Road Trip 2010! Days 23 and 24 / Yellowstone and Grand Teton

Our drive to Yellowstone from Sheridan was absolutely beautiful. The Bighorn Mountains, which run just to the west of Sheridan, were our first obstacle. It was very interesting to see how different the western and eastern sides of the mountains are. The eastern side is very green and has lots of rocks that have been tilted,  as well outcrops of rock that jut out of the mountainsides. On the eastern side it’s much more arid, and the last stretch out of the mountains and onto the plain was through an enormous canyon. Once we got out onto the plain it was another two or three hours of driving through open brush lands before passing through Cody and back into mountains. Between Cody and Yellowstone we drove through the Buffalo Bill State Park, which surrounds a reservoir created by a dam nestled between two huge mountains.

When we arrived at Yellowstone around 4 in the evening and drove to the campsite at Bridge Bay on the north side of Yellowstone Lake. Once we arrived we took a short hike to Natural Bridge, which is a stone arch that was formed along a creek that leads into the lake. After the hike we both decided that we were exhausted, so we set up the tent, at a quick snack, and hit the hay to rest up for our full day in Yellowstone.

Our morning started early with a drive along the Yellowstone River Valley to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. We went over to Artists’ Point which gave us a great view of the Lower Falls, which plunge over 300 feet to the canyon floor and is framed by orange, red and yellow rock on either side of the canyon. After that we drove over to the Norris Geyser Basin, which had lots of little geysers (none erupting), mudpots and steam vents. From there we drove through Madison and on our way to Old Faithful stopped in at the Grand Prismatic Pool, which is an enormous mudpot with very colorful bacteria growing in the pools along the edges. Finally, we went over to Old Faithful and while we were waiting for its scheduled eruption walked around and watched some other small geysers erupt. Along with about 2000 other people, we watched Old Faithful shoot up about 100 feet, then made a mad dash to our car in order to get out of the parking lot and on the road. It actually felt a little bit like leaving a Giants game.

When it was still 5 o’clock and we were sort of done seeing things in Yellowstone, we decided that we should go down to Grand Teton National Park to camp overnight. Grand Teton was amazingly beautiful, especially with the sunlight cutting through the clouds to light up the mountains right before sunset. Of course, it rained overnight to complete our perfect record of rainy night coinciding with camping nights. Go figure.