With such an amazing day yesterday, we hit the road early, eager to get to Yellowstone National Park. I may have been a little eager, as we were asked to pull over by some officers of the South Dakota Highway Patrol. After the standard “do you know how fast you were going?” questions, a tense wait and an apology in a thick Aussie accent, I was let off with a warning and told that next time I wouldn’t be so lucky. Jokes on him, we were leaving the US in 4 days, I still could avoid a speeding fine in Canada, eh?
Not risking it, we obeyed the speed limit and arrived into Yellowstone and a nice easy pace. According to the information we received Yellowstone has its own micro-climate, and it certainly was much chillier than the Prairies, time again to put our sleeping bags to the test! After being subjected to the Park Ranger’s quite scary and graphic lectures about bears and wildlife we headed to the only campsite in the park which had showers (the other 2 with showers had shut down for the season – makes sense?). The information the rangers gave us was about the 2 widely reported fatal grizzly bear attacks that had happened in the park this month. We needed to be on the lookout, and keep our distance. Eeeek!
Our campsite was lovely, stuck in the woods between Elk scratched tree trunks and near a resident wolf pack – surely we had safety in numbers!? It also had mobile phone reception which was good – until we were told that the only reason we did was so we could call 911 in case of a bear attack – did I say eeek!? With tent pitched, we went to Yellowstone’s big draw card, Old Faithful. This geyser was big (but not the biggest), it was beautiful (but not the most beautiful), but one thing it did have, was its reliability. Every 90 minutes it would naturally erupt, and it seemed as though when Kam and I arrived, we just missed it.
We thought we would take a little walk around the geyser area, resigned that we would probably have to return tomorrow to view the eruption. However just on our return to the car, it surprised us, off went Old Faithful in all its glory! Very impressive.
During the first night, all rugged up in our sleeping bags, we were awoken to the howl of wolves right near our tent. It seems, however, I was still in a sleepy haze. Without realising that I had been awoken by a pack of wolves, I took this opportunity to walk to the nearest tree to relieve myself. Kam tried to desperately to convince me to stay in the tent, however – when a man’s gotta go, a man’s gotta go. About 5 minutes later two Rangers went by with a massive spotlight, and in the cold logic of the next morning I realised how crazy it actually was. Who knows, maybe marking my territory was the perfect thing to scare the wolves off.
The next day we further explored the area of the park known for its thermal activity, the “Ring of Fire”. I was expecting a Johnny Cash song, or the day after a good curry, but, in seriousness we were pretty amazed with the hundreds of geysers, hotpools and mineral deposits in the area. We also did a short hike to a place called Beaver Lake to hopefully check out some beavers. It proved unfruitful, until we realised that the trees around us weren’t chopped down, they were bitten down by beavers. Great evidence, even if we didn’t see any beaver <insert joke here>. The rest of our day took us around the park, catching a look at some Bison on our way to the canyon walk of the Lower Falls.
Lower Falls was an amazing place to view sunset, unfortunately our camera (or my skills) couldn’t capture the true beauty of it, but the hike was brilliant. On our way back to the campsite we saw more Bison, and our first encounter with Elk. Our day came to a close with beer, wine and Angus Beef cooked on our open fire, reliving the stories of the day – pretty sweet!
As mentioned in one of our previous blogs, the US knows how to run a good National Park. The next day we took advantage of some of the free guided tours held by the National Park Rangers, we learnt so much about geysers, hot pools, thermal activity and were told in great detail about some of the more notable hot pools near our campsite. We then took a short 3km walk to a great vantage point, and a further 4km hike into bear country which we were a little worried about. No wildlife was seen, which as a hiker you always consider this a blessing and a curse.
We returned to our campsite where we thought we would celebrate our last night in Yellowstone with a few drinks and dinner. We went to one of the restaurants and polished off some local beer, then hit another restaurant on the lake for a romantic dinner for two with waterfront views. We both couldn’t pass up Bison burgers, so although the meal may not have been the most gourmet, it was a very lovely dinner. After all our day of hiking, we needed to rush back to our campsite to get to the showers before they closed at 9pm (!!??). It seems that closing at 9pm actually meant no showers after 8:30, as we were turned away at 8:38pm along with half the campsite who didn’t realise these crazy timings.
We woke very early the next day, and put down our tent in the 1°C chill. It seems as though the crazy shower timings were set to continue as this time we needed to arrive AFTER 8am to use the showers. How crazy is that in a national park? How many people would be getting up early to go hiking, or arriving back late after a day of outdoorsing?? Frustrated, we hit the road and headed north to try and catch some wildlife at dawn.
We drove the entire length of the park, south to north, and went to see our last glimpse of thermal activity. Very lovely, but we really wanted to see some grizzlies before we left. Oh well, lots of Elk and Bison, and we were on our way. This time to the, Glacier National Park, which straddled the border of US and Canada.
Kam was looking forward to this park as her family had planned to travel the “Going to the Sun” Road through the park back in ’87 when she was here last. Unfortunately in ’87 the road was closed due to blizzards, so this would be a great way to “one-up” her mum ( 😉 Kath). The drive through the park was amazing, overwhelming mountains, lush forests, avalanche trails, and of course views of the ever moving glaciers. We found out that the glaciers were definitely moving, and not for good, it seems that by 2030, they would have to start looking for a new name for the park, as global warming would mean that all the glaciers would be gone. “The park formally known as…”?
Not being a big fan of queues and waiting, this would have to be the first time that I was more than happy waiting in a traffic jam. The main road up through the glaciers was currently undergoing roadworks, and we were incredibly lucky to be held captive with some of the most beautiful views. It also turned into a fun atmosphere with people getting out of their cars, chatting, having a bite to eat and taking photos of the beautiful landscape. It still doesn’t mean I like queues, but it does mean that they need to be accompanied with amazing jaw-dropping views.
The Glacier National Park was simply a drive through, and we didn’t camp over in the park, we had more pressing things on our mind, The Canadian Rockies.
