Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons

As a note, we spent four days in Yellowstone National Park and one day in the Grand Tetons, so this is a highly condensed travelogue of our time there. Suffice it to say the wide open feel extends to time, which seems to slow down even more while you are there. We were sorry to leave it behind for the real world again!

Yellowstone was undoubtedly everything it was cracked up to be, and then some. I was not really prepared for the complete spaciousness that greets you. I loved the big, open feel of Montana, but this was different again. It was just completely wild. Montana is all ranchland, but Yellowstone is just open wilderness. You drive into the park and hit that first open vista, and feel like taking a big breath and letting it out slowly, along with all the stress of modern life. Seeing bison roaming and grazing adds to the “step back in time” feel, and you can almost picture yourself coming through as a settler in a covered wagon. It just seems so totally untouched, and we loved that.

The fires that raged through the park in 1988 completely changed the landscape. The old lodgepole pine forests are visible, the bare trunks of the burned trees standing as a stark testament to just how much of the park was ravaged by fire. However, there are healthy young trees that naturally reseeded, and a lot of the dead trees have fallen down now. It is fascinating to see the new trees and all the fallen dead trees—almost like someone scattered them with a gigantic bowling ball. The thermal features have their own unique signature on the landscape, too. Unexpectedly you come across pockets of steam coming up from the ground, the orange and white colors indicating geologic activity. The smelly springs and geysers hit you in the nose first, and then you turn a corner and see a massive white and orange outcropping with billowing steam at the top. We bought an audio guide and accompanying book about Yellowstone and it told several gruesome stories about unwise visitors who met untimely ends after walking on the crusts of thermal pools, or diving in to save their dog, or leaving food out for grizzlies (suffice it to say that fellow became food). Yuck. It reinforced our decision to visit only a few thermal geysers/pools with DD, and to always use her monkey backpack (with a convenient tail leash). Still we were not comfortable wandering around the areas with extensive thermal pools and boardwalks, so we only visited a few where she was easy to keep confined and the walks were short enough that she wasn’t likely to become bored and want to stray off. We had no interest in becoming a statistic.

We were fascinated and repelled by the tourists who seemed intent on becoming one, however. It was absolutely unbelievable how many people got out of their cars and were repeatedly violating the 25 yard minimum rule for distance from bison, elk, or deer. It is supposed to be a hundred yards away from a bear, and yet people were intent on violating that, too! HELLO??? The “get closer to get good photos” of the bison phenomenon was really the most common one, and we were just open-mouthed at the stupidity of it. They have horns, they run faster than you, and they have CALVES to protect, people!! Hello! Stay away! Get a better telephoto lens for your camera and please don’t check your brain at the door of your car. Unbelievable.

We saw a lot of wildlife there. It was always obvious when animals were close to the road because there would be a glut of cars stopped to view them and take pictures, and the inevitable stupid ones who were getting out of their cars to get up close and personal. We saw several bald eagles, osprey, and plenty of ravens. Lots of bison, lots of elk, some mule deer. Completely memorable was the herd of bison hoofing it down the road, right past our RV! We got some great video of that. DH was 2 feet away from bison calves as they loped by. SO COOL! And I saw coyote pups playing outside their den, and we saw 2 black bears foraging. On our last day in Yellowstone, as we were passing out of the park, we saw a grizzly sow and her two cubs! We are glad the rangers are aware of bear movements, apparently, as everywhere we saw bears there were two or three rangers directing traffic and keeping bears away from people seemingly intent on suffering the consequences of their own stupidity. Frankly we were happier that the bears and wildlife were being protected from the people than the other way around, which is a pretty miserable way to feel, but you get pretty tired of seeing folks doing exactly what they had been told explicitly not to do. We kept hoping to see a ranger pull up and start ticketing people!

The Grand Tetons were sparser on wildlife, but that was probably because we stayed away from the main drag around the lakes and instead stuck to the sagebrush flats on the east. Beautiful scenery, though, and of course the Tetons themselves are magnificent. No sightings of moose, which was a disappointment for me, nor of the rare trumpeter swan. However, when you are mainly sticking to the road it’s to be expected. The next time we come we will do some hiking and really get out there instead of doing mostly car sightseeing. With kids’ naps and stops, however, come limitations. It made me very happy we had the RV to be “at home” wherever we happened to be, and we certainly loved what we saw. We will be back, that’s for sure.