Yellowstone, Day 1

When we planned this road trip in January, we realized that the biggest National Park that we planned to visit was Yellowstone and we wanted to have plenty of time to see as much of it as possible.  Martha had the foresight to book four nights in the park at Canyon Village Lodge and we had activities lined up nearly every day.

 

We left Jackson and drove north to Yellowstone.  We had actually skirted the Park three days earlier when we drove from Bozeman to Jackson, visiting the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone (see post of August 12) – it is a huge place, encompassing 3,472 square miles (2,221,766 acres) which makes it larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined.  Although mostly in Wyoming, it spreads into parts of Montana and Idaho, too.  We were to find that, of all the Parks we visited, it had the widest diversity of geology – forested mountains, beautiful Yellowstone Lake (136 square miles), and the largest collection of hydrothermal features (hot springs, geysers, mudpots, and fumaroles) on the planet, over 10,000 of them, including the most well-known, the Old Faithful geyser.

 

We went through some areas that clearly had been damaged by wildfires in the past few years and had burned thousands of acres.

We stopped for lunch at the Snake River picnic area – yes, the same river we had floated down just a few days ago.  It seemed sometimes as if half of the traffic on the road was RVs, CruiseAmerica rentals predominating – it is a popular place for camping.  Another thing we noticed was that there was absolutely no litter along the roads, quite a contrast from certain areas of the rural South.  Either they had an aggressive litter-removal program in place or, more likely, folks who visit this park respect the beauty of the place.

We climbed higher and higher into fragrant forests of Douglas fir and lodgepole pine, which was absolutely gorgeous to drive in a Mini with the top down.

 

 

 

Finally, we arrived at the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake, nestled among the high surround peaks at an elevation of 7,732.  It is a beautiful lake with crystal clear water.

 

As we approached Canyon Village, it was also pleasant to find that they had 92 octane gasoline at gas stations in the park.  We followed the Yellowstone River north from the lake, and along the road we noticed billowing steam along the road and a strong odor of sulfur in the air.  We stopped to explore our first hydrothermal feature, Dragon’s Mouth Spring.  There was a group of these features in the immediate area:  Mud Volcano, Mud Cauldron, Cooking Hillside, Grizzly Fumarole, Sizzling Basin, Churning Cauldron, Black Dragon’s Cauldron.  It looked like scenery from another planet.

 

Canyon Village is a complex of lodges, cabins, a Visitor Education Center, a General Store, and dining amenities.  All of the buildings were relatively new and very nice inside while still looking rustic with open porches and big logs.  There was no air conditioning, just screens on the window, which was a nice change!  The elevation was 7,918, and the air was cool and crisp as we sat outside in big rocking chairs..