Day 5 Yellowstone National Park

24 Sep

Friday was a rainy day, so we decided not to drive into the park.  It is not too much fun sightseeing in the rain.  Between rain showers, we walked around our RV Park.  We always like to see the different types of camping vehicles! As we walked around the RV park, we noticed that there were several open RV spaces…the RV park had been filled and turning away 50 groups per day. The season end must be near!
The downtown shopping district of West Yellowstone is only a few blocks from our RV Park. We decided to drive the short distance, in case of rain. We visited the assortment of stores, art galleries and specialty shops. No purchases today! We haven’t bought much of anything on this trip…do we have all we want and need?

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(photos taken on a clear day)

 

Saturday started out chilly with a temperature of 42 degrees! With our sweatshirts and rain coats, we headed into the park. Our mission today was to find a grizzly bear and a moose. That was going to take some luck!

We drove past the familiar Elk Herd along the Madison River and continued driving towards Norris.

Norris Geyser Basin is the hottest, oldest, and most dynamic of Yellowstone’s thermal areas. Norris shows evidence of having had thermal features for at least 115,000 years. The basin consists of two areas: Porcelain Basin and the Back Basin. because of the weather, we decided only to tour Porcelain Basin.  With many other tourists, we walked on the  3/4 mile dirt and boardwalk trail to access the area.  Because of the weather, the basin was not very photogenic. We were glad we wore our rain coats due to the misting rain…the hoods came in handy!

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Continuing on the road, we drove towards Canyon Village. Soon, we encountered traffic congestion. We didn’t get a good glimpse of whatever folks were gawking at, so we turned around to get a better look. Hooray! It was a grizzly bear! Part of our mission for the day accomplished. Of course, we joined all the other tourist photographers to get photos.

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A few miles down the road along the Yellowstone River, in a grassy plain, we spotted another grizzly bear! We watched as the large grizzly made it’s way across the river and continued along the riverside. A little further down the road, another grizzly was hurrying across the grassy plain. By this time, lots of cars, tourists, photographers were tracking the bear. Finally, we lost sight of the bear and continued on our way. We didn’t get any photos of grizzly #2 but we still feel like it really was our lucky day!

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As we drove along Yellowstone Lake, we noticed that the distant mountaintops were covered in snow. Apparently, the last two days of rain brought snow to the higher elevations. It was very scenic with the golden aspen trees in the foreground.

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As we approached Midway Geyser Basin, the clouds began to dissipate and we could see some blue sky. Should we try our luck at getting a parking spot, one more time? We had tried twice before but the lot was full. Since today seemed to be our lucky day, we pulled in, and quickly found a spot.

Midway Geyser Basin contains a small collection of mammoth-sized springs. Midway Geyser Basin has also been referred to as “Hells Half Acre”. It possesses two of the largest hot springs in the world. Grand Prismatic Spring, nearly 370 feet in diameter. The other, Excelsior Geyser, is now a dormant geyser and is considered a hot spring, discharging more than 4050 gallons of boiling water per minute.

Even though the sun was shining, the geyser pools were hardly visible through the steam. I have gorgeous photos from previous visits, but not today.

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As we were nearing the park exit, we encountered more traffic congestion.  A very large Bison had traffic stopped both ways while he walked right down the middle of the road.  He was right in front of our jeep and had his eye on us the whole time!  No chance of passing him!

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Yellowstone National Park is truly a special place full of oddities and curiosities.