Yellowstone 240
Today I visited Yellowstone National Park. It was up there with the Grand Canyon and the Rockies in the three places I was most looking forward to visiting. However, I would put it second only to Black Canyon at the bottom of the pile so far, and certainly the most disappointing place I’ve visited so far.
The main reason, the thing that spoils Yellowstone, is people; specifically people in motorised vehicles (and yes, I know I was one of them). I was in several traffic jams, people were just stopping in the road to gawp at a bison (there are literally hundreds of them, all you need to do is park up near Canyon Village and look out of the window on the plain!). There are RVs everywhere, driving slowly, taking up multiple parking spaces, pulling out in front of oncoming vehicles: it was a nightmare.
My normal tactic for this sort of thing (e.g. Rocky Mountain National Park isn’t as bad, but it’s close), is to go on a long hike into the middle of nowhere. But in Yellowstone this isn’t really possible because of the bears, unless you are in a group of three or more and have some $50 bear spray. So I stuck to the roads..
The second reason is my own fault. I had not appreciated a) how large Yellowstone is, or b) how far away Togwotee Mountain Lodge is. It proclaims itself as being close to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. It is 50 miles (!) from the lodge to the South entrance of Yellowstone, and then a further 60 miles from there to Canyon Village (which is where I ended up), on 45mph roads. That equals nearly seven hours (just shy of 240 miles) of driving for me today!
OK, so there’s the disappointment covered. Now it’s time for the good bits!
The first place I called in at was supposed to be a Ranger tour of the West Thumb part of Yellowstone, but it was delayed by an hour, so I walked round myself instead. The lakeside is literally smokin’, and very very smelly..! I got very used to the smell of sulphur. The most interesting thing (I thought) was that the really hot springs, were so hot, that algae can’t survive, which means the water is perfectly clear. The colours were spectacular, it looked very inviting to jump in, except they were close to 100 degrees..
Aftert his came the frustrating bit.. three hours of driving, trying to find something worth doing, missing a boat tour by half an hour etc. But then I found myself at Canyon Village, and walked around (and into) the ‘Grand’ Canyon of the Yellowstone river.
There were some fabulous waterfalls, the canyon sides were a beautiful colour, and I found a bear-free tough walk (my gauge of how good / rewarding a walk will be, is the severity of the pre-walk warning sign, and, Mrs Jackson, the lack of buggies!). This one had over 300 steps, and descended almost to the bottom of the canyon for spectacular views of the waterfall.
Climbing back up was pretty hard, and I was impressed by the number of young children making the journey with their parents. One or two of them weren’t even complaining!
I can’t tell you all how beautiful the colours were down there. The water was a wonderful blue / green colour, and the waterfall mist had a really unusual movement, because it was mixed in with sulphur. That, combined with the yellow stone of the canyon sides (another cunning name by the Americans there) and the green trees, made for a gorgeous scene.
My parents will be pleased to know I had no bear encounters, but I did see quite a few wild bison, which actually cause more injuries and deaths than bears in Yellowstone. One of them even decided to meander down the middle of the road! They are huge, almost as tall as a car. I am not surprised how easy it was to hunt them to the brink of extinction!
So in the end, it was a reasonably successful day, although the driving means I am now exhausted. Tomorrow I drive up the other road North, past Old Faithful and up to Mammoth Springs, to see more volcanic activity, and then I leave Wyoming (hooray!) and head into Montana for the next stage of the trip. At least I’ll be prepared for the traffic through Yellowstone tomorrow..