Yellowstone… where to begin? Both of us had visited Grand Teton before, but neither of us had ever been to Yellowstone. An odd coincidence, considering that the two parks are only a few miles apart and Yellowstone is definitely the bigger name. Driving in, what struck us most was evidence of the “Summer of Fire”- 1988. Twenty years later, you can still see what seems to be an endless landscape of standing dead surrounded by what could easily be mistaken for a Christmas tree farm, the newer trees are coming in that thick. When you think of Yellowstone what comes up? Certainly “Old Faithful” and wolves, since there has been controversy about them ever since their reintroduction into the park in 1995. We really had no idea that so much of our experience here would be about water. We only had two days here. The first was spent exploring the Canyon area and the second was all about geysers, at least until we got back to camp (more about that later).

We camped at Bridge Bay, across the road from Yellowstone Lake, which defies satisfactory photographic documentation by its mere immensity (as do most of the sites in Yellowstone!) Beautiful, crystal clear and cold. The lake feeds the Yellowstone River, which also runs as clear as any river we’ve seen (and that’s saying something). Regardless of how deep it is, you can clearly see the rocks on the bottom. We had planned to drive from camp to the Canyon area Visitor’s Center and to explore from there. It took us over 4 hours to make it there. As we made our way up the road, it seemed like every pullout had something worth stopping to look at or explore, like picturesque rapids right next to the highway or a boardwalk built through a field of steaming mudpots, or a path down to the brink of the 109 foot Upper Falls. We were also caught in an unusual traffic jam: there was a herd of bison that decided to move to a different grazing area and they had the right of way. They wandered among the cars, providing some great photo ops seemingly unconcerned about anything but getting to the spot they had chosen. After lunch and a trip through the Visitor’s Center, we took in the views from Artist’s Point, overlooking the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and got our first look at Lower Falls, with a drop of over 300 feet. Magnificent and stunning. We continued our exploration down the South Rim trail and took Uncle Tom’s trail as close to Lower Falls as we could go. A bit of a workout at 8,000 feet, but gave us great views of the falls.

The next day, we set off towards Old Faithful. We arrived just in time to watch it finish an eruption. Off to the Visitor’s Center. We learn that “Grand Geyser” is expected to go off in twenty minutes. We rush to head towards it by bicycle, only to be stopped by a ranger because bison were blocking the path. He suggests we secure the bikes and take an alternative route through the geyser basin, which he thinks is about ¾ of a mile. Not. More like a mile and a half. And we have a clear view of the path we were unable to take the whole time. Well, the bison decide to vacate in time to allow others to get to Grand Geyser, but by the time we get there, the show is all but over. Still impressive, but not the 200 foot eruption that inspired applause when it subsided. We spent the better part of the day in the basin, visiting numerous beautiful and amazing features: hot springs, fumaroles and geysers. Who knew that Yellowstone is a volcano? Old Faithful is the name that everyone knows, but she isn’t the biggest or even the most predictable. Riverside and Castle Geysers also made our waiting worth while. Did you know that 2/3 of the worlds geysers are in Yellowstone? The colors of some of the springs were just incredible. Heart and Blue Star were wonderful shades of blue. Morning Glory now is green with yellow around the edges. According to information at the springs, the color has changed as the water has cooled, a result of people throwing objects into the pool, clogging the flow from below. They refer to it as “fading glory”.

We returned to camp, our heads spinning from all of the natural wonders we’d witnessed. We set about the normal routine of life on the road. Shortly thereafter, Dottie and Noche started barking as if someone was walking by their yard. No amount of urging them to be “quiet” worked. Laura went out to see what was causing the commotion. The dogs had good reason to be alerting us. We were being surrounded by bison. Laura grabbed the camera and went back outside to take pictures of the bison between the trailer and the truck. While focusing on the area in front of the trailer, she heard a grunting behind her. To her surprise, a bison was rounding the back corner of the trailer, less than 10 feet from her. One quick shot, and back into the trailer. Bison don’t seem very aggressive most of the time. They just mill about, grazing as they go. However, the males do seem to have an interest in maintaining a “pecking order”. There was a display outside our window where a large male drove three smaller males away from the group, as if putting them in their place. A little later, two of them locked horns for a couple of minutes before wandering off. We decided against taking the dogs for an evening walk after all.

We only began to scratch the surface of what there is to explore at Yellowstone. We’ve already started trying to figure out how to spend an entire summer here… maybe when the twins are a bit older…

We used Firehole Canyon Campground on Flaming Gorge Reservoir as an overnight stop en route from Fort Collins to Grand Teton. We talked about staying in the KOA at Rock Springs, but as soon as we saw it from the freeway, we knew that wasn’t happening. Going farther turned out to be such a good choice. The landscape around us harkened back to the southwest… bands of color, rock spires and quiet. That night, we reveled in the cool fresh air, sleeping with the ramp door down. We were awakened in the middle of the night by the haunting sounds of a chorus of coyotes not too far in the distance. From what we’ve read, the southern end of the gorge is the more beautiful, but that wasn’t in our travel plans.

If we had it to do over again, we’d have taken more time to get to Grand Teton. We saw a couple of BLM campgrounds south of Jackson, right along the banks of the Snake River that looked very inviting but we felt time pressure so we didn’t stop. Entering Jackson from the south, we were impressed that diesel was posted at $4.39, comparable to what we had seen earlier in the day. Perhaps here, they weren’t so interested in gouging the visitors to the National Parks. We were disabused of that notion as we reached the north side of town, and found it at $4.69 and later, within the park at $4.96 (I think that’s the highest we’ve seen since Death Valley’s record $5.33!)

We found the campgrounds at Grand Teton less than inspired, but the beauty of the lake, the surrounding mountain vistas, the wildflowers still in bloom in late August and the stunning scenery more than made up for it. We camped in Colter Bay campground, a short walk from Jackson Lake. The water was clear and beautiful, and surprisingly not too cold. It was a treat to walk along the lakeshore, throwing sticks into the lake for Noche to retrieve and enjoy the multi-colored rocks shining just below the surface. They reminded us of the rocks we used to build the wall on Fern Flat. Hiking at this higher elevation was a bit of a challenge, but fortunately we chose a trail that was not overly strenuous and had enough birds that we hadn’t seen before to justify stopping frequently in order to identify them. We thought it looked like great moose habitat, but apparently the moose had other ideas, because we didn’t see any. Our last morning there, the wind had picked up significantly and the character of the lake had changed dramatically. Instead of the placid view we had enjoyed, now the surface was covered with whitecaps and the wind howled through the tops of the trees like a freight train. Time to move on to Yellowstone.