All Good Things Must Come to an End…

Our vacation is winding down and our time at Yellowstone has come to an end. Our long trip home has now begun. It’s hard to believe that we spent ten days here (although one of those was spent at Grand Teton National Park).

I’ve always told people that I’ve been to Yellowstone when I was a child. And while it may be true that I have been to Yellowstone before… I had never SEEN Yellowstone. All I remember from that trip was seeing Old Faithful and some black bears that had lined the road looking for handouts. This trip however I can honestly say I SAW Yellowstone. Yet it feels like we barely scratched the surface.

Hydrothermal Features
We did see Old Faithful this time and actually watched it erupt three times from different locations in the area. But we also walked miles of boardwalks and saw not only geysers, large and small, but also brilliant hot springs, smelly fumaroles (steam vents) and spurting mud pots. We walked with rangers to learn more about these fascinating geological features… how did they form? Why are they here? And how have they changed?

One of our ranger walks even took us on a 3-mile hike into the backcountry to view more of these intriguing marvels of nature. It was on this hike that we got to see the “Mother of all Mud pots”. It was huge! Only 300 people a year go on this hike out of the millions that visit the park… and we were 5 of those.


Hiking
We hiked Yellowstone! Sometimes those hikes were with a ranger and sometimes we were on our own. We did easy, short hikes that barely changed elevation and we did longer, more strenuous hikes where we climbed 500, 600 and 1300 feet. One of our ranger hikes led us back to Mystic Falls and then up to Observation Point – a climb of 500 ft in less than a mile (although the total distance for the hike was 3 miles). From the top we could look down upon the entire Old Faithful valley and see the multiple areas of steaming geysers.


We also did another ranger hike on the Beaver Ponds trail (5 miles… 600 ft elevation gain…4.5 hours). This hike led us back to hidden ponds created by beavers damming up a tiny creek. Ranger Debbie taught us so much about the local wildflowers and how to tell which animals had visited the area. She had spotted some bird tracks and had the kids help decipher which bird had left them. The general consensus was that a sand hill crane had recently been in the area. We were proven correct in less than 100 feet when two very large sand hill cranes took to the air and flew right over our heads. Ranger Debbie also found some interesting scat just off the trail. From them we were able to determine that a bear and a coyote had recently been in the area. (A momma bear and her two cubs were known to reside in this section of forest and we most definitely did not want to run into her).

We also did some hiking on our own. One of our first days in the park we hiked Storm Point Trail… a 2 mile loop that started in a meadow, led us back to Yellowstone Lake and thru a wooded area back to the meadow. We ran into a small problem on this hike… a herd of buffies were occupying the meadow and one big Daddy Buffy was standing not far from the trail (definitely less than the required 25 yards). We halted and waited and waited some more… finally Big Daddy plopped himself down and made himself comfortable. We decided to take advantage of that and went on our merry way… I never was sure if it was safer with him lying down or if we were just stupid.


On one of our more impressive hikes, we climbed to the top of Bunsen’s Peak. This was a 5-mile roundtrip hike that had us climbing 1300 ft in 2 miles. Whew! Talk about a workout! We went thru quite a bit of water on that hike. When we made it to the top we had a 360-degree view of the surrounding area. We were able to see Mammoth hot Springs and valleys and mountain peaks. It was an incredible sight! At the top we ate a snack of granola bars and beef jerky. The kids had a blast watching a couple of golden-mantled ground squirrels (bigger, fatter chipmunks). They tried begging for food but we were good and didn’t even leave them a crumb. It was hard for the kids to do since they were so cute. After our snack, we headed the quicker, easier, faster way down.



Wildlife
While there was some wildlife that we never saw… grizzly, big horn sheep, moose… we still saw so much more. We had barely been in the park 30 minutes before we were seeing pronghorns, buffies and a big bull elk. Over the course of our visit we saw more buffies and elk, coyotes (3), black bears (2), sand hill cranes (a few but 2 extremely close), a bald eagle, wolves (though distant in Hayden Valley) and an osprey that dove into the river and actually came up with a fish.


The Food
I have to admit that we ate so much better on our CA vacation. However, I am rather proud of us for the fact that we didn’t eat out all the time. Breakfasts were generally eaten at the hotel (nothing fabulous…your standard cereals, juices, bagels, waffles and frozen pancakes). Once we ate at a local restaurant for breakfast… the day we climbed Bunsen’s Peak we wanted to be sure we had a full hearty breakfast. Then 3 times we had to endure egg mcmuffins at McDonald’s (hotel breakfast didn’t start til 7:00 and those days we were on the road before then).

Most of our lunches were eaten as picnics in the park. These consisted of sandwiches, cheese and crackers, carrots, pudding, sausage sticks, beef jerky, Pringles (occasionally) and apples (at 65 cents a piece!). There were two days when we ate lunch at restaurants in the park. Once at a Soda Fountain/50’s Diner at Canyon Village and once at the Old Faithful Inn. The food at the Inn does not even compare to the Awahnee of Yosemite (though the Inn is cheaper!) but it was still quite an experience. The Inn is a grand old building with such a great history.


As for dinner we only ate at restaurants three times… once at a local bar-b-que place and twice at a local pizza place. If you are ever in West Yellowstone, MT you have to eat at Pete’s Rocky Mountain Pizza Co. It is fantastic! However, we recommend carryout or delivery unless you don’t mind the wait for a table (well worth it). We just wished we had discovered it sooner.

As for dinners the other nights of our stay, we ate in our hotel room… have electric fry pan and you can do a lot. We made chicken fajitas, tacos, sloppy joes, hamburgers, brats and chilidogs and chicken fettuccini. As for dessert there was always ice cream. Our favorite stop was ordering our ice cream in Mammoth (3 times) and sitting on the front steps… relaxing, enjoying each other’s company and people watching.

As for beverages, sometimes we drank a little Propel… sometimes we drank a little soda… but for the most part we LIVED on water. We filled 4 liter bottles each day and went thru them and more on most days.

Wildfires

An experience that we knew was a possibility but were hoping to avoid was fire. During our stay there have been a few fires burning in or near Yellowstone. During our horseback ride we saw heavy smoke to the north from one. Then during our drive on the western edges of Yellowstone Lake we could see the smoke from another smaller fire (Promontory) but that one seemed to be contained within a small peninsula. There was another smaller fire burning in the southeastern part of the park (Beaver Dam) and then there was the Columbine fire… which at last counts has burned 18,500 acres. This fire hasn’t threatened any populated areas of the park although the east entrance was closed for safety reasons. The biggest effect we suffered from it was hazy views and heavier, smokier air. Hopefully, with the rain and cooler temps forecasted, the firefighters will get this one contained soon.

As I sit in a hotel room in Gillette, MT writing this, it is all too apparent that our vacation is winding down and coming to an end. We had a great time in Yellowstone… but this is not good-bye for us… it is “til we meet again”. We know that we will be back someday… maybe not all together but we will be back. I just hope that someday our kids will come back with their kids and sit on the steps at Mammoth eating ice cream and tell stories of their first visit to Yellowstone.
And they will have stories to tell… because we made sure that they SAW Yellowstone.