

I was pretty tired, but trying to make it as far east as possible before 9 pm, when most hotel offices close. I decided to keep going through the Bighorn National Forest, which was yet another spectacular area in Wyoming. Throughout the park are little signs labeling the types of rocks that you pass, all of which are at least hundreds of millions of years old. I didnt see any bighorn sheep, but frankly I was little tired of seeing wild animals and didnt feel let down at all.

The Eastern side of the park. Rocky Mountains and Mary Lake
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The roads are twisty throughout the forest, climbing up and down mountains. It was on an uphill portion where I found out my car has a low gas light. It flickered on and off for the next fifty miles, which was quite stressful. I tried not using any gas on the downhill parts. My impatience got the better of me, however, and I floored the gas when trying to pass what seemed like a caravan of Pepsi trucks that was very slowly making its way through the park. Luckily, the last 20 miles or so of the area was entirely downhill, so I safely made it to a gas station and a place to stop for the night.