Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks
Friday, June 22: From Jackson to Old Faithful
You’d think that after the long day we’d had the day before — from 5:00 AM until 9:30 PM — we’d have slept in the next morning. No such luck. Dan had told us to be prepared for large crowds and frequent delays in Yellowstone, not only at major attractions but even at the park entrance. And it didn’t take long before we discovered the truth of that warning. Over the next few days, we found ourselves in the company of too many people quite often, usually when we were looking for a place to park. It was rare that we found ourselves alone in all those wide open spaces, and those moments were wonderful.
We had an easy drive up through Jackson Hole and the Grand Teton Park, passing many of the spots we had spent time in the day before. We did have to wait a few minutes in line at the Yellowstone Park entrance, but it wasn’t bad so early in the day. Dan had marked a map for us, so we started out with at least a little planning. That kept us from wandering around aimlessly; instead we wandered around with good aim, headed toward a few specific stopping points our first day in Yellowstone. The first one of Dan’s suggested stops was Lewis Falls, not a particularly striking view, but a great introduction to the rivers of mountainous Wyoming. Clearly we were no longer along the banks of the flat-land Snake, and we weren’t in South Alabama either.
We drove along the road–US 191 when we left Jackson–along Lewis Lake toward West Thumb. Dan had told us that the geyser basin there wasn’t great so we didn’t stop, but I must admit that the smoking spots we saw along the way were a little intriguing. Nevertheless we persisted (tee-hee) and made it to Grant Village for a short rest stop. And the purchase of a couple of souvenirs. After that, we followed the road along the bank of Yellowstone Lake, something that looked OK on the map but really struck us by its sheer size. And we were surprised to see almost no boats out there. Where we live, that much water would have been fairly littered with skiers, pontoon boats, and the occasional fisherman, who was no doubt cussin’ out the guys on skidoos!
Enough of that rant. What we saw was beautiful. Rain came and went, as did the sun, and altogether it was a sight worth seeing. We made it to Lake Village and turned right, crossing the Fishing Bridge in spite of the crazy waits for the construction going on. We were headed for another of Dan’s recommendations: a stretch along the road to the East entrance to the park where a grizzly named Snow had recently been spotted. Along the way–in fact, almost before we reached the spot where Snow had been seen–we stopped because we saw a car parked along the road and a guy standing very still, holding a camera with a long lens and looking toward the trees. Lo and behold, there was an elk. Just walking along, waiting for a tourist to stop and take a few photos. We obliged, of course.
Not much farther along we saw a sight that was becoming a trigger point for us: cars parked along both sides of the road and lots of people focusing their long lenses toward something that must have been terribly interesting. This time it was a sighting of our goal: Snow the Grizzly. Park Rangers were there, controlling traffic and allowing the few people who didn’t seem interested in bears to make it through the gauntlet. We jumped out, cameras at the ready, and joined the crowd. It was really fun, just to see all the people, from all over the world, complete strangers for the most part, crowded together, smiling and laughing with one another, moving each other politely and all looking in the same direction and hoping to see the same thing: one lone bear. The bear wasn’t concerned at all. She just rooted along the ground about halfway up a hill, for all we could tell, totally oblivious to all the attention. Classic moment, typical of other experiences we would have in Yellowstone, and in the end, one of the best “takeaways” from this trip.
Eventually we got back in the car, turned around, headed back across the Fishing Bridge, and continued our trip north through the park. The next stop Dan had marked on our map was the mud volcano and Dragons Mouth hot spring, our first experience with the geo-thermal features of Yellowstone. If I were a half-century younger, I would probably say “OMG” or something like that. All of us had seen photos of these things, and we had been told by many people that they were exciting/interesting/smelly/fascinating/unearthly/scary parts of Yellowstone. Yep. They were. All of them were. And all of us were amazed at what we saw, even though not one of us took the long way up the hill and around the boardwalk that circled the entire basin. As it was we saw and smelled enough.
The famed Mud Volcano was truly fascinating. It really was. And I can’t imagine how many years it’s been there, bubbling away and stinking up the place, or how many tourists have seen it. The Dragon’s Mouth was just as captivating, and we were all struck by the sight of small little bubbly spots all over the place, right next to the boardwalk. Crazy! KC’s comment was that it looked like we were on Mars or something. She was right. For us, this was a different world. At the bottom of this page there’s a tab for videos. Just look at some of them. The ones of the red dogs are peaceful enough, but the ones of the bubbling cauldrons could be used at a Hollowe’en Spooktacular. I’m sorry my lack of skills a videographer means the two of the Dragon’s Mouth hot spring are accessible only through a link and are really slow to load. Technology. I’m still learning, you know?
As if that weren’t enough, right across the road, down a hill, there was the Yellowstone River, flowing along undisturbed toward Yellowstone Lake. And what did we see there, placidly chewing their cuds? Just a small herd of female bison with their young, “red dogs,” as they are called. Really. A complete contrast in just about every way you could imagine. To the west a scene out of someone’s nightmare, with the earth itself bubbling away and hot enough to boil the flesh from bones. To the east a primal domestic scene, with calves suckling and playing along a river bank. No wonder this place was considered so special it was set aside as a national park 150 years ago. Surely there can’t be many places on the planet with this kind of diversity slapped up against one another!
Looking back at this point, it’s amazing that we had seen so much in only half a day, but all good things must come to an end. So we soldiered on, made it to Canyon Village, and stopped for lunch. This was our first experience at one of Xanterra’s “cafeterias” in Yellowstone, and all in all it wasn’t a bad stop. We were all replete when we loaded up in a little sprinkle of rain for the next adventure of the day. As it turned out we didn’t have far to go. There we were at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, so we just had to go take a look. Or several looks.
We managed to find a parking place, after waiting for too many people to move their overgrown campers out of the way, and stumbled around looking for the right path to take to get a look at the canyon from one of the sanctioned viewpoints. And what a view we had! The sight wasn’t anything like what we had seen before. It was a different place, obviously, but the entire experience was different. Judy and I stopped for while to hear part of a Ranger presentation about Thomas Moran’s vision and painting of the canyon from this viewpoint. But but sky was getting darker, so we moved on to the steps up to the viewpoint itself, and we barely made it in time. Slowly the heavens opened and we barely got a few shot off before the heavens opened. Sprinkles turned to showers while all six of us stumbled back along the path just to crowd into the Sequoia and join more than a few other tourists in trying to leave that parking lot.
Of course the fun wasn’t over then. We got through the crowd, turned right, and turned in again to the next viewpoint to see the canyon again. This time we were more interested in seeing the falls up close than we were in looking at the walls of the canyon. To be perfectly honest, by this time, given that we had swapped drivers, and we were all beginning to tire a little, I couldn’t tell you the difference between the upper falls and the lower falls. We followed the path from one viewpoint to another, and we weren’t disappointed by anything we saw. The best of all those beautiful views was the rainbow we saw as we looked down toward the pool at the base of the falls. Yep. The sun really did shine again!
After that, we were about done for the day, so we struck out for the Old Faithful Inn. It wasn’t a short ride, but it would have been even longer if we hadn’t made ourselves drive on as we passed place after place where we wanted to stop. Nonetheless, we persisted, made it to the historic Inn, checked in and fully relaxed at the end of a wonderful fun-filled day. “Relaxing” included having drinks on the balcony overlooking Old Faithful. Judy had been there as a child, but the rest of us enjoyed seeing it blow its top. After we all had time to clean up and change, we went to the Dining Room for a family dinner before the old folks tottered off to bed. Judy and I have no idea what the rest of them might have been up to, and we’re just as happy not knowing.
