Letter 24 Yellowstone

Letter 24: West Yellowstone, MT to

Touring the town of West Yellowstone we saw lots of painted buffalo and thought you would enjoy seeing them too. So go to:
http://www.wyed.org/west_yellowstone_painted_buffalo_roam.htm

Before we totally leave Idaho, one of the best little booklets we used was called RV Idaho. It is the size of a legal envelope with about 50 pages packed with all the private, State Parks, Forest Service, BLM, Bureau of Reclamation, National Park Service, Idaho Power parks in the state. Each park has 2-3 lines of abbreviations including how to get to the park. If you are going to Idaho camping in any form, get one of these books. It sure would be nice if all states had this resource.

Thursday, August 21 we toured the northwest part of Yellowstone National Park.
We traveled through miles of the remains of the Forest Fires of 1988. Twenty years later the destruction is evident, but recovery is on the way.

We stopped at the
Artist’s Paint Pots and walked 1 mile total to see the various colors of hot pools of water and the white mud pots.
Driving on we saw the Porcelain Basin and elected to view this valley from the hillside.
We passed Roaring Mountain, but didn’t hear a peep out of it.
To the Golden Gate. Just to the right of the picture was the top of a beautiful waterfall.
We drove through the Boulder field to
Mammoth Hot Springs which covers a whole hillside.
As we re-entered Montana we saw a big blue sign with white lettering about the small crosses on the side of the highway. They represent a fatality at each location. This program is sponsored by the American Legion of Montana. Hats off to you veterans! Thanks,

Leaving the park we drove north to Livingston through a beautiful valley, and then to honor Granny we turned west to Bozeman Montana. About 43 years ago she and Marcus, Wayne, Warren & Dennis went to Yellowstone and while there had car trouble with their Cadillac. They were towed to Bozeman and Lillian hated it. We don’t know if it was the car trouble ruining their trip, the tow, or the town of Bozeman with 3 boys and nothing to do, but anytime anyone mentions Yellowstone or Bozeman she comes to life. We thought of you Granny. Today Bozeman is a thriving community with lots of activity. We followed your route back to West Yellowstone and today that highway is very nice - wide, paved, all the amenities.

Friday, August 22 we started out for a short leisure day to see the south west part of Yellowstone Park. We drove through the Firehole Canyon and saw the
Firehole Falls.

On to the Lower Geyser Basin where we saw
Mud Pots
And the Cyclopedia Geyser.

We drove through the Middle Basin and our timing was just right to see the
White Dome Geyser just as it erupted. A motorist driving by said it didn’t go off very often.

In the Upper Geyser Basin we saw the
Turquoise Pool

And the Excelsior Geyser Crater and Pool and where it
Boiled over into the river.

Then we entered the Old Faithful section of the park where we saw LOTS OF PEOPLE! We both wonder what the crowds would be like in the peak of the season. We have already experienced parking lots full and lines for the potties. In fact there is a shortage of restrooms at the many stops along the way.

We were an hour early for the predicted Old Faithful blow so we browsed a gift shop where Olivia really admired a pair of Zuni turquoise needle point ear rings. We also visited with the saleslady who was from Lorena, Texas. She and her husband are working the summer in Yellowstone while they have their motor home in a nearby employee campground.

We waited patiently for Old Faithful along with about 1000 other tourists. It was all we hoped it would be.

Olivia wanted to see the old lodge so we walked to the Old Faithful Inn. We treated ourselves to Grizzly Berry Ice Cream, which was actually huckleberry then discovered there was a tour of the lodge right away. It was built in 1904 out of supplies found within four miles of the lodge. It is totally lodge pole pines and lava rocks.
The interior is dramatic with all those logs including the ceiling. Above the fourth floor is a “tree house”. All of the banister logs are curiosity logs which were deformed growths. The Inn is being conformed to Earth Quake standards and sprinklers are being updated. In 1959 Yellowstone experienced a big earth quake and it hit the Inn diagonally. The logs shifted with the quake, but the rocks didn’t give. One large fireplace in the dining room collapsed.

The original sprinklers were installed in 1987, both inside and out. The roof has sprinklers that actually create water falls over the wood shingle roof. In 1988 Yellowstone had horrible fires and one actually jumped the Inn and because of the sprinklers it was saved.
We visited an original room, which has no bathroom, just two beds and a wash stand. Guests stay for $96 a night and it is the most popularly requested room type. There are many rooms and some newer that are $140+ and a few suites for $4-500.
When the tour was over it was time to see Old Faithful do her thing again. By then it was mid afternoon and we were pooped!

Saturday August 23 saw us heading back into Yellowstone for the third day after we saw
this trailer in W Yellowstone. It turned out to be two girls evidently headed from Oregon to Boston. Watch out Barbara, here they come.

Blaire, any ideas? We picked up at Old Faithful with Olivia buying the previously admired Zuni turquoise earrings. The next stop was to see
The Kepler Cascades then
the West Thumb Geyser Basin on the shores of Lake Yellowstone.

We detoured into Fishing Bridge to check it out then moved north.
On this drive we saw a herd of buffalo
And one was almost on the roadway. The next stop was the Mud Volcano

And the Dragon Mouth Spring. We hiked up the mountain past the
Mud Geyser to
The Churning Caldron.
On down the road was the Sulphur Caldron.
We could see a distant forest fire. It was in the back woods and was being left to burn itself out. It was caused by a power pole falling two days ago.

We visited with a fisherman in the parking lot who was taking a break. He had been below the lot in the Yellowstone River. He said the cutthroat trout were huge and biting. He follows the recommended procedure in Yellowstone – catch and release. Several of his trout must have been in the five pound range judging from his reports of length and girth. Yellowstone, for years, didn’t charge for fishing. Now its $15 for three days. The season is closed for most of the summer for native fish. It opens Labor Day. Most fish must be released, except lake trout. They are non native and must be kept or killed. Only barbless hooks may be used so that catch-release can be less harmful.
As we finished the south loop of the park, we turned right to the Artist Point
Of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

We called it quits and headed to the trailer.


Sunday, August 24 we drove into the park to a church service advertised at Madison Junction, but no one showed up for the service. Back in town we noticed several individual motels. The cutest name was the Hibernation Station.

We spent about two hours at the Grizzly Discovery Center, Bear and Wolf Preserve.

They have adopted bears and wolves and have them protected and cared for. We watched a man place a bird feeder in a tree and how quickly a bear went to that tree and brought it down.
In the morning and afternoon, they allow children to hide food in the pen, and then let the bears in to discover the hiding places.
One bear must have smelled something in the crowd because he posed really well for us. We watched a movie about bringing the wolves back to Yellowstone.

We hope you have enjoyed Yellowstone as much as we have.