Links to videos and pictures

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For more pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/pres.nowlin/Yellowstone

For videos:

Roadside Thermals - As we left Old Faithful, it started to spit snow, the earth was seething steam. It was other-worldly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEsmViC0QUI

The view from our hillside cottage at Chico Hot Springs, in Pray, Montana. It was foggy and snowy, but still beautiful
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKCB8jr8LNo

One of our favorite sights was this wolf. He was actually eating something, but it's hard to see in the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQjXdpeE2fw

Say "hello" emo. Rob filmed us while we waited for our table at the excellent restaurant at Chico. It's a couple of minutes that actually typify life around our house on a daily basis. (Emo: adj, overly emotional or melodramatic. From the musical genre "emo.")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnvNvUUbqMI

Don't worry, there's at least a two lane paved road between us and the buffalo. I like the videographer's comment at about 1:05.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooETM_5XsZU

Just amazingly beautiful

Friday we woke up at Jackson Lake Lodge, and for the first time all week, the sun shone and cast a brilliant light on the snow-covered mountains. We woke up early and even got a bite to eat before our float down the Snake River at 8:30. There was a thin layer of fog and we watched a huge herd of elk move across the valley to water.








It was a cold morning, especially on the water.
Our guide was Philip, originally from Gainesville and presently in law school in Missoula. He was a smart, personable guy and steered us down the river. Wildlife was sparse except for three magnificent bald eagles. The geography was fascinating, and the scenery unbeatable, especially in our first good sunny day. The river trip ended with a cookout lunch at the takeout spot, and a lodge bus brought us back.









Judy shopped, Preston napped, and Rob, Clay and I hiked over to Christian Pond and beyond for a few miles. The thin air really does make a difference, and we all got winded pretty easily, but Clay kept right up. We were hoping for a black bear, the only major animal ("extreme wildlife") we have not seen on the trip, and though we were again denied, we had a bull moose and two cows all to ourselves. We also had the pleasure of watching a beaver paddling through Christian Pond. We just sat perched on a hill, overlooking the mountains and lake for as long as we wanted.
Done





Clay and Rob had had enough, but I couldn’t stay inside, so I went to the lodge just to soak up scenery and look out across Willow Flats for bear. Just wandering, I discovered a little loop trail and followed it to its end then went off trail for a few hundred yards to a bluff overlooking the flats. It was beautiful – reds, browns, yellow, green, full of red willow, the favorite food of the moose who graze the valley.

Dangerous on both ends and uncomfortable in the middle

Thursday morning – looking out over the valley, the ground was covered in a thin sheet of ice and there was snow in the air. Not promising for our trail ride, but the boys were determined to go so we bundled up after breakfast and headed to the stable.









They didn’t add much warmth, but barn raincoats at least kept the rain off us, and we set off for an hour and a half ride through the valley. The ride was not particularly eventful, and it was cold, but the boys enjoyed their time on Poncho, Sailor, and Romeo (That's clay on Romeo).










Cowboys




Large hot chocolates took the chill off before we got in the car for our trip back through Yellowstone to Grand Teton.






We stopped for lunch in Gardiner at The Silvertip, a barbeque joint owned by an insurance adjuster from Mississippi. We were his only customers, and had a good visit with him. Rob bought one of the proprietor’s grizzly bear photos.







The drive back south through Yellowstone was pretty direct. Roosevelt Arch, through the Mammoth Hot Springs area, to Norris, Old Faithful and finally to the south entrance. Several crosses of the winding Continental Divide, buffalo and elk on the roadside, rising and falling elevation, the requisite snow flurries, and finally to the beautiful















Lewis River which we followed to the south entrance where we said goodbye to Yellowstone.

Follow the Yellowstone River

Wednesday morning... snow snow snow. It made for slow driving as we wound our way toward Norris and then Mammoth and out of the park. Visibility was limited so it was a bit of a grind through the woods, with an occasional thermal feature or piece of interesting geology to catch the eye.









