Shooting geysers, bubbling and boiling springs, gurgling mud-pots, deep blue pools ringed in yellows and oranges. Weare onto Yellowstone National Park! We are sad to leave Grand Teton; we could have stayed there much longer, but it’s time to go to the park next door. We got a small taste of Yellowstone and its stunning beauty when we drove through on our way from Cody to Grand Teton but now we are here for our official visit! Yellowstone is on top on an active super volcano which is responsible for its spectacular hydrothermal features, including 60% of the world’s geysers.
It is a short hour and a half drive from Grand Teton’s Colter Bay Village to Yellowstone’s Madison Campground. We pass wildflowers, forest and dramatic canyons on our drive. We pass the sign for the Continental Divide. We see water shooting from geysers off in the distance. And as we pull into Madison Campground, we see a wolf disappear into the woods! We take this as a promising sign for our four day/five-night visit.
Our campsite in Madison campground is a pull-through with no hook-ups, making it easy to park. Our water tank is full so we are ready for five nights of dry camping – our longest stretch yet! We think at this stop we may have to break out the generators (we pair two Honda 2200’s to power our Airstream) because we don’t want to over-tax the battery or have it run out. Our spot is sunny, which is good for our solar panels, and the spots are spacious so although we can see other campers there is no one right on top of us.
After settling in, we drive over to the Old Faithful Visitor Center. It takes us a few minutes to figure out where to go since there are so many buildings (hotels, restaurants and general stores) all in the Old Faithful area. We finally identify the Visitor Center and go in. It’s packed with people. July in Yellowstone. We stand in line for Elle’s Junior ranger book – there is a $3 fee. This is the only time we ve had to pay, but the park gets so many requests for them they have to charge. We happily fork over the money as it’s going to a good cause. We stamp the passport book and then watch the park film. We always like to walk the film to get a feel for the park.
We look at the clock – Old Faithful is expected to go off in ten minutes (it goes off about every 90 minutes) so we walk out behind the visitor center to watch the show. And within a minute of its predicted time, Old Faithful gurgles and blurps a bit and then sends a fountain shooting up into the air for the next three minutes. Impressive.
We grab burgers at the grill, Kaye manages to dump her salmon burger into her lap! We hope we don’t end up with a family of bears following us home!
We stop to see the Fountain Paint Pots on the way back to our campground. There is a half mile board walk trail that takes us past colorful gurgling and burbling pots, some turquoise, some orange and some crusty white and we are treated to two different geyser displays on the boardwalk loop. At 7 pm there are only a few other people out with us.
The next morning, we are out the door by 7:45 am and as we leave the campground we see an elk standing at the entrance of the campground. We love this place. We drive over to the Mammoth Hot Springs area. There is a 9:00 am Mammoth Hot Springs ranger walk and we manage to get there just in time. Driving takes time in the park (even if you don’t hit an animal-induced traffic jam). Mammoth Springs was stunning and after that we continued on the loop around the park.
We see the “45th parallel” sign designating we are halfway between the north pole and the equator. We see buffalo. We see lots of colorful wildflowers.
We stop at the Petrified Tree before landing at Roosevelt Lodge Dining Room for lunch. The lodge is rustic with an upscale cabin feel and a long front porch filled with old fashioned wooden rocking chairs. The food is much better here than at the grill the night before.
We continue our drive, stopping at Tower Falls and the very impressive Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, a deep gash with a faraway blue river snaking across the bottom. By 4pm we are exhausted and return to the Airstream for an early dinner and early to bed evening.
The next day is the day of visiting the geysers and mud pots between Madison Campground and the Old Faithful Area. In the morning we visit Firehole Falls on Firehole Canyon Drive and the various geysers on Firehole Lake Drive.
Before 9 am there are only a few people on the road and we can really enjoy the park. We continue on stopping at the various stops, walking the boardwalks. We fall in love with the brilliant colors of the Grand Prismatic.
By 10:30 the crowds are out, tour buses, families, couples… everyone and it becomes much less enjoyable. The parking lots are full and long lines of cars are parked on the sides of the road. By 11am we are back at the Old Faithful parking lot (where there is huge amounts of parking), where we see another showing of Old Faithful and walk the Upper Basin Loop (4.5 miles) which is less crowded as it’s much longer than the other boardwalks trails, which tend to be a half mile or so.
