Yellowstone Day 5

Our last full day in Yellowstone we started from the Canyon campground and traveled to Grant village--a short ride along Yellowstone Lake and past all manner of strange geological and volcanic type stuff. Here is a brief slideshow of the day:

Yellowstone Day 4

When we got to the Canyon campground, and found four feet of snow on the ground, and our picnic table and fire pit under snow, we weren't sure what we were in for. But the next morning we drove the few miles to the canyon (see an earlier video as well). We spent a wonderful day hiking a little on the north rim, then going to the south rim, where Uncle Ton's trail takes you 300+ steps into the canyon itself. We also hiked the South Rim trail, a 20-minute hike (it was not far from there, on another trail called Wapiti Lake Trail, that a man was killed by a bear last week). Again, spectacular views, mountains, etc. And it must have been a little lower than the campground, because there was no snow on the ground.

Mountain Pass

Here is a shot from the mountain pass I mentioned earlier. The time we were there anything above 7000 ft or so still had snow--two of the campgrounds we stayed in (Fishing Bridge and Canyon) were both around 7700 ft, and had about four feet of snow on the ground. Madison and Grant Village (both around 6700 ft) had snow only in isolated piles. At this pass someone had left a little momento, as you can see.

Along the way to the mountain pass we sent past a pretty spectacular waterfall. I can't remember it's name, alas. all of the waterfalls were very, very full. They had 700 inches of snow there this winter, about 150% of the average, and it was all beginning to melt. All of the cascades, creeks, streams, etc. were very high. It did make for great waterfalls.

Yellowstone Day 3

Picking up where I left off before, on our third day in Yellowstone we left the beautiful campground at Madison, for Mammoth Hot Springs, which is the park headquarters.

There are two main attractions at Yellowstone: one is the strange geological formations that result from Yellowstone's character as a giant volcano. Then there are the mountains. You can see both in the picture.

Mammoth Hot springs is just that: a giant hot spring, only some of which is active at any time. A large mountainside where springs emerge and dry up here and there, never quite the same place twice.

And then there are the mountains. I'm sorry the pictures do such poor justice to the mountains that are off in the distance, but as we stood on top of the "geological formations" (for lack of a better word), I was transported back to Switzerland, where we used to visit when I was a child/teenager. Click on the picture below, then zoom in for a better sense of how marvelous it was to see this part of God's creation!

From Mammoth Hot Springs we traveled over a pass (9500 ft. or so if I remember correctly; Mammoth Hot Springs is at around 65oo ft.) through Tower Junction to our next campground at Canyon village.

Grizzly Mama

We are back at home again--arrived yesterday evening. I plan to continue to post about the trip, in somewhat sequential order, but here is my first foray into YouTube. This is our best "wildlife" moment--on the way from Yellowstone to the Grand Tetons we came across a large number of vehicles stopped around 7 am to watch this...

Nearing the end

Well, we are now just three long travel days from home. Tonight we are in Waco, Nebraska, just off of exit 360 on I-80, staying at the Double Nickel Campground. It was hot today, but Bertha held up in the heat (much better than we did!), and we were grateful for the pool when we got here.

It has been hard to find time to update this blog on the road; videos and photos take a long time to upload at campground WiFi, if you even have it. So I'll post more about the highlights of the trip when we get back. One video highlight was a grizzly with three cubs. But I don't dare try to upload that here. So stay tuned...