The OG of National Parks – 2 Girls and a Dog

September 20, 21, 22, 2024

Wow – it’s hard to know where to start to describe our visit to Yellowstone National Park. The grandeur, overwhelming beauty, immense size and the sheer number of wonders make this one of the most extraordinary places we’ve ever experienced. However, we owe it to you all to try and give you a taste of this natural paradise.

On Thursday morning, we left Livingston and drove south towards Yellowstone and arrived at the park boundary in about an hour. When entering the park from the north, we were still an hour from our hotel at Canyon Lodge. The road we traveled took us through beautiful rolling hills covered in gold and red and consisted of plains, grasslands and meadows. Eventually, we started seeing forests of pine trees scattered with bright yellow Quaking Aspen and the terrain (and roads) became steeper and steeper. The road is good, so the drive is only truly scary when someone driving the other way is speeding or just not paying attention. We stopped at a couple of overlooks and took pictures but, really, no pictures can do this landscape justice. We had our first Bison photo op about 30 minutes after entering the park. We arrived at our hotel and got checked in early. We had a quick dinner (more about the food in the park later) and went to sleep fairly early as we had a very early start time for our private tour the next day

We met Shantel, our private tour guide at Madison Junction at 8 AM and started our tour of Yellowstone’s lower loop. The lower loop alone takes about 8 hours to see properly. Rather than give you a blow-by-blow description of the tour, what follows are impressions and descriptions of Yellowstone’s impressive landscape.

First of all, Yellowstone is the OG of National Parks and was established on March 1, 1872, by President Grant and it is massive! It is ~380 square miles or 2.2 million acres. There are numerous lakes, rivers and streams. The majority of the trees in the forest are Lodge Pole pines and they are distinctive because their trunks are quite small but they are very tall and straight. They have no taproot and a very shallow root system, so they uproot and fall over easily. They have two types of seeds, some that seed when the pinecones drop to the ground but many of the seeds have a thick covering and only germinate when the forest catches on fire. So, the forest rangers tend to let fires in Yellowstone burn themselves out unless they are threatening important structures.

Yellowstone is on top of a super volcano the last erupted ~640,000 years ago. This super volcano is active and full of molten magma. This is what creates the four main geological wonders we all come to Yellowstone to see. There are hot springs, mud pots (Sandy’s favorite), fumaroles (steam vents), (Sandy’s favorite), and of course, geysers, (Sandy’s favorite). We saw all of these on our tour. It was wonderful weather with a high of about 60 degrees and a low just below freezing. In the early mornings there was frost everywhere so as we drove by the hot springs and fumaroles, the steam engulfed parts of the road and visibility went to almost zero. The fumaroles are everywhere including right next to the road. Because of the super volcano, the “plumbing” under the surface is ever changing and some features disappear, and new ones appear. Shantel, our guide, was so knowledgeable and spends so much time in the park that she was able to point out recent changes. She also took us to places off the beaten path (always being respectful of the delicate ecological balance of the land) and even knew a place where we could put our hands into a tiny hot spring (115 degrees F) that was really a special experience. We, of course, saw Old Faithful do her thing, shooting super heated water about 150 feet up into the air. For us, Yellowstone was a nearly spiritual experience. To think about how the earth beneath our feet was so alive and constantly in a state of change and how we as humans have been here for mere seconds from a geological perspective is awe inspiring.

So that’s the geological aspect of Yellowstone. The other amazing part of Yellowstone are the herds of Bison. They rule the place and the pace of life. If a Bison is on the road, you simply must wait until he or she decides to move. The female Bison and the caves live together, and the males live solitary lives unless it is mating season. Once a female conceives, she chases the male away and basically has nothing to with them until the caves are born. Even then, they only tolerate their presence if the herd is threatened by predators. As you can imagine, we have lots of pictures of Bison, not always the best pictures because they are not concerned with giving us their best profiles.

Now, a couple of pieces of advice should any of you decide to visit this magical place. First of all, and most importantly, the food options here are dismal. Most people in the know, bring food in coolers or non-perishable items like peanut better and the like. The food in the park is fairly expensive and we are probably being somewhat gracious to say it most closely resembles school cafeteria food. We are not exaggerating – it’s not good. Same with the wine choices. Bring your own. If you drink beer, you’re probably OK as they offer local micro-brewery options. Secondly, we highly recommend a private tour especially if your time is limited. A private tour guide will listen to your preferences, physical limitations and any special requests. The bus tours just don’t look like fun and even the smaller tours can only accommodate people to a certain extent. We used Globe Trekkers and they were wonderful to work with and we believe we got great value for our money.

The day after our private tour, we drove to the Grand Teton National Park which was about 1 ½ drive from our hotel. The Tetons are magnificent and totally worth the drive down. We went to the visitor center and stamped our national park passport book and headed off to explore. We used an app called GuideAlong that was really helpful. A tour guide with a perfect radio voice guides you through the park and lets you know when attractions and scenic overlooks are coming up. Arnie (as Sandy named him because he just sounded like an Arnie) said this particular road leading to an overview summit was a must do. Michelle always pauses when the word “summit” comes up because that generally means winding mountain roads with hairpin turns and super scary drop-offs are in the offing. However, Arnie said Signal Mountain Summit Road was not to be missed so off we went. The ride up and down lived up to Michelle’s expectations and she white knuckled it a good portion of the way. Sandy is an excellent driver, Michelle just hates heights, bridges and winding mountain roads. However, it was worth it as you could see the entirety of Jackson Hole from the (very high, very scary) overlook. We took some fantastic pictures.

We began our trip back to the real world and our little Eddie on Sunday morning. We weren’t long on the road when we got stuck in a traffic jam. Three cars ahead of us a male bison was in our lane, perfectly in our lane, and wandering at 2 miles an hour up the road. Everyone on the opposite side, stopped, took pictures of him, and laughed at those of us stuck behind him. We followed for about 10 minutes until a left turnout allowed us to pass him safely. In our rearview mirror, we saw him amble to the side of the road after about 4 of the lined up cars passed. Bison humor.

We next head to an overnight in Gillette, Wyoming and then travel on to Rapid City South Dakota.

Hello? Hello? Is anybody out there? Help! Rescue me! Moms?????