Yellowstone National Park

We’re just about done with our 12 nights in Yellowstone National Park. It was a lot of trouble to get here, a three hour drive from Cody, Wyoming to our first campground at Madison. The traffic can be slow, especially if you get behind somebody who stops for every buffalo. The park is vast and the distances between attractions can be long.  Visiting Yellowstone involves a lot of driving. It’s not a convenient place to stay. The campgrounds are huge, sometimes they have more than 400 sites. As is  typical for national park service campgrounds, the sites are small and tend to be close together. There is no hot water and the showers may be miles away. The options for eating out are limited and slow. There are few indoor attractions such as exhibits or museums or shopping. Cell service is limited and of poor quality; there’s almost no internet access if you’re not staying in the lodges. There’s hardly anywhere to bicycle except on the main roads, which nobody wants to do.  Between the entrance to our campground and our camping site there are nine vicious speed bumps that need to be taken at two miles per hour.

And yet, it’s Yellowstone. Every section is unique and amazing. It is completely worth the effort to visit for those that are able to do so. The Yellowstone River is magnificent; leaving Yellowstone Lake it is wide and calm and meanders through meadows and grasslands before becoming a torrent as it enters the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone with its upper and lower falls. The Madison, Gardner, Lamar, Firehole and Lewis Rivers are smaller and less dramatic, but still spectacular.

How about all these lakes?  Real lakes, not reservoirs. The Corps of Engineers  was not consulted, no hydroelectric power is generated, no towns were submerged in the making of these lakes.  Yellowstone Lake is the largest high elevation lake in North America. It’s an inland sea, up to thirty miles across with sandy beaches and rocky cliff banks and smoking thermal vents along its shores. These lakes are pristine and gorgeous.

How about all the thermal features? Everybody likes geysers, but don’t forget all the fun burping mud pots, boiling puddles in the middle of meadows and all the steaming steam vents all over the place. I like the sulfury chemical smell of the thermal areas but it can’t be good for people. I remember on our family trip years ago hurrying the children along, being concerned about the potential effect of aerosolized who-knows-whats on young lungs.

We’ve taken several wonderful hikes.  We have hiked through open grasslands, above tree line, through thermal areas, (watch your step!), alongside rivers and lakes, and around canyon rims. We’ve seen lots of buffaloes and deer, a few elk, some marmots,  a large rabbit with huge feet, pelicans, swans, sandhill cranes and lots of dragonflies.  Laura has been disappointed not to see bears or bighorn sheep or mountain goats, but there is still time.

What about the crowds? Perhaps it’s past high season but we have had no problems.  Some of the more popular overlooks are crowded but as is usual just 100 or 200 yards down the trail there’s very few people. We frequently see just a few other people on our hikes. We’ve had no trouble parking. The campgrounds are all full; we got our reservations six months in advance as is frequently required. 

We’ve  been living now in a 21-foot camper van for a full month. How is that going? It’s fine. The van is comfortable and well thought out.  We have owned it now for 18 months and have accumulated experience in how to best use it.  One of us harbors aspirations of becoming a submarine captain and will say several times a day, “A place for everything and everything in its place. Always, forever.” The other one of us has never had such aspirations and notes that they have not signed up for submarine duty.

Here are some pictures in no particular order: