Friday 22nd July
Last night we ate dinner at Signal Mountain. Reading the guide we book at the table, we learned that this is where some grizzlies are known to hang out so we set this as today’s early morning destination. Armed with our coffee we drove up the 5 mile narrow road to the top, our eyes seeking any movement in the forest on either side. At the top the mosquitoes were waiting for us, and like some group of annoying early morning car boot sale bargain hunters, they attacked us before we’d even got both feet out of the car.
We saw Blue grouse wandering around up here and an incredible view across the valley floor and Snake river. No sign of grizzlies so we made our way back down to refuel and get some breakfast supplies for our drive to Yellowstone. Some people in the gas station said they’d seen some bears that morning.
There is no exit from Grand Teton as it leads straight into the southern entrance of Yellowstone. We were immediately in forest and driving along the eastern side of the Lewis river. After eight or so miles we stopped to look at Lewis Falls and the view back along the river with the Tetons in the far distance.
From here we continued north east through forest, canyons and along shimmering rivers to the Upper Geyser Basin and the infamous Old Faithful.
Before our trip started we had read many accounts of the heavy traffic in Yellowstone in Summer, but we had not noticed this at all. In fact for most of the time we could drive around the roads and not see a single car in front or behind us. On turning into the car park, we realised why; they were all here in the Old Faithful car park.
An enormous newly opened visitor centre leads us through to Old Faithful and a sign helpfully indicates the next anticipated eruption. On average it erupts every 90 minutes and we had just 30 minutes to wait. What we didn’t appreciate is just how many geysers there are here and many of them erupt quite frequently. Old Faithful was impressive and strange. The powerful bluey white plume spurting anything from 3500-8500 gallons of water up to 180 feet in the air.
It had been a long day so we soon headed north again to out next hotel in Gardiner, Montana just outside the park north entrance.
Saturday 23rd July
This morning we found a great coffee shop in Gardiner and our conversation with the two guys behind the counter ranged from Andre Agassi, through Richard Dawkins to the anthropological traits of northern hemisphere Homo sapiens.
Hey, I ordered a latte.
Our plan today was to drive to the far north eastern part of the park to Lamar Valley with various stops along the way. We drove through Blacktail Plateau, a seven mile road which follows historic trails used for hundreds of years crossing the high plateau.
The abundance of yellow flowers, lush grass and cloudless sky made the perfect summer day vista. It also helped that we were completely alone to enjoy this together with a lone buffalo and timid inquisitive marmot. At the end of the trail we saw the Petrified Tree some, 50 million years old.
Our next stop was a creek just before the Lamar Valley to see herds of buffalo and their young across the Lamar river. One of the most exciting things to see is cars suddenly stopping by the side of the road, or sometimes driving straight off onto the grass. This happened a short time after, but as we slowed down we saw it was just another lone bison around 100m away.
We were wrong.
It was a grizzly bear. A young male, eating his was through grass and sage plain. We grabbed the binoculars and camera and sat beside the road watching him meander about, roll around, scratch of course, but mainly just eat. He seemed completely oblivious to our presence and a Park Ranger was with us ready to move everyone to their vehicles should the bear move closer.
It was a fantastic experience for us and one that is not ever guaranteed in Yellowstone. We stayed for an hour before driving out of the north east entrance and lunch at Silver Gate where all buildings must be either log or rustic architecture, as deemed by state building law.
From here we spent some time exploring the Beartooth Highway and drove back via Cooke City a small gold rush town. We drove back through Lamar Valler and our grizzly (yes, he’s ours now) was still there so we stayed another hour or so.
Our next stop was Hayden Valley roughly in the centre of the park. When we arrived, there was a large group of people with spotting scopes. When we spoke to them they told us they were waiting for the wolves which had appeared across the valley the two previous nights around 8pm. Incidentally, it is illegal to imitate a wolf in Yellowstone National Park.
We covered ourselves in deet and braved the armies of mosquitoes which had deployed to our immediate vicinity. The wolves didn’t arrive but we did see a bison swim across the river.
We decided to move on after an hour and stopped a short way up the road. In the far distance we saw some movement. Through the binoculars we saw a mother grizzly and two cubs. They were very far away and the light was fading fast, but we were still compelled to watch them for an hour.
We think we also found something more exciting than driving around Yellowstone National Park on a gorgeous Summer day.
Doing it at night.
In the darkness of the wilderness with just the narrow beam of our headlights to light up the creatures of the night, we saw coyotes, voles, antelope, hare and possibly a bobcat. We were actually glad at this point that we didn’t see another bear.
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