Yellowstone National Park

You’d be hard pressed to visit  Yellowstone National Park on a shore excursion. 

Yellowstone River from above.

The nearest port is a long drive away, although I have little doubt that somewhere in Europe or Asia there are people planning a cruise to Alaska or California who want to visit Yellowstone while they’re in the general vicinity.

I sell some great National Parks tours that will make visiting national parks easier and more informative, and everyone who has ever taken one raved about the wonderful itineraries, but most of us visit these parks on driving trips with our families.

Perhaps like me, when you were a child your family drove through Yellowstone on its way to North Dakota or some other ancestral homeland, or maybe it was something of a back-to-nature mecca for your family. If you haven’t been since childhood, and more so if you have never been there, you owe it to yourself and your family to go.

We frequently live like our world begins and ends with the cities. Some children believe there is nothing except city left. Seeing how much of our great country is undeveloped makes the drive itself educational.

Montana Falls

Having spent four Air Force years stationed in the Rocky Mountains and having frequently driven to Big Sky, Montana, over the last twenty years on family vacations, I’m no stranger to the gorgeous northwest, and the drive between Big Sky and West Yellowstone is every bit as pretty as the passing scenery in Yellowstone National Park, which is less surprising when you realize about 20 miles of that road is within Yellowstone National Park, though outside its gates.

Established in 1872, or just 7 years after the end of the Civil War, Yellowstone National Park is America’s first national park. We paid $25 for everyone inside our Jeep to enter from West Yellowstone and took the loop road around. With over 2.2 million acres, no one expects to see it all in a day or a week.

Close Encounters of the Herd Kind

A short time after entering the gate, we saw other cars parked, so we slowed to check out the situation. We stopped a few feet from a huge bison (or what we perhaps erroneously call an American buffalo).

We were so close that my sister-in-law Cheryl, who has badly impaired vision, said she could see the bison’s eyelashes. She had eaten a bison burger the previous night at Choppers Grub and Pub,so she was careful to avoid letting the bison smell her breath.

Being so close to a 1,600 pound beast is not to be taken lightly, so we didn’t get out of the car. I didn’t cut the engine, just in case we needed to make a quick escape to avoid our Jeep Cherokee being bashed.

We carried on toward our first designated stop, Old Faithful. Because the $25 pass covers 7 consecutive days, many people undoubtedly take a more leisurely pace, making more stops along the road, but Julie always has a specific itinerary so jam packed with highlights that we don’t have much time to dawdle.

Old Faithful

We arrived at Old Faithful just minutes before a scheduled eruption, and faithful to her name, she blew on cue. We couldn’t have timed it much better if we had known the exact schedule in advance. If you don’t know, Old Faithful is a geyser that shoots water high into the air at predictable times based on some natural geologic time clock. We walked over to the Visitor Education Center where we watched a movie about how the geological forces build up below the earth to cause geysers to blow. I am always a bit amazed by the confidence with which we approach these forces of nature, whether geysers or volcanoes.

 

I’m sure the people of Pompei had similar confidence right until the end.  



Julie and Cheryl at Old Faithful

In any case, the crisis that most concerned us was that I had failed to fill the gas tank before entering Yellowstone National Park, so we wondered if we should backtrack to the West Yellowstone Gate or carry on. Fortunately, I spied with my little eye a sign for a gas station just after leaving the Old Faithful parking area, and I put $25 worth of gas in, which was sufficient to finish driving through the park so that I could refuel in West Yellowstone while the girls went souvenir shopping.

I veered off the road when I saw the sign for Kepler Cascades, because I really like waterfalls. Julie was about to pout because I was taking us off schedule, but since Cheryl and I were already getting out of the car, she decided to go along with my crazy improvisation. It turned out to be an excellent choice. What a beautiful area! Don’t miss it.

I was not as correct at a similar stop, where we walked past paint pots on a wooden planked boardwalk to get Cheryl close enough to the lake to see it. This time consuming stop, at a crowded and not particularly impressive spot, proved to be unnecessary, because as we later drove right along Yellowstone Lake, where Cheryl actually had less trouble seeing it due to the lighting. Speaking of paint pots, if you have never seen them, you’ll want to stop to see some, but be prepared for the sulfur smell.

We stopped at a Visitor’s Center by Yellowstone Lake near the Fishing Bridge (where ironically “No Fishing” signs are posted) hoping to picnic, but the flagstone stairs through shadows weren’t really suitable for Cheryl, whose vision makes negotiating such places difficult. The lake itself is nice, but not as dazzling as many lakes I have seen in my life.

Why did the Bison cross the river?

Of considerably greater interest was a bison crossing the river. We had never seen one so deeply submerged. He must have smelled the bison on Cheryl’s breath, because he began making a bee-line for us.

We also saw a herd of bison on some high plains. While the numbers weren’t as great as when the Native Americans relied on their meat and skins or when “sportsmen” shot them from trains and left their carcases to rot, it was cool seeing them grazing together.

We also saw deer and elk, but Yogi and BooBoo were nowhere to be seen, probably because we had our lunch in an insulated tote rather than a pic-a-nic basket.

Picnic spot by the Yellowstone River Rapids

We found a nice picnic stop along the river and enjoyed the lunch we packed. Definitely pack your own lunch, as everything tastes good out in nature.

We then headed to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, with its very tall waterfall, making several stops to take in the vistas from various locations. You can actually hike through these simply amazing views along trails and even staircases, if you have the time, inclination and physical ability.



Falls at Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

On the drive home, we had a little excitement. First, heavy rain beat down on our car so loud that we couldn’t hear the CD player. 
“We’re lucky it’s warm,” I said, speaking from experience of summers in Cheyenne, Wyoming, “or it would be hail the size of golf balls.”

Be careful what you think about.

My dashboard thermometer had already shown the temperature drop 20 degrees from the mid-80s earlier in the day, and it started falling precipitously. Within a few hundred yards, hail was pelting the Jeep. Having seen hail break windows of cars, I decided it might be best to follow suit with other drivers who had pulled into a turn out rather than add our forward momentum to the force of the hail coming down.

The windows fogged up due to the extreme temperature difference between inside and outside the Jeep, and what looked like a few inches of snow piled up along the tracks of my windshield wipers, but like much weather in the Rockies, the hail front seemed to be moving on, and when the pelting grew less ominous, we started down the road again, even if the defroster wasn’t making our forward vision completely clear. To paraphrase what Pat Welch said long ago in heavy fog after midnight in New Jersey, we had the security of knowing that no one else would be crazy enough to be on the road in such conditions.

Soon, our windows cleared and the hail completely stopped.

A short while later, we came across a huge moose standing in a meadow next to the road, and apparently we were the first car to pass since the storm. From a standstill she bolted with amazing acceleration into a full gallop through the wet fields. It’s this kind of casual encounter with nature that will thrill you and your family.

Cruises are great, but also take the time to see the interior of our great country.

(Please note that you can click on most photos on this blog to enlarge them.)

Calm Yellowstone River

Another Yellowstone View

Buffalo on the High Plains