Yellowstone

Yellowstone National Park is one of the big stops we had planned for the end of the trip. Since the park has reopened for day use visitors and we were only a few hours drive away, we decided to make the stop now. We first headed to Harriman State Park, which does not have a campground but it does have two yurts in the park. We rented a yurt for the night and biked and hiked around the park. The park is a nesting site for Trumpeter Swans which we saw in the lake. It was a rainy night and the yurt was a perfect spot to play some board games and hang out for the night.

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Since camping had not yet reopened in Yellowstone, we managed to get a site at Henry’s Lake State Park which is about 15 miles outside of Yellowstone. We lucked out with a campsite on the lake surrounded by snow peaked mountains. When we arrived the weather took a sharp turn from our beach days at Bear Lake and it was snowing and -3°C overnight. The hiking trails in the park were closed due to a grizzly attack on the trails a week prior, so we were ok to skip the hiking. Henry’s Lake was a perfect spot to base ourselves in order to day trip into Yellowstone. Although it is only 15 miles to the park from the campground, you have to travel through three states on the way to the park.

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Wildlife

When it comes to wildlife, Yellowstone did not disappoint. We started our days at the crack of dawn, hoping to find the park quiet and the animals roaming so at 5 am we brewed our coffee (and hot chocolate) and hit the road. We saw herds of bison with frosted fur steaming off their backs in the morning sun crossing the road in front of us. There were numerous elk, pronghorn antelope, bald eagles, sandhill cranes and most excitingly black bears and grizzly bears. Luckily all of our bear sitings happened from the safety of the RV including seeing mama grizzly and two cubs sauntering through the Lamar Valley. Early morning really did prove to be best for seeing wildlife.

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The Super Volcano

It seems kind of surreal to know as you are travelling through the park that a lot of the time you are in the caldera of a super volcano. The volcano is 30 miles wide and 45 miles long and when you drive around the steaming heat vents and boiling geysers the presence of the volcano becomes real. We stopped and hiked around many areas of the park containing hot springs, geysers, fumeroles, boiling mud pits and gurgling caves. The air smells of sulphur, the hot springs create a bacteria mats of life around the warm waters and as you drive around the park you see steam vents releasing heat along the edge of the river. Unfortunately the visitors centers were closed in the park so a lot of what we learned about the volcano and the things we saw where from outdoor displays and our own research.

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We of course visited the infamous “Old Faithful” Geyser and it was neat but not our favourite geyser in the park. We took our bikes down a 5 mile trail to the Lone Star Geyser which erupts unpredictably but did while we were there. This spot was definitely less commercialized and being a distance off the driving path, a far more secluded geyser.

Biking through herds of bison and hiking through the backcountry while staying alert for bears and wolves adds a new element of excitement to our travels. We spent three fulls days seeing as much of the park as we could and we were mesmerized by the different forces of nature that exsist in Yellowstone.

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