Oldest National Park - America’s first national park, established in 1872
From Moab, we headed to Ogden, UT (just north of Salt Lake city). Spent a couple of days there doing absolutely nothing. We needed the break from all the sight seeing and hiking we’d done in the heat and red dirt the past month. The day we arrived in Ogden it was record breaking heat of 98F so we cooled off in the pool at the RV park. Next 2 days, opposite extreme! Highs barely in the 70s, we really felt that after baking in deserts for the past 2 months. On the plus side, they also had a big hot tub at the RV park so we had a nice long soak in it and warmed up.
Left there on June 7 and arrived in Island Park, Idaho. Why there? It’s only a 20 minute drive to the west entrance of Yellowstone National Park. Plus it was a pretty decent park, nice scenery for being right off the highway.
Originally planned to stay a week but after 2 days of touring the park and only seeing a little bit of it, extended our stay for another week. Yellowstone is a HUGE, filled with wildlife and very diverse/unique landscapes. If you want to know how big and how diverse, take a look at this Yellowstone Fact sheet.
Because the park is so vast, you spend a lot of time just driving to the different regions. En route there are numerous stops and depending on what’s there, the stop might be a quick look and photo op or you can spend a couple of hours exploring one of the geyser basins. Or you’ll be stuck in an animal jam. If there’s a bear anywhere close to the road or a trail head, those traffic jams are “policed” by the park rangers so that people don’t do stupid things like get out and take pictures too close to them and they help to keep the traffic moving. If you get buffaloed, that’s a different story. There are thousands of them here and if a herd decides it’s time to cross the road, you just have to let them. A 2000 lb beast vs. even our big truck, buffalo wins every time. It’s a great opportunity to see them up close and right now there are lots of very cute buffalo calves wandering with their moms.
We got really frustrated with the stupid humans in the park. Especially the ones that stop their cars in the middle of the road to take a pictures instead off moving over and stopping at the many pullouts along the roads. Human created traffic jams like that were the worst and they were typically for buffalo which after only 2 days in the park you realize they’re everywhere. And people don’t respect their space...when you enter the park they give you a brochure that says “These animals may appear tame but are wild, unpredictable and dangerous. DO NOT APPROACH BUFFALO!” You’ll see a couple of my stupid human pics that prove this advice is commonly ignored. Unbelievable what we saw.
But back to the park. First day we did what I’m sure is the most popular drive in the park, the one to Old faithful. It’s in the south west part of the park, a 30 mile drive there from the west entrance but it took us about 4 hours to get there. On the way there 5 other geyser basins with trails thru them with lots of geysers and hot springs to see. OF course we watched Old faithful erupt and the area around it took over an hour to explore.
Got stuck in the trailer for 2 days after that because the weather SUCKED! Worst so far on this road trip... cold, windy, hail and even a little bit of snow late in the day. Highs in the 40s maybe.
Weather improved, still unseasonably cold here, highs barely making it to 60 F but it was sunny so next park visit we explored Mammoth springs in the north west part of the park. That was a 49 mile drive from the west entrance. En route 3 more geyser basins, waterfalls and various other scenic lookouts. The long drive here is totally worth it...I found the landscape here the most unexpected and stunning. There are geysers and hots springs here as well but the rock formations around them are so unique, they call them travertine terraces. You’ll see what I mean in the pictures.
Each of these areas also has a large visitor centre and a small community of stores, lodges etc. We asked a ranger at the visitor centre in Mammoth springs about some of the hikes there we wanted to do. Specifically were they open and the Mount Washburn hike was not (snow and bears), closed until July. Sepulcure mountain and the beaver pond hikes in town were open but due to all the grizzly activity...well he didn’t recommend that we do them with just the 2 of us. Told us that the bears were very active right now and the night before, a grizzly had killed an elk calf, right in town. Also a group of 5 hiking earlier in the day had a bear encounter that could have been bad but their numbers helped them. They didn’t have bear spray either which is a necessity here. Apparently all recently born baby elk and buffalo are a prime food source for the bears so they‘re staying in the valley. Plus there’s still snow on the mountain tops so no food there for them.
To top it off, on the drive back home, a big male grizzly bear crossed the road, right in front of us. Thrilled to see it, but not so thrilled to be hiking if they’re so active.
Our third trip into the park took us to the Grand Canyon area of Yellowstone in the east part of the park. That’s a 30 mile drive from the west entrance. Biggest waterfall in the park here and some good, relatively safe (bear free) hiking so finally got some good exercise in.
Next day, rest! Felt fine doing those hikes but exercising in the high altitude (7743 feet in the Canyon village area) creeps up on you and wipes you out more than you realize. Not a bad day to stay put though, it hailed again in the afternoon!
Fourth trip into the park we went to the Tower-Roosevelt region in the North East. That was a long drive, 49 miles there and you get high into the mountain tops en route. At the Dunraven pass, the altitude was 8,859 ft and it was bloody cold and windy. Still lots of snow on the mountain tops and along side the road. Incredible scenery. If you go east here, the drive takes you into the Lamar Valley which is known for it’s massive buffalo herds and other wild life...in fact, today we saw the most wildlife yet, check out the pics.
Tower-Roosevelt, Lamar Valley album
Visit number 5 took us to the south east part of the park where Yellowstone Lake is. A 46 mile drive to Fishing bridge village where the only full hookup RV campsite in the entire park is located. Based on what we saw, glad we didn’t pay extra to camp there, very tight cramped space and you still have to drive lots to get anywhere within the park so not much savings on gas to be had. Anyways, the lake area is gorgeous, and June 15th, the day we were there will always be ingrained in my mind because I finally got to see my first moose in the wild there. They DO exist!
On the way back to the west entrance, we also stopped by the West Thumb part of lake. There’s another geyser basin there that is worth exploring because it’s right on the water.
Overall, Yellowstone is a spectacular park with very unique landscapes that you should find a way to see some day. Try to spend more than a week, 2 if you can, in order to really see everything there and possibly go on some hikes. No matter how long your visit is, you will be doing A LOT of driving but in our experience, it’s on those drives that you see the most wildlife which keeps things interesting!