We return to the campground and unwind for the afternoon – the park is simply too crowded. This is our strategy: sightsee in the morning and evening, relax in the afternoons to avoid the crowds. Our campground is quiet and peaceful – no one is there. We have an early dinner in the Airstream and venture back out. We drive back to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, where we had only briefly stopped the afternoon before. With everyone at dinner, there is now plenty of parking and no crowds. We park and hike the Brink of the Lower Falls Trail, down, down, down to… the brink of the Lower Falls. As we start down we hear a low roll of thunder in the distance… we debate if we should give up the hike or go fast… we opt for go fast. Not really an issue going down the twelve steep switchbacks but quite the cardio workout coming back up.
When we get back up to the trailhead the wind is whipping up like it is really going to storm… we keep an eye on it as we wander along the edge of the canyon but the storm never comes so we take some more photos before returning to the Airstream for the night.
Our third full day in the park we kick off with a 5-mile hike to Fairy Falls. We hiked up to the Grand Prismatic Overlook first and then on to the falls. We are on the trail by 8 am and there are only a few other hikers, so we are happy to have our bear spray with us. And, of course, we see no bears, but that is fine with us Fairy Falls is a tall narrow waterfall spilling over the cliff – beautiful. We enjoy our morning snack in view of the falls. DT yells at an aggressive chipmunk that leaps onto his backpack, most likely looking for food. As we hike back, there are many more people on the trail. We are quite happy we got an early start.
After our hike we stop at the Old Faithful Visitor Center for Elle to submit her junior ranger book and earn her badge and we decide to return to the campground for another relaxing afternoon and avoidance of the crowds. Driving back we notice a large number of cars pulled over on the side of the road. This means one thing – an animal sigting. We pull over and park. Moose! Our first real moose sighting, as we don’t really count the extremely distant sighting we had in Grand Teton.
Then, fifteen minutes later, another pack of cars pulled over on the side of the road. Buffalo, right on the side of the road, grazing. And for cars going the opposite direction of us, an enormous traffic jam. People going the other direction have at least a half hour wait. We snap a quick photo and move on – we saw so many buffalo in Teddy Roosevelt National Park that we don’t feel the need to linger. We return to the campground for lunch and a quick dip in the Gibbon River – which is quite cold. Elle submerges herself in the icy water but the adults simple wade. It’s cold! A fun afternoon.
We go to the Lake Yellowstone Hotel for dinner. As we leave the campground it begins to rain, hard. We were planning on stopping at the West Thumb Geyser Basin before dinner but the rain does not appear to be letting up. As we reach the parking lot it begins to hail! No seeing the West Thumb Geyser Basin. We hope the hail does not damage the truck! Thankfully, it stops after about two minutes. We continue on to the Lake Yellowstone Hotel. As we arrive the rain stops. The Lake Yellowstone Hotel is a grand, sprawling, old-fashioned hotel that sits on the edge of Lake Yellowstone. Built in 1891, it’s the oldest hotel in the park. The inside is recently renovated and feels fresh and clean. The dining room has views of Lake Yellowstone but the rain has fogged everything up so no views for us. We enjoy dinner and then since it’s still light out, we decide to see a little more of the park. We walk the mile of boardwalks around the Mud Volcano area. Lots of smelly gurgling mud. Then we drive through the Hayden Valley with hopes of seeing some wildlife as it’s dusk. We see some elk and buffalo. Not bad for one evening.
Our final day in Yellowstone, we are out the door before 7am. Our plan is to return to our favorite spot – the Grand Prismatic and get some photos and have it to ourselves. Unfortunately, fog has rolled into the valley and obscured the colors of the Grand Prismatic. So much for that. We visit some of the other geyser basins that we had missed and had a late pancake breakfast at the Old Faithful Basin Store. We learn that this is one of the oldest building in the park. It’s fun to eat at the counter – it has an old-fashioned soda fountain feel.
Again, we decide to spend the afternoon in the campground to avoid the crowds. On the drive back to the campground we see cars all pulled over on the side of the road – ANIMAL SITING. We jump out! It’s two distant grizzly bears, only black dots, until you use the binoculars. Fortunately, we had them in the car.
Our last evening, we drive out around the park. We drive out towards the Norris Geyser Basin but it starts to rain so we decide to return to the campground. We are getting geysered out. As we are driving along, we see a large buffalo strolling along the side of the road. It is so close! We slow down so we don’t scare the poor thing and Kay snaps a quick photo as we go by. A fitting goodbye for our visit. It really starts to pour as we drive back and we spend our last night in Yellowstone sleeping to the sound of rain drumming on the Airstream’s roof.
