With Mom doing so much better, we felt able to leave Bismarck on August 1 to attend a “Cruiser Rendezvous” of current and former cruiser friends at the home of Tom & Leslie Arnold near McCall, Idaho. Along the way, on August 3rd we spent the entire day — from sunup to sundown — visiting Yellowstone National Park. We left our RV just north of the Park at the Rocky Mountain RV Park, and drove down in our Chevy Tracker “toad” (the RV slang word for a vehicle towed behind a motor home). Our first stop was at Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces. “Mammoth” is an appropriate appellation. I ended the day with over 20 thousand Fitbit steps.
Our next stop was at the Norris Geyser Basin.
Adjacent to the iconic Old Faithful Geyser is a huge parking lot and museums and visiter center and several general stores. And three yurks!
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- No; we are NOT in Ogge, Norway!
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- Less than half of the assembled crowd to watch Old Whats-His-Name
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- Right on time
And then the Kepler Cascades.
The most colorful pools were in West Thumb Geyser Basin, adjacent to the thumb-shaped West Thumb extension of Yellowstone Lake.
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- Some were azure
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- Some clear
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- This steaming pool …
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- … had cooked a snake and a dragon fly
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- Lovely colors
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- That’s the Lake in the background
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- Bubbling pots right on the edge
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- Dramatic colors
We observed the Lower Yellowstone Falls from two points.
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- First from on high
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- And then after a steep and long trail down to “Red Rock”, this closer view
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- Telephoto image of the precipice
As we proceeded along our “circular route”, we passed a gorgeous valley on our way back north, and Tower Fall.
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- Tower Fall, named for the towers adjacent to the fall
Near the top, we diverted to the east toward Slough Creek, were we saw much wildlife.
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- Many of the bison bulls had chosen a bison cow to “follow”
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- Pronghorn Antelope
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- As the sun approached setting, groups gathered to watch distant wolfs on a hill slope opposite a valley
I had entered the Park with apprehension about there being too many people and vehicles, but I found the day’s experiences well worth the effort. America’s first national park has good reason to be one of her most favorite.
We were there last summer and also spent some days at Grand Teton NP. Both are magical, though I enjoyed Tetons more. Then I joined a 4 day four night hiking and camping fly fishing trip at 8000 feet elevation in Yellowstone. Happily woke up after the first camping night finding frost on my tent. Yet I was quite cozy warm. We did ‘leave no trace’. And certainly, I left none. Not even a temporary wounding of a fish lip as I enjoyed this communion with nature. This is my cathedral. Our guides were very experienced from the Yellowstone Association. One had done it for decades, never had a tick bite, never used his bear spray. How? He knows how bears behave and how to inspect himself. He knows bear scat and how to be somewhere other than where the bear is. Same for the unpredictable bison.