Intro: Flying from Phoenix to Bozeman (through Salt Lake City)
Our flights from Phoenix to Bozeman were very pleasant, surprisingly. The connecting flight ran on time and no screaming babies on either flight. We'd planned on flight delays or other problems and had reserved a room in Bozeman, MT for the first night, this way we could leave for the Park early and refreshed the next morning. Plus, we needed to buy our groceries for the next week and cooler to store it in. We'd managed to pack all our needed camping gear into 4 bags that we could check on the airplane but try as we might, we couldn't fit a cooler into the equation. We drove around, lost, in the pouring rain, found what we needed, and packed the rented, red Subaru Forrester for a weeks worth of camping in Yellowstone National Park.
We left the TLC Inn, staying until checkout time so we could sleep in. It was, after all, the last bed we were going to be sleeping in for a while. Though we love tent camping, we also know that getting back to a bed after camping is a very wonderful thing. The drive was about 90 miles from Bozeman to the Park's entrance and we made it in good time. The weather could have been better, there was rain, sleet, and snow along the way but having come from a place that can go 140+ days without rain, I didn't really mind.
The park was amazing! But before I can go into that, let me orient you with the Park: Official NPS Map (.pdf). You can see that there are only five entrances into the park and the roads from there all lead to a simple, figure-eight shaped road that's posted at 45 mph. All along this road were multiple pull-outs where you could stop your car and check out the animals or scenery, have a picnic, or whatever. We entered through the West Yellowstone entrance and were so amazed by the landscape that we stopped at one of the first rivers we saw (which we later found out was the Madison River). Bonnie and I each had our picture taken with the "raging river" and enjoyed the view of Canadian Geese for a minute before spotting some female elk resting on the far side. We were pretty psyched about our trip as we got back on the road thinking, "Wow! We've already seen some cool things!"
We didn't get very far before we hit a roadblock. But it wasn't just one; there were a lot of bison right by the road and then a momma with her calves showed up. Here's a close-up of the baby. Then as we crept past this herd and rounded the corner we realized that they were just a small part of a much bigger herd. It was amazing to see the number of bison. Also, the landscape was pretty breath-taking on its own right. I feel like we couldn't take a bad picture because all the views were amazing!
We wanted to lay claim to a campsite before the Memorial Day Weekend crowd showed-up and we wanted a site we could set as a base camp from which to cover a lot of ground. We opted for a site at the campground in Madison and after checking in, we stayed long enough to get the tent up and comforted before we headed out to see the sites.
Heading south from Madison, we made our first stop at Fountain Paint Pot. A large portion of YNP is located inside the caldera of a volcano (you can see it on the PDF map). There are "thermal features" all over the Park where super-hot water, gasses, or chemicals, boil up from underground. Some make colorful pools, some are active, and some are not active. But the crazy part is that tomorrow it could be entirely different as the ground is always changing. Earthquakes plague the area and each shift causes one geyser to open or a spring to close or a pool to form, etc. Sometimes the ground gets so hot that rock, dirt, leaves, and whatever else that gets to close will turn to a boiling, muddy mess. These resemble the clay used in pottery and thus the name Paint Pots.
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A paint pot in action. We also caught this geyser as it was going off.
From Fountain Paint Pot we headed south to the Old Faithful area. Here the Park had a couple of hotels, cabins, shops, and restaurants. It's pretty clear that this is a largely frequented area by the tourists. Old Faithful (the geyser) is centered in a large semi-circle of benches that fill up when it's time for the eruption. No matter how many people we saw out and about, the benches around Old Faithful were always packed! Now, behind Old Faithful are a number of hikes and trails that feature the other thermal areas in the immediate vicinity (there are over 10,000 thermal features in the Park). On this first day, we opted to hike up to the observation point that overlooked Old Faithful and watch an eruption from there. The hike's about a mile round trip but it goes over a 200 foot elevation change that's pretty steep at times. And even before you start on any of the nicely maintained trails, you're constantly reminded of where you are. No run-ins on the trail just a lot of huffing and puffing as we got to the top but the view was well worth it. While waiting for Old Faithful to do her thing we talked to a few other people about what to see and do and this one couple offered to take a picture of us with Old Faithful in the background. Then it was time for the show and it was not disappointing -- even from our vantage point. In the last photo, notice how many people were there for the eruption and the weather at that moment was wet and rainy. As we headed back down the trail we saw what we thought were beavers, turns out they were marmots. These two were about as curious of us as we were of them.
Once we got back down to Old Faithful we decided to have some hot chocolate and figure out what to do next. As it was getting late and we still had to finish setting up camp we finished our hot chocolates and headed back to the campsite. Funny thing, we were worried about how much time we had before the sun went down and we didn't want to be cooking in the dark (we have plenty of lanterns but it's just easier in the daylight). So we grilled our pork chops and corn-on-the-cob, ate, cleaned-up, and sat by the fire waiting for it to get dark. It didn't become dusk until about 9:00 and was completely dark by 10pm. Usually on our camping trips, we wouldn't stay up too late once the sun went down but this time it was almost midnight before we crawled into the tent. It was nice to be away from all the lights of a city and we even saw some shooting-stars!
So with one day of just skimming the surface of the Park we were really excited about the next day. Probably why we didn't sleep too well that first night. Or it could've been the wolves we heard howling in the not too distant distance.