Yellowstone Trip Report
In September Christine and I spent about 10 days in Montana visiting Yellowstone and going to a friend’s wedding. It was our first trip to trip to Yellowstone and hopefully it won’t be our last.We arrived at the Park first thing Monday morning and jumped right in. On our first day we took drove from the West Yellowstone Entrance up to Mammoth then across the north end of the park to the Northwest park entrance near Cooke City.
The first day was a surprise to us. A couple of miles into the park we saw a lot of wildlife right next to the road. I was ready for wildlife but didn’t realize how much thermal activity the park had. We saw steam from a thermal feature going across the road and originally wondered what was on fire. It turned out to be this lovely lake which was fed by a hotspring:
We did a lot of short hikes that day. We had a lot of fun walking around the Artists Pots, Norris Basinand Mammoth Hot Springs(links go to photo galleries). We finished the day with a 4 mile hike along the Yellowstone Grand Canyon where we had some really views from the top of the canyon and nice closeup views of a Bison giving itself a dust bath:
That night we stayed in a cabin just outside the park near Cooke City. Christine named the cabin “the hobbit hut” due to it’s low ceiling and small size. It was a nice place to stay and inexpensive, but the we were less impressed with the overpriced food in Cooke City.
We started our second day in Yellowstone by trying to spot some wildlife. We were along the Lamar River Valley which is known as one of the best areas for seeing wildlife, specifically wolves, in the park. I thought we’d find a good spot and eat breakfast and watch for animals.
It was freezing.
We spent about half an hour with a large group trying to find wolves with no luck. They were probably staying warm in bed! We did see a bald eagle and some pronghorn deer. I found it just as interesting to watch the watchers:
We ended up eating breakfast in the picnic area near the previous days hike. It was very nice to have some hot coffee and oatmeal and watch the nearby animals and scenery. We spent the rest of the morning driving down the east side of the park along Lake Yellowstone. In the afternoon we did a 6 mile hike along DeLacy Creek hoping to see some river otters (Christine’s favorite wild animal). We didn’t find any otters, but we had a great hike and there were nice views of Yellowstone Lake. We had to take a fast pace on our way out to make sure that we made our dinner reservation at Old Faithful Inn.
On our third day we spent the morning wandering through the Geyser Basin just outside of the Old Faithful Inn. It was really cool to see geysers large and small close up. Even when they aren’t spewing water they look really cool. The most amazing thermal feature was the Morning Glory Pool (below). All of the pools were really pretty, the colors created by the bacteria that grows in their hot water is just stunning.
In the afternoon drove back over to Yellowstone Lake for our next night’s stay. On our way to Yellowstone Lake we made another attempt to find some river otters by searching along the Yellowstone River near Otter Creek. We were just about to give up when Christine looked across the river and saw a lone wolf running down the hill to the water. We were only about 100′ away and had a great view of it approaching the river and then following the river until it went out of view. There was no one else there, just us and the wolf. It was breathtaking, cool enough that I didn’t even think about taking any photos until it was really too late.
On our fourth morning we woke up to an inch of snow on the ground and reports of more. We decided to cut the trip a day early to make sure that we didn’t have any weather related issues on our way back to Missoula. On our way out of the park we had to drive through about half of it again and had some nice final views of wildlife and scenery. The highlight of the day was checking out the views over Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon and then seeing an Elk near the side of the road.
When we left on our trip I wondered if 4 days would be too much. On our way out it didn’t feel like enough. I can’t wait to return for more hiking and exploring.