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Grand Teton National Park: Part 3

I got on up and grabbed a bagel and some coffee (regular coffee is slowly growing on me), then took a shower and cleaned up the camper cabin.  Said my farewells to everyone at the lodge, then headed south towards Grand Teton.  I had already gone back and forth on the inner road, so after a quick stop at Jackson Dam for some photos of the thunderstorms going over the mountains, I took the outer road south towards Jackson.  The views were different, and still gorgeous.  Bonus, one of the pullouts was next to the Elk Ranch Flats, a horse farm/dude ranch, and the horses had learned if they stood by the fence the tourists would come over and pet them!  I hung out around there for a good half hour just petting horses and taking photos of them.  There was this one horse that was a big guy, white with brown freckles, who kept following me around and if I got close enough he would wrap his head around me and snuggle then lip my hair.  He was soooo sweet!  After I said farewell to him I looked at my hands and saw all the fleas, oops, hopefully they’re gone now.  I haven’t seen any.

I kept going south, stopping at the various turnouts for the view of the Tetons.  I stopped by the Gros Ventre turnout and visited the Mormon Row Historic District Moulton Barns, and their other cool buildings.  Then I proceeded to an area along a creek/wetland where moose were supposedly known to frequent, but didn’t see anything.  It was still a nice quiet place, so I just sat and listened to the water for a bit until I ran out of time.  I drove to DQ for some food and gassed up the rental, then headed to the airport.  I guess it was because I got there mid-afternoon, but it was hardly busy at all and there was no line for TSA screening.  Totally didn’t need to get there 2 hours early.  But that gave me time to chat with the TSA agents who admired my skull cat t-shirt and I got to talking to one agent exchanging stories about our cats for a while until other people showed up and she had to get back to work.  I thought it was cute 🙂

The flight home was uneventful, and I miss this place already. Although I got a lot done this week, I also missed a lot too. I guess I’ll have to go back!

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Grand Teton National Park: Part 2

After the long days on Tuesday and Wednesday I was pretty wiped out.  I slept in until 7ish, and I don’t know if I’m just getting used to it or what but it didn’t seem nearly as cold and I slept pretty well in my blanket cocoon.  I went and got a late breakfast, then changed into already dirty clothes and drove over to the trail ride area.  I rode a lovely, big, brown and black horse named “Ed” with the lady that works at the convenience store, Tanya the waitress, and Christine the horse guide.  We rode on the backwoods trails at a leisurely pace and saw a mule deer and her two babies, a great view of the mulberry creek/wetland area, and the woods that burned back in 2016 and is regrowing.  While we were riding I kept noticing these old large stickup groundwater monitoring wells.  I asked Christine if this area had been used for anything other than the lodge or park in the past, and she said the area used to be an old military area.  That made sense, and would explain why they were/had been monitoring the ground water.  She didn’t know what I was talking about so I pointed out the wells and told her they were probably monitoring for metals, but they were so rusted probably not anymore.  Christine laughed about that because people had been asking her for a while what those were but she didn’t know, now she knows!  Once you start doing environmental work you can’t stop doing it, even on vacation.  In the wetland areas I was still finding myself trying to identify and mentally delineate them. 

After the ride I took a shower to get the horse stank off me, then spent time backing up photos and clearing space on SD cards.  It was almost 2pm by the time I got out of the campgrounds and drove south towards the Grand Tetons.  I stopped at Signal Point and drove up the mountain to a gorgeous view and spoke a little Japanese with a Japanese tourist family, and on my way back down there was a mule deer right next to the road eating. Further down, a full grown bull elk was laying down maybe 50 feet off the road.  I pulled over, of course, and got my telephoto lens out and got some great pictures.  There were two wildlife management officers right there directing people to move closer, or away, or left, or right, depending on what the elk was doing but the elk didn’t seem to care about the people at all.  Eventually he crossed the road and headed off into the woods. 

I continued down to Jenny Lake, and I was going to take the ferry over and climb up to Hidden Falls and Inspiration point, but by this point it was almost 5pm and the weather couldn’t figure out if it wanted to rain or stay sunny.  Given that my feet were already blistered and hurting, I didn’t think I really wanted to hike uphill for 1.5 miles in the rain, so I took a pass on the ferry and wandered the lake perimeter checking out all the cool mountain rocks for about an hour.  Then I went up to Jackson Lodge, which was so busy by the time I found a parking spot I decided to just skip it and go up to Colter Bay Lodge.  This one was calmer, and had their own rock beach, so I again walked up and down the rock beach looking at rocks and enjoying the view. 

Eventually around 7pm I got hungry, so I went up to the marina just north of Colter Bay where the Lodge staff had all been praising the pizza at Leek’s Pizzeria.  To be fair, it was pretty good, especially considering the other options in the area.  You get tired of sandwiches and salads after a few days so a super cheesy greasy pizza really hit the spot.  After eating I wandered across to the marina to watch the sun set and then headed back north to the Lodge.  I stopped by the main lodge to get online for a bit and use the bathroom, and when I came back out noticed lightning coming out from the south, struggling to get over the mountains.  A big group of us sat in the parking lot watching the extreme “War of the Worlds” level light show as the storm made its way over the mountains and towards us.  At first it was just impressive flashes with no sound at all, but once it got over the mountains the thunder was SUPER loud, and once it got too close for comfort I hopped back in my car and went to the camper cabin.  I stood outside chatting with neighbors (and petting their dogs) and watching the light show for another half hour or so before it started to rain and we all ran inside.  When it started raining it rained HARD with almost constant lightning and thunder.  It was pretty cool! Definitely glad I was in the camper cabin and not a tent!

