VISIT TO YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

Last Monday we took a trip to Yellowstone Park with our co-worker friends Dick and Sheri.  They both know the area extremely well and wanted to show us the sites often missed by tourists.   Our first stop was at the Yellowstone Hotel which borders Yellowstone Lake for breakfast.  This is an historic building dating back to the early 1900's but is very similar in design to the Yacht and Beach Club at Walt Disney World.  There were old photos in the lobby of guests arriving by stagecoach and some of the early versions of the automobile.

We next stopped at Lower Yellowstone Falls where the temperature was a balmy 39 degrees (Dick's car has an outside temperature gauge) about 11:45 a.m.  A front came through the night before, giving us our first hint of fall. yet the date was August 23rd!  If you look closely at the rock sides of this canyon, you can see where this park gets it's name.  Along our drive we saw many bison as well as some deer and antelope.  We also saw two bears but they were too far away to get a picture.

We continued out the northeast entrance of Yellowstone to Red Lodge, Montana by way of the Beartooth Highway.  This 68 mile trip along the Beartooth Highway provided spectacular views of snow capped mountains, even in late August.  The Beartooth Highway is the highest elevation highway in the northern Rockies and took us up above the treeline where there was nothing but bare tundra.  The Highway is only open from late May until early October with possible temporary closures during the summer due to unpredictable weather (snow). 

We stopped at a rest area near the summit around 2 p.m. when the temperature was all the way up to 42 degrees.   The only wildlife here were some begging chipmunks looking for a handout.

Look how the roots of this tree are sticking out through the rock.

We drove back west across Montana to the north entrance of Yellowstone, almost completing a full loop through and around the park.  There was an abundance of fly fishing camps/cabins along the Yellowstone River.  Just inside Yellowstone, we encountered a herd of mountain sheep along a rocky hillside.  Unfortunately, there was no place to pull off the road for a picture, as there was no shoulder and a steep drop down to the Yellowstone River.

We stopped for dinner at Mammoth, the Yellowstone Headquarters.  Mammoth contains several nice green squares with large homes for NPS management and the Mammoth Hotel surrounding this green area.  When we arrived, there were three large elk grassing on the grass.

After dinner we continued our drive south through Yellowstone and back to our campsite.  During different parts of our drive through Yellowstone, we saw evidence of the very large fire that destroyed about 2/3 of Yellowstone back in 1988.  The new trees were about 6 to 8 feet tall and there were still many burnt tree trunks still standing.  This is another sign of how mother nature re-creates itself.  The seedlings are fed by the nutrients in the burnt soil, watered by rain and melting snow and grow in the sunshine of the summer.  

It was nice to see some different scenery but we still prefer the jagged peaks of the Tetons over the gentle mountains in Yellowstone.