Post 7 Yellowstone and Glacier

Sept 5-11

We made our way north through the rest of Grand Teton National Park. This road leads directly into Yellowstone. Along the way we stopped at some of the other sites in Grand Teton.

Mormon Row was a settlement of 30 Mormon families. It’s one of the few remaining cultural sites in the park. The park service is working to preserve the remaining houses and barns. Another site that is preserved and still seasonally active is the Chapel of the Transfiguration (built in 1925) in the Ferry Historic district. Originally, it was built to serve guests and employees of the Dude Ranches that were along the base of the Teton Range.

We also went off the main road on a scenic drive to see some of the glaciers left in the park.

On to Yellowstone!

Yellowstone…what can you say about Yellowstone except that it is other-worldly and HUGE!

There really are bison walking in the roads and a few of them showed up to greet us on our arrival.

We entered via the south entrance but our campsite was on the western side, near the north entrance, 70 miles away. With a 35-45 MPH speed limit it took us over an hour and a half to get there. When we got to the campground we realized that we were at the wrong place! OY!!! Back down the mountain 10 miles and finally checked in where we belonged.

Yellowstone has two loop roads, an upper and a lower with an east-west connector road in the middle. They are winding mountain roads that tested Anne’s fear of heights on a daily basis. The western side of Yellowstone is where almost all of the geothermic activity is.

We woke up early on our first day with plans to visit the Norris Geyser Basin, just south of our campground. The early bird gets the parking space. It was a cold, foggy morning and the combination of fog and the geyser steam made for some eerie scenes.

We learned a lot about the geology of Yellowstone while we were there. Most of the park is actually a volcano, very unusual for a volcano to be located away from where the earth’s tectonic plates collide (like the west coast or Japan). Also unusual is the size of the volcanic caldera- 50 miles by 35 miles. Inside this huge caldera the land has sunken and under the earth’s crust, sometimes as close as 5 miles below, is hot liquid magma. This is the heat source for the geysers and hot springs. Within the caldera is where almost all of the geothermal activity in the park is located. It was all fascinating.

When we finished at Norris, we took the connector road over to Canyon Village, the major hub for services and information in the park. We checked out the Visitor Center and filled the van with gas. Gas prices have been as low as $2.69, but at Yellowstone we sucked it up and paid $3.99.

We then drove directly to Old Faithful. Late in the afternoon, right on schedule, we watched her erupt and then back to our campsite for dinner and bed.

We woke the next morning to frost on the windshield. Brrrr…33 degrees. It was warm and toasty under our down comforter but not so easy getting out of bed.

This day we headed to the northeastern part of the park called the Lemar Valley. It’s less visited and known for the abundance of wildlife over there, including bears and wolves. It’s a beautiful valley with rolling hills. Herds of bison were enjoying the morning sun. We passed through Mammoth Springs on our way to the valley and saw elk grazing all over the village green. Our GuideAlong guide, who we named Guy, encouraged us to take a 7 mile gravel loop road that overlooks the valley. We followed his suggestion. At the top, we pulled over, made breakfast and took in the scene while we ate.

Back on the main road there was a group of people who had set up their chairs and scopes looking for wolves. When they spotted some, they were kind enough to let others look through their scopes to see them. Even with binoculars, they appear as tiny dots. Every time they spotted a pack, they would disappear behind the ridge before we got a chance to look through the scope! They’re there though, and active. It was great to see that they are thriving.

We spent a good amount of time watching an osprey nest with 3 juveniles still residing. They were in a perfect spot by the road just across a river.

We’d been roughing it for the past 5 days. There were no shower facilities in Grand Tetons nor in our campsite in Yellowstone. We hadn’t had a shower since we were in Casper. Word on the street was that for $5 you could get a shower at the hotel in Mammoth. And it was true! They even provided towels, soap and shampoo! Only hazard was the big bull elk sleeping next to the cabin by the shower house!

All clean and refreshed, we decided to tour the lower level of Mammoth Hot Springs before heading home for the night. Pictures don’t do justice to anything in this park, especially the Mammoth Springs.

Our last day started with a freezing cold morning again. Up early to get a parking space at the Grand Prismatic Spring. That’s the one you may have seen with all the beautiful colors. Because the air temps were so cold, the steam coming off the spring was so thick it was hard to see the colors from ground level. We drove up the road a bit and hiked to the Grand Prismatic overlook. You could see the colors much better from above, but the steam was still pretty thick.

From there, we decided to complete the lower loop road along Yellowstone Lake and ended at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. This is a large canyon carved by the Yellowstone River with two beautiful waterfalls. One of these is at Inspiration Point and is the subject of many paintings. We took a hike along the rim to get a better sense of the grandness of this canyon.

The weather gods continue to shine on us. Today was overcast with occasional rain, but only when we were driving from one site to another. Once we arrived to tour a site or take a hike, the sun came out. Blessed Be.

Although we focused on major sites in the park, all along the road there are smaller geysers, waterfalls and mud volcanos to stop and look at.

As we left the park the next day, we finished our exploration of the upper level of Mammoth Hot Spring and exited Yellowstone through the Roosevelt Arch. That was impressive!

Next, we had a hotel stop in Helena before continuing on to Glacier. We took the opportunity to get an oil change, do some laundry, food shop and send some things home that we are not using and are taking up precious space in the van. Dinner out at the local brewery and completing some reservations for the end of next week completed our time in Helena.

Glacier National Park, created in 1910, was our next stop. We rolled in a little late just in time to get ourselves settled and make dinner. It was much warmer here than in Yellowstone. Overnight temps were in the 50’s.

The next morning, we hopped on a red bus tour of the Going to the Sun Road. It’s the only road in the park that completely crosses it from west to east. Our tour went halfway and then turned around. We are staying on the east side which is much less travelled than the west. In Anne’s opinion, this road is terrifying! Just enough room for two cars and shear drop off. The road is literally built into the side of a cliff. She’s glad we had the professional driver at the wheel! The views were amazing, though.

After our return, we had an ice cream lunch, made a stop at the Glacier visitor center and did a 3 mile hike to a beaver pond. Yay! There were beavers there! An evening ranger talk completed our first day.

The next morning, we got up early to travel south to the section of the park called Two Medicine. We took a boat ride around Two Medicine Lake. When we returned to the dock, we were lucky enough to see, through our binoculars, a black bear and 3 grizzly bears up on the hillside next to the lake.

Back in the early 1900’s, Glacier and other national parks worked hard to promote tourism to the rich people back east. The railroad company provided rail service to Glacier and to make the deal even sweeter, built 8 beautiful, huge lodges and chalets. Only a few of them survive. The café in Two Medicine is the dining hall that accompanied the chalet there. We traveled further south to East Glacier where the original Lodge still stands across from the Amtrak station. It is still in full operation. You can get a sense of the size of the logs in the picture with Cindy standing next to one. Some of the logs need to be replaced this year at a cost of $80,000/log! Yikes! The lodge is magnificent, as are the gardens and grounds.

We were on a mission to find the local delicacy- huckleberry bear paws. Huckleberries are similar to blueberries but need very specific growing conditions, so they are difficult to cultivate. They are all harvested from the wild. We succeeded in our quest in a small bakery/general store, the only business at an intersection in the middle of nowhere.