Yellowstone and the Tetons

After staying the night in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Cody, WY (this was a very nice Wally-world btw), we cruised into Yellowstone by about 10am. We took note of all the closed camping areas due to snow coverage. It is still pretty cold in this area and there is limited cell phone coverage.

Entering from the east, our plan was to head north to stay our first night in tower falls camping area. On our way north we stopped by the grand canyon of Yellowstone and checked out the lower and upper falls. The canyon and the falls were awesome. As you approached, you felt thunderous vibrations from the crashing water. It looked like a billion tons of water flowing through this canyon falling around 150 ft.

From there, we continued north on the "grand ring" to find that the road to the tower falls area was closed so we had to take the round-about way to get there so we stopped in mammoth hot springs area and camped there for the night instead. We bought some ground bison and had bison burgers and pasta :)

The next morning we went to the rangers office and got back-country hiking and camping passes which were surprisingly free. After watching the regulation bear safety video, we set off to the back country camp area near tower falls in the north-east. We hiked the 8.2 mile (one way) Slough Creek trail where there was supposed to be high bear activity. Gon' see-a grizzly! Not to worry, we have an oversized pepper spray can meant to fend off big bears in the event of a close encounter. We passed a few other back country hikers and asked if they had any sightings. The one set of guys responded, "year we saw a grizzly, black bear, few elk, and a whole bunch of buffalo." We, however, ended up seeing only a few unruly buffalo and some pikas (little squirrel like prairie dogs). None of which were very afraid of humans. The little pikas would come right up to you and the buffaloes claimed the hiking path for themselves as we were forced to go around. That night we hung our food high in the trees and prayed no bears would drag us out of the tent that night. Haha. We were fine and woke up to a beautiful sunny morning in valley with a water fall, river, and snow capped mountains all around. We loaded up the stuff and hiked the 8 miles back to the van. Tired and smelly, we drove back to town changes into clean clothes and got some ice cream and dinner. We then drove south to Old Faithful for a late afternoon show. Lots of geothermal activity. Unfortunately, I could not do justice in describing the scientific detail, but it is certainly a sight to see. Want to go back in the winter for some thermal lake fishing, and some back country snowmobiling.

We spent the night at an RV park in Yellowstone, got showers and did laundry. Today we went southbound out of Yellowstone into the Grand Teton national park and through Jackson hole. Since we are running short on time to pick my sister up in Seattle and the weather was rainy, we had to speed through this part of the trip to be able to spend a few days in Glacier National Park. Jackson,WY is a very nice town though. It sits in a valley right beside the Teton mountains and has the snake river (very big river) near by. The town loomed with outdoor sports businesses: kayaking, climbing, rafting, biking, skiing, hunting, fishing, you name it. Definitely, want to return here in the future.

Now we are on the road up to Glacier NP. Currently we are in Idaho and only 7 hours until Glacier. Might not have much cell service so the next post will probably be in or near Seattle. Vanderstinks out.