We decided to take another shot at the sunrise photo shoot this morning! After a few taps of the old snooze button, we got up, grabbed some coffee, the bear spray, and warm coats, and we stepped out in to the chilly, still, pre-dawn morning. Diesel trucks do not heat up very quickly, so Ann’s seat heater was immediately jammed all the way to the max position, while Ben ran the heat on high to get the frost off of the windshield. The days have been very pleasant here and we are very fortunate, but the overnight and this early morning cold stuff is absolutely BS!
We headed out in to the park for the 25 minute drive to Antelope Flats and Mormon Row, as always, alert for wildlife that may be up and about.
This is a good time to pause and to raise a point of concern that has bothered us all of this last few days.
Honestly, we are frustrated with lack of wildlife around here. We spent the last few months getting mentally psyched up for all of the wildlife we would be surely encountering up here. We were loaded up with bear spray, we have practiced self defense “tall/big” postures to appear as large as possible when facing predators, and we were honestly excited to have an opportunity to see bear with young cubs (at a distance) or moose wandering the side of a serene lake, or even elk, wolves, polecats, whatever, just give us some nature man!
Not sure what the heck kind of a show they are running around here, but all we have seen are ravens, cows, horses, one great blue heron (lost?) and a few caribou that are on the sauce, running down the road all wonky, unable to make a decision. Even the bison or buffalo herds were so far away on the horizon that they may very well have been cows.
So, while still on the miffed side, we were somewhat mollified when we did see a couple of caribou on the way to our photo spot, including crazy aunt Gertrude above and this majestic fuzzy horned buck below. Fun fact, caribou are the same thing as reindeer. We still want to see some bears and moose though!
We got to Mormon Row in time to get set up by the T.A. Moulton barn for the light to brighten and hit the face of the barn as well as the mountains just behind it. By getting set up, I mean Ann waited in the truck that was now nice and warm, and Ben wandered over to where all of the other people were standing around waiting. Many had their professional gear all on tripods and others had expensive DSLR’s in hand with an array of filters mounted and ready, but most of us just had iPhones, which, let’s be honest, have gotten pretty darn good at being cameras.
Once we snagged the barn photo, we headed back to the camper to get ready to pack up and head out.
Destination, Yellowstone National Park!
Another neat thing about this particular area, Yellowstone is due north of Grand Teton, so it was just a right turn in to Grand Teton, and a drive up the beautiful Jackson Hole valley and up to the continental divide again and back down. It was a beautiful, slowish drive all the way up and before you know it, we crossed in to Yellowstone!
We decided to stop at the West Thumb Geyser Basin and check ‘em out!
We parked the airstream in the last open RV spot in the parking lot, hopped out of the truck, and almost immediately nearly bumped a big mama elk, just grazing right there at the edge of the blacktop. The rangers were doing their best to close off walkways and keep the dumb tourists way from the big ole elk, but most of the tourists outsmarted the ranger by foolishly ignoring him and just walking in to get a pic. Dummies.
Here is my pic.
After the elk excitement passed by a few seconds later, we walked down toward the boardwalks built to contain visitors while also guiding them around and through the area, which had many natural hot springs, geysers, and thermal vents, burping jets of steam, water, or just bubbling and simmering along. We hung out in one to warm up a bit but now we just smelled a bit farty and we were warmer but also a bit moist-er, so we took one last glance around the area, saw this it was more of the same everywhere and decided that we were good.
So we left.
Next stop, Old Faithful, which was on the way to our campground in West Yellowstone, just outside of the west entrance to the park.
We pulled in to the massive parking lot area, which had a large section at the back for RV’s and busses, imagine that. Yellowstone gets between 4 – 5 million visitors per year, and most of them stop to see Old Faithful. Figure the park is only accessible half the year, and that’s nearly 30,000 people per day. The place was built for volume.
