Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Oh Give Me A Home Where The Buffalo Roam

We arose early this morning and hightailed it to Yellowstone, about 65 miles from our inn. The best sightings of the park's animals are in the early morning and late afternoon when they are feeding. We were not disappointed. Elk and bison were out and about in large numbers.

The main road through Yellowstone is a figure eight. We set out thinking that we would see it all the first day. By lunchtime we had covered about 1/10 of what we had planned. There's just too much to see. If you pass over a sight you worry that you have missed something dramatic. Therefore, we slowed down and changed our plan in hopes that we would cover half today and the other half tomorrow.

As you depart the majesty of the Tetons it's difficult to imagine anything as beautiful. A large part of the difference is that most of the viewing in the Tetons is from the valley unless you are packing it in on one of the many trails. In Yellowstone much of the travel is along the ridges where you are looking down upon rivers, waterfalls, valleys, meadows, and several lakes. One of the first lakes we saw actually was still partly iced over. The largest lake, Yellowstone Lake, was immense.

The early morning and late afternoon vistas are hard to describe and harder to photograph. The peaks are rimmed with snow, ice and clouds that make the rims appear silvery. In a few valleys the clouds are in the meadows.

We visited numerous geysers, but Old Faithful was the most dramatic. There is a circular rail fence with bench seating on almost half of it. When we arrived several hundred people were seated, so it appeared that the eruption was at hand. Sure enough, five minutes after our arrival Old Faithful delivered on schedule. Very dramatic, but not as tall as we expected. The area is totally commercial. There are wall-to-wall lodges and more under construction. Disneyland in the sky! Many restaurants, museums, a post office, etc.

The multitude of other geysers was more impressive. Some no bigger than potholes; some spread over areas the size of football fields. The largest is Steamboat which had an eruption in May 2005 to an elevation of about 350 feet. Today, only about 25 feet. In some areas the sulfur odor is very strong-like rotten eggs. Many of the pools are green, blue, red and other colors. I tend to be more impressed with rivers and waterfalls than geysers, though we had plenty of each.

Whereas we were disappointed that we did not see more wildlife on our earlier visit to the Tetons or the white water rafting, today was an experience beyond our expectations. We first saw bison herds from a distance, but soon saw them up close. On several occasions we would stumble upon the bison and elk grazing along the roadside. A couple of times we were the first to sight the animals and vehicles stopped behind us to enjoy and photograph the sights. More often we stopped when we came upon other stopped vehicles. On one instance an elk bolted across the road about 20 feet in front of us. Fortunately we were cruising at about 25 mph.

Altogether we traveled over about half the road and saw much more than we expected to see. We probably saw several hundred bison and maybe 50 elk. No bear or moose today, but we're very hopeful for tomorrow when we travel the upper loop. If you are interested in horseback expeditions, there are several dude ranches in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks.

A special hello to former students/campers in Statesboro, GA that braved the wilderness with me in the Great Smokies and other secret places.

No comments: