Where’s Yogi?

Crossing into Montana after 4 months travelling in Canada, we’d no idea what to expect. We’d been so enthralled in Waterton, crossing the border into Glacier felt a bit meh! Just while we settled ourselves though! Glacier National Park is kind of the other half, south of the border, to Waterton but it’s very different. Everyone had said do the ‘Going to the Sun Road’ as it’s spectacular. Sadly, size being everything (especially for American RV’ers) we are half a meter too long and too high. It’s a tricky drive in a car by all accounts and we didn’t want our roof ripped off by an overhang. Nor did we want to pay £120 each for a tourist bus with its get off, take a snap, get back on theme. So that’s for another time. Instead we headed to Many Glaciers Road for a hike. Sadly again, this is an oxymoron, there used to be 146 glaciers in the national park and now there’s 26 and looking at them, we suspect the road may have to be renamed in the not too distant future. It was a great hike though and the scenery was stunning, even with such small deposits of ice. The water levels seemed very low but we’ve no benchmark as to what’s normal. There was plenty over the falls though. On the way back, a distant black bear no. 8 🙂

Heading through Montana to get to Yellowstone was as expected, but not a cowboy/girl in sight. It was the rolling fields and trees we’d imagined and undulating valleys. Climbing to 6000ft a couple of times then dropping into really wide valleys there was an immense scale to it, but boy it was barren of life. In parts it was very dry, not what we’d expected. It’s one of the least, per acre, populated states and it showed. We passed through some small towns on The Blackfoot Trail reminiscent of the late 1800’s boom trading posts, wooden slatted building frontages and a brick built bank for example. Having seen not much for a long time we hit the metropolis of Helena and then Boulder. The state was becoming more agricultural the more we drove, black cattle dots grazing in the expansive fields. Of cultural note, we were seeing a lot of “not even once” signs, a reflection of the fentanyl plague across the US.

We arrived at Yellowstone National Park at the north entrance (it’s vast so they have a few) and we headed to our campsite at Gardiner. On our way there, we had a detour via a fabulous Swiss vet for Jigsaws jabs. After setting up and having two campers tell us to watch out for Jigsaw as there’s a Great Horned Owl around (which we saw) we headed into Gardiner to get a bite ourselves. No chance, this is meat country lady, I was told! We ended up sharing a salad and deep fried cheese curds, hmm… The very streetwise Elk wanted in on it we think or perhaps a coffee from the ubiquitous hut! We were a bit concerned that one of the local tour buses had made a wrong turn, they seemed to be advertising different animals to the ones we were seeing.

Yellowstone is, to my mind, a park of two halves. Each being quite different. I’ve mused about how to write about them as frankly, there’s so much. We spent 7 days exploring and there were still parts we didn’t get to, out East. The north part of the park centres around Mammoth Hot Springs, a town designed for tourists, which is actually in Wyoming (as is most of the park) Fools that we are, we got the bikes out, I knew this wasn’t going to be one of Nicks ‘potter’ rides. A 3500 foot climb later, to 7300 feet, we had jelly legs, but it was worth it, right?! Seriously, being on the bikes we could stop when cars couldn’t which means in our minds, being able to take it in and see more. Highlights were the steaming hot springs and the travertine terraces formed from the water mineral deposits. The pictures probably tell a better story. On the very quick cycle back down we saw Elk. At the bottom we stopped for a beer and more curds, at the OK corral!

A bit of info on Yellowstone. It was the first National Park, formed in 1872 and covers 2.2m acres. It’s origins lie in 3 volcanic eruptions, the most recent being c. 600,000 years ago! That one is known as an ‘extinction event’ as the ash cloud cooled the earths atmosphere such that it wiped out a significant proportion of the worlds species. Circa 2/3rds of the US was covered in very deep ash. Eventually, the pioneers arrived and built a row of cowboy bars and shops….