Traffic was halted for a good 15 or 20 minutes for road work, but we did eventually make it to the north end of the park and out into Gardiner.




From there, it was a quick shot up to Chico Hot Springs in the Paradise Valley area of southwestern Montana. After check-in and lunch in the saloon, we all took a good hot swim. Chico has a large pool at 94 degrees and a smaller pool at something more like 104. None of us lasted more than a few minutes in the hot pool, and like any hot bath, it left us all limp so we adjourned to our cottage on the top of the hill overlooking Paradise Valley. We read and played a board game for a couple of hours before dinner in the Chico dining room.

Of sulfur and steam

It was cold and overcast, but the information desk at Canyon indicated that with 20-degree temperatures on the way, precipitation was out of the question for the day. Lesson learned later that day: Yellowstone microclimates defy prediction.



After a monstrous buffet breakfast, we piled into the car and headed for the Old Faithful area. We stopped first at the Norris geyser basin, home of Yellowstone’s biggest geyser, Steamboat. We hiked the back loop trail for a couple of hours and got a pretty good dose of geyser. The landscape is parched, sandy, and steamy. There are times when the earth appears to just seethe steam from the surface. It’s beautiful in a ghostly way, eerie and desolate, and the smell of sulfur hangs everywhere.









From Norris, we resumed our wandering ways pointed south. Free to take side roads and loops off the main road, we are rewarded with herds of bison, beautiful views, and the breath-taking Firehole Canyon and Falls. The Firehole River has carved a canyon through a lava field, and the exposed volcanic substrate is riddled with gas pockets and layers of swirled rock.





From Firehole, we follow the Gibbon River to a peak where the Gibbon Falls thunder down the mountain. Great viewing areas if vertigo isn’t a problem. The river meanders down into the major geyser basins around Old Faithful. They are huge, dramatic, and roadside, so we declined further opportunities to stew in the sulfur and went straight to the Old Faithful Lodge, now in its 104th year of service.




The huge log and pole structure with its monumental 4-sided fireplace is a wonder – even moreso when you imagine building it in this wilderness in 1904. We ate lunch and explored a bit before catching a 3:30 eruption. A not-so-quick stop in the gift shop, and then back on the road.









After a year of record snowfall, it snowed every day we were in Yellowstone, and today was the heaviest. It really made the drive through the geyser fields a surreal trip, but I was concerned about making it back through the mountains and kept my fingers crossed that the roads would remain open. I’ve never been so glad to get back somewhere as I was when we crossed the Canyon intersection and rangers were closing the road north to Tower. A drive “the other way around” the loop wouldn’t have been much fun at that point.

We enjoyed one of our in-room picnics and turned in. Tomorrow to Montana.

Extreme Wildlife

On Monday, I had hoped to hike to the top of Mt Washburn, but the road north that roughly follows the Grand Canyon up to Tower was closed, so we decided to drive the park and hike on Tuesday. On the advice of a woman at the Lodge, we first rode down to Hayden Valley to look for bears. There were a handful of cars and a ranger on the side of the road, so we got out and joined the group. After maybe 5 or 10 minutes of looking, there they were: a mother grizzly and her cub, a good 300-400 yards away, walking through the sage brush. They sat on their haunches facing the crowd, then meandered onto a patch of snow where they scuffled, sat, and put on a little show.


That was hard to beat, but we left heading south again towards a thermal area that featured a huge sulfurous caldron, and several different bubbling pots and mud volcanoes, including the Black Dragon’s Cauldron. There was a particularly handsome and close-up bison there, so we spent some time just observing him.









Back in the car and on to the southern end of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. We stopped on the way in to watch a lazy “teenage” bull elk lie in the sun, and then drove on to the observation deck for the falls.

Yellowstone hands you photo opportunities at every turn, and the colors and structures of the Grand Canyon are no exception. Greens, yellows, reds, pinks are all on vivid display where the Yellowstone River has carved this magnificent chasm out of the relatively soft rock here. Stunning.