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Yellowstone National Park: Part 2

I decided to make a grand trip around Yellowstone today, so I got up really early and headed north.  At West Thumb I veered east around the north side of Yellowstone Lake and enjoyed the gorgeous views.  I continued north after Fishing Bridge/Lake Village and stopped at LeHardy’s Rapids.  Between the rapids and the Mud Volcano/Sulphur Caldron I noticed some bison in the distance and hooked up my telephoto lens for a few shots.  Little did I know that not a quarter mile ahead was an entire herd of bison, all over the place just hanging out in and around the road.  I drove through at first, then decided I needed more pictures and turned around and pulled over.  As I was taking lots of shots of bison in the road, I noticed another group in the distance east of the road with calves.  I angled my car so I could shoot out of the passenger window (because like heck I was getting out of my car in the middle of a 100+ herd of wild bison) and started to notice as the minutes passed having to pack the lens up more and more.  Then I realized it was because they were coming towards me, and I was parked right where the pavement dipped and an obvious trail was located.  So I knocked my car in reverse and back up out of the way.  Despite this, one of them came right at me, and walked maybe a foot away from my driver side window (which I rolled up as soon as I saw him coming!)  It was altogether an amazing, but also terrifying, experience and I’m glad I opted for the extra vehicle insurance even if I didn’t need it in that moment.  Also, something I learned, although I am allergic to buffalo in zoos (sneezing, watering eyes, running nose hits me almost instantly once I get near them) I don’t seem to be allergic to bison…or perhaps there something in their diet that changes their dander that makes me allergic.  I’m not sure!

After hanging out with the bison for half an hour or so, I continued over to Mud Volcano which also had a lot of bison hanging around it, and walked up to the Dragon Mouth which is a cave where sulfur smelling steam is constantly escaping and almost sounds like a dragon is inside sleeping with all the bubbling and rumbling from inside.  Best steam cave ever! 

I continued north, stopping to take pictures of the beautiful Yellowstone River and Hayden Valley until I got to Canyon Village.  There I visited what is known as the “Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone”, a gigantic gorge carved through by the Yellowstone River and I visited both the lower and the upper falls.  Uncle Tom’s Trail was closed, which was a bummer, but I drove up the South Rim Drive to Artists Point and you guys, it was AMAZING.  The view was gorgeous no matter which way you looked, the water was blue and aqua, the rocks were like rainbows of colors, I could have sat there all day just looking at all the things.  However, I still had a long way to go and daylight was burning fast.  I would have loved to have gone on the North Rim Drive too but it was shut down for construction, I’ll save that for next time.

I continued north up into the Washburn Range mountains, stopping at the various overloocks like Hot Springs Overlook, Dunraven Pass and all along the way of the curvey, swirly, “don’t drive on this if you’re tired” road up and around the mountains to Tower Falls.  Word of advice, don’t drive all the way out to Roosevelt to see Tower Falls, it was the least impressive of all the falls to me.  I would have loved to see the Petrified Tree but daylight was burning and I still needed to finish getting up and back down the route!  I continued west through the Blacktail Deer Plateau, and again, I really wanted to stop at Wraith Falls and Undine Falls but it was already almost 4pm!  I instead went straight to Mammoth Hot Springs.

For Mammoth Hot Springs, you can park on the lower end and walk around the lower spring terraces by foot.  But if you don’t have time, or your feet are killing you (both conditions which I was experiencing at that time) you can jump back in your car and drive about a mile west to where the road loops back north and enter a one way drive through the upper terrace area.  On the drive there are lots of pull-offs and I didn’t have trouble parking and walking to see the main upper terrace attractions.  Given the driving options I was able to see all the highlights of the springs in about an hour, and I didn’t feel like death afterwards!

It was about 6pm when I left Mammoth and I had about a 2.5 hour drive back to the campground.  So I jumped back on the southbound road and powered through, stopping at the Obsidian Cliff and Artists Paintpots.  The Paintpots were pretty cool, very muted and pastel colors in the water and soil that made for almost a dreamy appearance.  At near dark I did pull off to see Gibbon Falls, a fairly large waterfall with nice scenery in the background given that it was nearly sunset.  By the time sunset was about ending I reached Gibbon River, where there were some gorgeous springs and geysers that the sunset light was reflecting off of beautifully!  I had to stop one more time and get some pictures of it, it was so cool!  Honestly, the whole trip today I was stopping every 15 minutes and either saying “Oh, pretty!” or “Holy shit!” or “Wow” it was almost comical. Driving in the dark at Yellowstone is pretty stressful, I don’t recommend it unless you absolutely have to.  I didn’t have much choice, I was still almost 2 hours from camp.  So I just cranked up the radio, rolled down the windows so any animals would hear me coming and powered my way home.  I made a pit stop just outside of the Yellowstone south entrance to take some photos of the awesome super clear night sky.  Seriously, after living in Chicago for 10+ years and suburbs of Michigan before that it had been a long, long time since I saw that many stars.  I got some okay enough shots, then headed back.  I left around 9am and didn’t get back until 11pm.  What a day!