The best way to see places like Yellowstone is to set the alarm clock early and get out. Wildlife are more likely to be around at sunrise and dusk and the other wildlife known as tourists on buses are generally still asleep. The light is always spectacular too, if, like a certain person, taking photos is your thing. You’ll have to put up with my phone shots I’m afraid! Numerous stops on the way (took the van this time) we enjoyed Undine Falls, Floating Island Lake and Black Tail pond. The Lamar River Valley though was where it was at for the wildlife though. We had Bison scattered everywhere, young and old; Coyote; bald eagles; Elk; Deer and amazingly a grey wolf. I was amused by the Raven who’d been released on remand from somewhere… tagged, while we were in a roadworks queue!

Our second early start to get ahead, we headed more south of Mammoth towards Norris and Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon. Driving in the early morning mist was just gorgeous, and seeing the hot springs steam rising with the sun was unbeatable. The ethereal effects over the boggy wetlands of the very low temperatures before sun up proper and the colourful pools at the lakes such as Nymph were as though an artist had created a moving painting on our screen. Tree’s semi shrouded in mist through half light, what’s not to enjoy (with a hot coffee!) This area of the park is more about the scenery, the geysers and hot springs being full of surprises, sounds and smells.

The Grand Canyon has two waterfalls and there’s a rim walk so great views. It has a scale thats much less than ‘the other one’ which actually meant we could take it in more. Formed naturally by The Yellowstone River’s erosion, its 1200ft deep, 4000ft wide and 24 miles long but the colours and layering of the rock formations were amazing. Bigger isn’t always better as the US do’nt often say! In terms of colours The Artists Point doesn’t disappoint.

The Norris Geyser Basin is a different experience again. A boardwalk trail through trees and it opens up an interconnected steaming delta effect with colourful pools, bubbling and steaming fumeroles and pots. A magical place, shimmering waters and a colour palette Mondrian would have killed for! The still waters at times looked like poured coloured resin. Various levels of alkaline and acidity in the volcano heated waters, combining with different minerals lead to the creation of spectacular vistas.

Moving to the West of the National Park we were on yet a different road, seeing Trumpeter Swans at Swan Lake, no kidding, the two pairs of Sandhill Cranes which apparently is a lucky spot. this route took us along the Gibbon River, first stop, The Artists Paint Pots. So named because of the density of colours in the gurgling pots, the steam vents and the colours in the mineral pools. The popular stop in this area is ‘Grand Prismatic Pool’. The best time to see this is a hot day so not steam rising and the sunlight on the water for the colour. We had cold and very little sun, however it was still spectacular. The myriad of colour was astonishing as was the cloud angel.

Being based near the faux cowboy town of West Yellowstone we were in a bit of a tourist trap. It’s the West entrance to the town and probably the easiest for many visitors. We had been keeping a log, as we do, of US state license plates we’d seen and when counted up we were shocked that we’d seen 43 of the 50 states, shows how immensely popular the park is. We’d also seen approx 10 European vehicles too, French, German, Swiss and Dutch so also international! As a town it was pretty shoddy given the tourism, lots of low end motels, tourist tat shops and not particularly great eateries. They search for the golden ‘moose’ here though! It did have some fun signage and a fab visitor centre though. Jigsaw made friends in the queues even at traffic lights!

The big draw in the west is ‘Old Faithful’ geyser. Named because it is quite faithful to its eruption timetable so the arrive, photo/video and leave tourist is never disappointed. An early start meant we were one of the first few around once the sun was up to see it, later on we were joined by hundreds who watched the whole thing through their phones… why?! It’s easy to escape there however, away from the awful hotel and supporting buildings, the canteen and massive gift shop. We spent around 4 hours wandering the mass of boardwalks, there’s over 230 geysers in the park, 180 are in that zone. So many diverse features in an ever changing volcanic landscape, a few favourite photos below. The standout was however the white rimmed ‘Morning Glory’.

After a week of intensity on all levels, physically on the bikes and mentally, taking it all in best we could we were grateful for a morning of torrential rain to slow us down and take a breath. The next step for us was Grand Teton National Park. That was going to mean the big guns would be out, camera that is, as Nick tries to replicate his all time favourite, Ansel Adams’ famous pictures from the area.