The Yellowstone Experience

Yellowstone was the first National Park established. We spent a day and a half there and got to see a majority of the parks features including hot springs, geysers and plenty of wildlife. 

When we got out of the car at our campsite, we immediately had to find our other jackets, it was cold!! The hoodies that we had been using we're still wet from the rain at Glacier the day before. We got things set up and Jacob built a fire and grilled hamburgers for dinner. After eating we pretty much just went to bed. 

Following breakfast we went looking for an information center to get a map of the day hikes. The first one we went to was closed or non existent, we couldn't find it so we kept going. We decided to do the tourist thing and just walk around the Lower Geyser Basin boardwalk, take a couple photos, and get back in the car. It smelled awful, like boiled eggs due to the sulphur. But there were some pretty cool hotsprings, the clear blue water ranged from barley simmering on the surface to boiling and steaming. We also saw some mudpots, an acidic feature with limited water; basically bubbling mud, except it was a creamy white color which wasn't quite as pretty as the hot springs. Then we walked around the 1.6 mile path through the Norris Geyser Basin. One geyser went off right when we stopped to look at it.

We finally made it to the visitor center in Canyon Village and talked to a guy in the backcountry office. He recommended the Garnet Hill Trail. It was an 7.9 mile loop, with an additional 0.4 mile trail to a suspension bridge 200 feet above the Yellowstone River. The first section was through an open meadow then it moved through a wooded area and back through the meadow again. It was a nice trail, no major elevation gains so it was a fairly easy hike. We saw lots of wildlife - marmots, pronghorns, and bison. Towards the end there was a bison directly in the path, we definitely got closer than the 25 foot recommendation. Those things are huge! It started to rain a little while we were hiking, thankfully we had brought our rain jackets along this time and it didn't last too long. We got to see a rainbow, so to me it was worth hiking in a little rain. 

The next day after packing up we stopped to see Old Faithful on the way out of the park. We had just missed it by about 20 minutes. So we waited around for another hour to see it go off. The viewing area was crowded with people anxiously waiting. It wasn't quite as impressive as I thought it would be, but it was still neat to watch. Although Yellowstone is such a big park, we feel like we were able to see a good portion of it. Now on to our next destination. 

Next stop: Grand Tetons National Park, WY 

- Sarah

Here are some more photos from Yellowstone: