Yellowstone National Park, Tetons National Park
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Every time I sit down to write these entries I’m struck by how weird it is to be sitting at a picnic table, in the dark, by a campfire, writing journal entries on a laptop PC. Modern technology meets Grizzly Adams.
We had spread the tent and rain fly out in the hotel room the night before to try to dry it out. That seemed to work pretty well. We got it all folded up and the cooking gear put away. It was sorting of like breaking camp, except for the shower and shave.
We needed gas and groceries so we took care of that. By then it was 10:30. A very late start. That always seems to happen when we stay at motels.
We headed up to the park where we discovered that the best laid plans of mice and men oft times go astray. For some reason (snow they said, but we didn’t believe it), the pass through the northeastern corner of Yellowstone was closed! That was the whole reason we had driven back to Gardiner. We could have stayed at Old Faithful, wandered around the geysers and been heading for the Tetons by noon. As it was, we had another hour and a half drive back to Old Faithful, wandered around the geysers and got out by 3:30. Oh well.
We got back to Old Faithful with about half an hour to go before the next eruption. Learning our lesson from the day before, we figured out where the wind was blowing from, and got a vantage point away from where the steam would blow. When it erupted, we got a good view of it this time. Yes, they can be taught. As we wandered around to the back to watch it, we came across a buffalo standing by the path. He was no more than 6 feet away from us. We said hi, and continued on. It’s amazing how quickly you can get used to wandering by a buffalo.
Through careful scientific analysis, we determined that if we didn’t get much farther than the Tetons tonight, we could still make the canyon country with enough time to see it, if we blew off Colorado (which I had pretty much assumed we’d have to do anyway). So, we decided to see the rest of the Old Faithful geyser basin before we left.
We followed the same path we had the night before. We had found out at the visitor center that Grand Geyser (world’s tallest predictable geyser) was supposed to go off within the next hour and a half. This was the same geyser the kids had been waiting for the night before. So we headed for it. On the way, we saw Tardy Geyser, and Sawmill Geyser erupt. Tardy was really weird. The pool was completely empty when we walked by. Sawmill started erupting so we started watching it and next thing we knew, Tardy was erupting. The pool was full. When it finished, it was empty again.
Sawmill erupted for a long time. It would burst rather than going in a steady stream. Usually they were little ones, 4-6 feet high but occasionally they would really wump and go 20-30. It was still erupting when we headed for Grand Geyser. We waited about half an hour but nothing happened so we continued down the path. We passed park rangers with long poles pulling debris out of the pools. They looked like they were fishing.
We walked past the colored pools we had seen the night before, and past Giant Geyser which wasn’t doing anything, down to the end of the path at Morninglory pool. This pool used to be brilliant blue and have geyserite edges that made it look like a flower. But, it has been so vandalized over the years, people breaking off pieces of the rock, and throwing all kinds of gunk into it, that the plumbing has filled in, which cools it, and the algae changes color. It’s still pretty but used to be a lot better. People can be really stupid. The sign there said they still pull all kinds of stuff out of it even though there are signs everywhere telling you not to throw stuff in and why. It’s the MTV generation.
We headed back to the parking lot. Giant geyser was trying to erupt. It was swishing the water around a lot but couldn’t seem to work up a good stream. We stood and taunted it for 5 or 10 minutes trying to get it worked up but no avail. (Come on you wuss, you can do better than that. Call that a geyser. You weenie. Giant geyser, I don’t think so.) It made a few feeble attempts but that’s it.
We passed Grand Geyser again (world’s tallest predictable geyser, prediction: it never erupts). The one next to it was erupting, Turban, which “often signals the eruption of Grand”, but still nothing. We gave it another 10 minutes but it was cold and I was hungry and we finally packed it in. We spent the most time not watching Grand geyser erupt of any geyser in the park.
As we were heading out, Castle Geyser erupted a little. This may be the oldest geyser in the park they say. It has really built up the geyserite around it. And it does look like a castle. The sign said it could shoot 90 feet but it could only manage about 10 for us, even with more taunting.
Finally we got on the road to get out of Yellowstone. Our one day trip had turned into about 3 and a half. We were on a mission from God to get out of the park. With one brief stop at the Lewis River on the way out (where there was a big mound of obsidian, unlike at obsidian cliff), we finally made it out and headed down John D. Rockefeller Highway to the Tetons.
We had heard the Tetons were nice. But we had been pretty impressed with Yellowstone. But our first good glimpse of the Tetons was another “step back” experience (except we were in the car so we couldn’t really step back.) The mountains are spectacular. The snow had lightly dusted them and it created a stark contrast with the stone of the mountains. That coupled with the cloud cover and the afternoon light made the mountains appear really crisp and 3 dimensional. It was as if you were looking at them through binoculars. You got that same sense of heightened brightness.
We stopped a few times for pictures and to stare at them, including one place where people were watching for moose. We managed to see the back end of one moose standing in some high bushes about 300 yards off in the distance. Not much, but the first moose I’ve ever seen.
We camped at Signal Mountain with a view of the Tetons, set up the tent and took a short drive to Jenny Lake. The lake is at the base of Grand Teton and whatever one is next to it. As Les said, it wasn’t enough to have these great mountains, they added a lake to improve the view. There was a path down to the edge of the lake. A great spot. We heard an elk bugle in the distance and saw fish jumping in the lake. No one else was there, no traffic, no nothing. There was a strange rushing noise in the distance that sounded like the freeway but must have been a waterfall. It would have had to have been a big one though because it was really far off.
When it started getting dark we headed back to camp. On the road on the way back we had to stop for a big heard of antelope running across the road. We also saw elk grazing in a field.
Dinner was chili and potatoes. Looks like it might not rain on us. Hope it doesn’t.
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