Category: Montana

Today was “sleep-in” day. I was the clear winner making it to 9:30 AM. I probably could have gone longer, but I think there were some shenanigans on the part of some of the more restless members of the household (camperhold?).

Once we got around, we headed off for the obligatory visit to the Old Faithful geyser. When we arrived, the next eruption was less than 30 minutes away and by the time we walked over to the viewing area we didn’t have to wait too long for the eruption. It was impressive and scary to think about what’s going on below the ground to generate that kind of force.

After the eruption we wondered over to check out the Old Faithful Inn. It too is very impressive. We immediately went to the second floor and grabbed a nice loveseat (made out of tree limbs) overlooking the lobby. I went and grabbed a couple of cocktails to enjoy while we “people watched”.

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We left the Old Faithful area and headed South to the West Thumb Geyser Basin. We also drove past the basin a bit to get some pictures along the West Thumb portion of Yellowstone Lake.

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We skipped lunch since we had such a late breakfast, so when we returned to West Yellowstone we decided to try out the Wild West Pizzeria & Saloon. Beth had done her usual quality research and as usual she was spot on. Either we were really hungry or the food was great. I ordered a sausage and pepperoni pizza and Beth ordered wings and their “world famous” macaroni and cheese. The pizza was one of the best I’ve had in a long time, the beer was ice cold, the macaroni and cheese was great, and we’ll be chowing on this food for at least a couple more meals.

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Today we headed up US-89 to the North entrance of the park (the original entrance) in order to avoid the holiday crowds. When we exited the park in Gardiner, MT, we continued North about 21 miles on US-89 to where the Old Yellowstone Trail splits off from US-89. The Old Yellowstone Trail was the first transcontinental automobile highway in the United States through the northern tier of states from Washington through Massachusetts and this is one of the few remaining portions of it. The road was gravel and paralleled the West side of the Yellowstone River. It traveled through ranch land (mostly hay fields), but the view of the mountains to the West was great. We encountered three different herds of Pronghorns feasting on irrigated hay. A herd of them had started to cross the road in front of us (with the buck in the lead) and turned back when we approached. We stopped for pictures and the buck (who didn’t seem to be afraid of cars or humans) stared us down.

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We reached a sign that stated that the road was closed ahead, so we crossed the Yellowstone River and returned to US-89 at Carbella, MT. We crossed the river again and rejoined the Old Yellowstone Trail at Corwin Springs, MT. There was a National Park Service boat ramp just South of this location and we stopped to checkout the river.

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The Old Yellowstone Trail rejoins US-89 in Gardiner, MT just prior to the Roosevelt Arch at the park entrance.

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When we reentered the park we stopped and ate lunch in a picnic area just across the road from the Boiling River swimming area. This is one of the few approved swimming areas where boiling springs enter the Gardiner River. Unfortunately, neither one of us had packed our swimming trousers for the day’s drive, so we were stuck to enjoying the view from our side of the road.

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After lunch we stopped and visited Mammoth Hot Springs. We walked the boardwalk up and around the different hot springs although we didn’t go all the way to the top (one level below instead). This ended up being about 1.2 miles round trip from the particular parking lot in which we managed to find a parking spot.

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Today we decided to venture out in the direction of Old Faithful to hike to Mystic Falls. We knew there would be a lot of people in that area on a holiday weekend, but we also knew that once we hiked more than half a mile from any parking lot the crowds would dwindle. The only concern was finding a place to park. We reached the Fairy Falls Parking Lot and it was filling up rapidly and I had remembered reading that you could reach the Mystic Falls trailhead from there. My recollection was that it was only a half mile, but I was WAY wrong. It would have been at least eight miles. We stopped and looked at the big map on the Fairy Falls Trail and none of it made sense which should have been our hint to stop and go back, but we marched forward like good soldiers. We tried to check our phones (so we could look cool like all the kids taking selfies everywhere), but there was no data access (we should have downloaded the Google Maps while we had WiFi access). At 1 1/4 miles we finally turned around and went back to the truck.

We went to the next parking lot, the Biscuit Basin Parking Lot, which was the correct parking lot. It was much less crowded and within three tenths of a mile we were so alone that I started worrying about all of the “You are in Bear Country” signs and stopped and pulled our bear spray out of our backpacks. This was a beautiful 2.5 mile hike (round trip) through wooded land and there wasn’t too much elevation change (167 feet according to our hiking application).

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When we returned to the Biscuit Basin parking area we walked the boardwalk loop to look at all of the geysers and hot springs in that area.

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Since we were so close to the Old Faithful area we decided to drive through and see how busy it was. Our expectations were exceeded. It was total chaos. We turned around immediately and drove back out of the area. By the time we got back to the Midway Geyser Basin Parking Lot, the line of cars coming in from the North was probably a mile long. Just North of that area, we whipped into a picnic area and were able to grab a table and enjoy another lunch that Beth packed.

On our way back to the campground we spotted a group of three female Elk (cows) along the Madison River. Now when I state “we spotted”, what I really mean is that we slammed on our brakes when traffic came to a complete halt.

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It was 36 degrees when we got up this morning. We left the campground at about 7:40 AM. We thought about leaving earlier, but this turned out to be a good time because there was a bit of fog and it was starting to clear as we entered the park. In an attempt to avoid the holiday weekend crowds we decided to head for the Lamar Valley which is in the Northeast corner of the park (about 72 miles or a 2 hour drive).

There wasn’t very much traffic at this time of the morning and the traffic that we did encounter all turned in the direction of Old Faithful (which we purposely chose to avoid on the holiday weekend) when we reached the Grand Loop road at Madison Junction. Shortly after we turned onto the Grand Loop road we encountered a huge bull Elk and stopped to watch it cross the road. This made our day a complete success and it had barely started.

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From there we followed the Grand Loop road which climbs to nearly 9,000 feet in a spot near Mount Washburn. We had been considering hiking one of the two trails to the ranger station at the top of Mount Washburn and we passed both trailheads. At the road to the entrance to the second trailhead (Chittenden Road Trailhead) I decided to drive up to the parking lot and investigate. The grade of the trail from the parking lot looked pretty daunting (especially considering it starts at 8,800 feet and climbs 1,400 feet within 2.8 miles) so we were immediately concerned about ever being able to hike it. We decided to conduct a quick test and hike up the trail a bit to see how hard it was. The first several hundred yards were very steep, but the grade got better after that. Even on the easier grade we had to stop every 200 or 300 yards to catch our breath. We hiked up 1/2 mile and then went back. We think we can do it, but it will take some time since we’ll have to stop regularly to breath. We haven’t decided whether or not to give it a try later this week. We’ll see.

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From there we headed on to the Lamar Valley. The Lamar Valley is famous for its beauty and considered one of the best locations for animal encounters. It was definitely one of the most beautiful places we have ever been. Our pictures don’t do it justice. We saw many, many Buffalo, some Pronghorns, and a Fox.

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After Lamar Valley we stopped at a picnic area along Soda Butte Creek and ate the lunch Beth packed for us. What a great place to eat lunch.

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We left the picnic area and headed further up the Northeast Entrance road until we crossed the border leaving Wyoming back into Montana. Shortly after that we turned around and headed back. On the return we stopped at a scenic pullout next to Barronette Peak and spotted a couple of Mountain Goats grazing on the rocky mountainside.

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On the way back we stopped off at Tower Fall and walked the 150 yards from the parking lot to the viewing area. Once again, this picture doesn’t do it justice. We had a great first day in Yellowstone and are looking forward to the next one.

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