Our first impression of Yellowstone National Park was that it was such a natural wonder! We were later to realise that there are so many landscape changes that lay within the 3472 square mile boundaries. Up to 30,000 people daily (across the summer months) visit the park. And up to 3 million annually!
The park has 4 entrances north, south, east and west and offers a 142 mile Grand Loop Road to take the thousands of visitors as safely as possible around the north and south loops of the park. Most of these roads are closed over the winter months due to the snow. 85 trail head that offers 1200 miles of hiking trails for those who are a little more adventurous than us!
Approx 6 mile into the park we leave the state line of Montana and into the state of Wyoming.
Just around this first corner we were greeted by a fast flowing stream surround by around 20 resting bison! These are huge beasts that appear quite mangy as they loose their winter coats. We thought - this is great! All this wildlife is right here in front of us on the sides of the road. It shouldn't be too hard to see a bear!
We were also amazed at how much 'dead wood' was laying around on the forest floor. I thought why hasn't someone cleaned all this up. I was later to find out that because it is a National Park it just has to stay there. To make this even more amazing was, when we reached our campground we had to pay $7 for a small box of wood and $2.50 for kindling that was imported in from the state of Idaho!! Belinda Jane's fault.......Dad/Daryl could've done with a truck load sent over from you by the time we'd finished just to keep warm!
We put up our recently purchased $70 tent from Target and blew up our $10 airbeds. We bought our sleeping bags from home in Australia and thought we were all set.......then the beautiful sun went down.......
Oh my........8500 feet elevation was where our little campground stood on the Continental Divide, with it's snow capped peaked mountains hovering over the picturesque Yellowstone Lake (which I wondered why no one was swimming in - but it was too damn cold)! We wore 2 jumpers to bed and I have never been so cold in my whole entire life. It got to around 32 degrees F, (so equivalent to 0 degrees Celsius). Once the glorious sun rose above the trees to provide us with another glorious day we drove for 2 hours back into town and bought more blankets! We suffered through 6 nights of bone chilling, sole destroy patches of sleep and by the end of it I had 5 jumpers on! The day experiences was worth the nightly pain.
Each day greeted us with new adventure. From the ever changing scenery landscapes to looking at Geysers, hiking to Waterfalls and continuing our search for the sight of the wildlife on offer.
Scoop got up early one morning and took photo's of the sunrise.
By the end of day 3 we were very disheartened that we still hadn't layed eyes on a bear. Considering we have a bear box right behind our tent, we expected to see some by now. Now a bear box is a metal cabinet like a pantry that all foods have to be stored in so the bears don't get it. We were not allowed to cook in the same clothes that you sleep in, nor were you allowed to even take so much as a bottle of water to bed with you in case the bears come into your tent!
The 4th day we drove up to the north loop of the park. Hours hiking into waterfalls and eyes peeled for the sight of bear. To date we saw Chipmunks, Elk, Moose, Badgers, Polkhorn, Bison and birds.
Then ALAS.....there it was - up ahead on the roadside through the ever backlog and congestion of RV's, cars, and Harleys ( which is always a dead giveaway that something interesting is out there) - our first sighting of a BLACK BEAR playing in the water.
2 mile up the road we then saw our 2nd bear sighting! More than happy for the day we headed back home only to see a Park Rangers truck on the side of the road looking at another bear up in the woods. We thought this one was a Grizzly bear at first (due to it's light golden coat) but were later to learn the subtle differences between the two. Black bear can also have golden coats. So 3 black bear sightings for the day along the north loop. Our campground was on the bottom of the south loop.
Met 3 lovely families on our stay at the camp ground. Which is exactly what we had been missing from Motel life. Being able to interact with other like minded families, adult conversations, kids being able to play with other kids, drinks and cooking Jiffy Pop & SMORES by the campfire! We saw these SMORES kits in the shops which consisted of sticks, marshmallows, crackers and Hershey's chocolate. We decided not to purchase as we didn't know what to do with the Graeme's crackers and Hershey chocolate! After some cultural education on SMORES, we now know what to do and are going to be on every camping shopping list. **Mark Munson - Buy a SMORES kit from your American Foods website (you won't be disappointed)!
We hope to catch up with these extremely hospitable people on the remainder of our trip as they all live in parts of the country that we are heading towards.
We also took in Grand Teton National Park, which is below Yellowstone out the south exit. Didn't encounter any wildlife down this way but the 40 mile long Grand Teton Mountain range, added more magnificent scenery and landscapes to our gallery.
Out the south gate of Grand Teton Park is the heavily tourist town Jackson (for snow boarders, skiers and mountain bikers alike)! Went this way for the novelty of getting a photo of the sign for our Jackson and also to get Internet service to check emails!!! Starting to fret with no phone or Internet (or even power to charge equipment up).
Packed up our camping gear the next morning and headed for the hot weather, showers, crisp queen size bed sheets and hot breakfasts of the Days Inn Motel in Worland Wyoming! What a feeling that was after 6 nights in the forest!
Having a few nights in motels along our journey to Mount Rushmore South Dakota!
Enjoy ALL the pictures of our camping adventure in the gallery.
Love Team Connor USA. xoxox
P.S. A man was killed by a grizzly the day we left the park, on a trail we had encountered during our adventures!!!!
P.S.S. To much video footage to even contemplate a you tube link, Team Connor video night when we get home.