As we approached Canyon to make a lunch stop, I saw that the road to Tower had opened, so we decided to do our hike after lunch. Alas, when we reached the trailhead, there was a 4-foot blanket of snow everywhere.

Now back to driving for the afternoon, we headed on north towards Lamar Valley, home of the Yellowstone Institute and a ton of wildlife.

Mt. Washburn, at least during this first week in June, was a climatic dividing line between winter on the southern Canyon side and Spring on the northern Tower side. As we descended to 5000 and 6000 foot elevations, the grass is green, deciduous trees are popping out, and spring wildflowers are evident.


The Tower area is the northern stretch of the Grand Canyon, and there are stone spires and structures all along.
















We watched two big horn sheep walk their way along a sheer 1000-foot drop on one of our stops. They are remarkably well camouflaged!











We were not disappointed with Lamar Valley. The place was an animal nursery teeming with bison, pronghorn antelope, and elk mothers and young. It is a huge expanse, and there were maybe 750 bison there. It is exactly the kind of spot that you almost wouldn’t be surprised to see a herd of apatosauros turn the corner.


We turned around to head “home” for dinner, and at one marshy area beside the road came upon a wolf eating dinner. We were able to watch for several minutes before a ranger came and moved the traffic on. What a way to end the day’s adventures. We had seen so much in one day it was really an over load for the mind. The beauty of nature, the grand canyon from one end to the other, the freedom to just ride and let our eyes and our wishes be our guides – we couldn’t ask for more.

If you can't stand the heat...

Saturday as we drove into the DC area, temperatures read 102 degrees, with humidity to match. We boarded at 5:08 PM and arrived at Jackson Hole Airport at 9:25 mountain time, local temperature 36 degrees. We rented our Nissan Armada and drove into Jackson for a cramped night at the Day’s Inn.

Sunday morning everyone slept late, and we drove to the Town Square in Jackson for a quick look-around. Not much to it really, other than shops and restaurants. The town we saw was very upscale, very clean and sanitized. Very quick visit.





As we drove north into Grand Teton National Park, the mountains were shrouded in clouds, snow falling heavily on the eastern slopes. What a sight.

We drove the “park” route rather than the main “state” roads – closer to the mountains, by Jenny Lake, through the endless sage brush flats. Snow melt was heavy this time of year, so water was everywhere. We stopped for lunch at Signal Mountain Lodge and enjoyed the view out over the lake.






We hadn’t been on the road long when we had our first “extreme wildlife” sighting, a mother moose and her calf resting by a stream. She was huge. Elk are abundant in Grand Teton National Park, and we saw hundreds, mostly females.

The driving was fun and easy – minimal traffic at this point in the season. In fact, many roads had only opened within the previous week, with huge snow piled on the side. We had nowhere to go, nothing to do, so we could go and do what we wanted. We stopped at overlooks and pulloffs to gawk at scenery, animals, majesty.





As we entered Yellowstone, climing from roughly 6800 to 7800 feet, the snow increased until we couldn’t resist a stop just to play in the snow, which was coming down pretty hard.












Coyote, elk, and bison provided plenty of reason to stop at a pulloff and shoot some pictures.

The West Thumb geyser basin has a neat one-mile loop trail that wanders through some colorful and odiferous hot springs and dormant geysers under water’s edge along the lake shore.


There is something about the landscape that seems young, like a work in progress. Long stretches are featureless – flat, plateaus, river banks of dark volcanic soil eroding. Unexpected steam vents and numerous thermal features do give the area an aspect of seemingly just cooling off.

After a day of wandering, we finally arrived at Canyon Lodge, checked in to new modern rooms, and went to the Lodge for beer and hot chocolate. None of us felt like a big dinner, so we went to the deli and made a picnic to take back and eat in the boys’ room. That hit the spot on quantity of food and atmosphere, and at about 9, it was lights out.