We parked the airstream just a few spots down from another airstreamer who was also just pulling in, and no sooner did we say hello to them, another one pulled in beside us both. One was a retired couple from Vermont who were full time in their 25’ camper with their two large dogs. I don’t think they ever stopped smiling the whole time we were talking to them. The other was a young couple from Omaha with three or maybe four young girls, all jammed in to a 27’ trailer like ours. They looked happy but exhausted, and we couldn’t blame them!
After leaving off from our new friends that we would never see again, we headed toward the obvious center of the park and the star of the show, Old Faithful!
We traversed wide wide wide sidewalks coming from all directions and all angling toward the bround semi-circle ring of three rows of hard, low seats all arranged around a pile of dirt and rock 100 feet away with a little steam farting out of it steadily.
We paused and stood behind the last row of low seats, as every single seat in the semi circle was taken. Just as many people stood behind these seated folks, with at least 500-600 people arranged around the farting dirt pile. Maybe closer to 1000.
We stood there for maybe two minutes before Ben kind of looked around a bit, took a deep breath and leaned over to me and said, “This is kinda cool, but it mostly sucks, let’s go check out the timber lodge.” And I just started laughing and said “I knew you wouldn’t make it long” and so we wandered around the semi circle towards the edge closest to the lodge. Just as we were slowly backing away from the steaming steamer, it did its eruption thing. The crowd loved it, and we’ll admit, it was pretty neat. Water and steam billowed out and kept squirting higher while steam billowed out in a fan behind it and drifted downwind. Would be really neat to see in the middle of winter, where it would really make a big cloud!
But it just kept going and going, so we decided to beat the rush and we turned around and headed over to the lodge, the largest log structure in the world. It was four floors of awesome rough logs and timbers and it was really well done and very cool. We checked it out for a bit, then swam upstream against the incoming flood of of our fellow Old Faithful observers that we had recently left behind, to exit near the boardwalk leading to a few other geysers. We decided to take a stroll out to see them since we were in the middle of Old Faithful land already.
The boardwalks built by the park service really are top notch. We are talking well anchored, solid 3×10 planks of mostly pine, that are built to withstand a lot of shuffling people. And it was doing its job today. The boardwalks were crammed with tourists, again, just like us, pointing cameras at bubbling and farting water, elbowing each other for either good views or to nudge you out of the way so they can go to the next view, or wrangling tired or rambunctious kids, who have probably been trapped in a bus or a car or a minivan for the last week and have energy to burn, all moving in opposite directions while also trying the get a look at the many thermal features along the boardwalk and railing.
It was nuts.
We decided to get the heck out of there, so we quickly adjourned to the rapidly filling parking lot, where we had a quick lunch in the airstream and then headed to our campsite, about an hour away to the west.
As we departed the Old Faithful area, we passed through many more geyser areas.
I don’t want to be irreverent when it comes to our national parks. Believe me, this is such a unique part of the park, with its geothermal vents and bubbling springs, but I mean, it looks like the inside of a water heater. Kind of chalky, calcium-y, stained, dripping, inhospitable, and smelly.
It doesn’t all have to be tall pine trees and deep ravines with winding rivers and creeks, all watched over sternly by craggy mountaintops, but at the same time, we can appreciate the unique geothermal landscape by leaving it alone to let it fart out its pressure in peace and quiet, not with 30,000 people standing around and oohing and ahhing.
To each their own. For us, we amended our plans for Yellowstone and rather than planning hikes through the geyser basins, we are going to focus on the wildlife in Lamar Valley and the hiking trails by the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. With only two full days to explore this massive park, that will give us the opportunity to get a taste of the variety this national park has to offer!
Even on the short, 30 mile drive from Old Faithful to our campsite in West Yellowstone, we encountered three bison jams, with these huge creatures meandering next to and across the narrow road leading through the park, either grazing on the side of the road, slowly meandering through, or even leading their young along the same path.
We made it to the campground, got all set up, grabbed some not so low priced groceries at the local grocery store, and called it a night. Off to explore the park in the morning, on Ann’s 51st birthday, which she insists we don’t celebrate. I think I’ll ask her to make a cake for herself as well just to make her feel special.
TaterTotTales 