Wild West Trip II: Yellowstone Final Days

SATURDAY JUNE 29th

This was day four for us in the park, but day one for Barry, Divana and Em. So we did a little of everything today!

First up was to see if we could spot that grizzly bear and cub again-and we did! We drove down to the Fishing Bridge area and over by Crested Butte they were out running around again. Here's a video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkcF2BYBkrI

We sat and watched them for probably 20 minutes or so before they ran up over the hill.

Spotted a bald eagle by the lake. 

Then we stopped at the canyon area to walk around and check out those beautiful views. 

We went back to hotel to relax for a while. Our days had been absolutely jam packed up to this point so it was nice to relax for an hour or so. We went to have lunch at the cafeteria type place that we could walk to and looked around in the gift shops a bit.

After our relaxation time we decided to go ahead and do the upper loop with them since they hadn't been able to see everything yet. We stopped at the places we'd been to before and saw a bunch of animals so that was awesome!

If you squint you can see two bears in this photo :)

Here's a zoomed in picture taken with my good camera. 

We went along the loop counter-clockwise, stopping in Mammoth for some ice cream. 

 After we ate dinner our family went out to go see Hayden Valley one last time at night. On the way Ike spotted a cinnamon brown bear and ended up causing quite a traffic jam because of it! He was the first to notice and after we stopped so did everyone else.

The skies were incredibly beautiful.

 

Sad to leave Yellowstone behind the next day but we were very excited to spend a couple days in the Tetons!

Wild West Trip II: Yellowstone Lower Loop

FRIDAY JUNE 28th

After spending a quick early morning at Old Faithful we packed up and went to the West Thumb Geyser Basin. 

Along the way we saw a herd of elk and stopped at Kepler Cascades.

West Thumb is neat because it's right on Lake Yellowstone. It was super chilly this morning so we didn't stay very long but it was a nice stop!

I made Dave recreate this picture from 2011 :)

On our last trip we stayed at Lake Yellowstone cabins, so we stopped there to show the kids and Ike got a huckleberry soda and a root beer that he was very excited about. 

We drove around the lake then up to Lake Butte Overlook, which we would be back to many times later!

We had hiked the Storm Point Trail before but I lost all of my pictures from it. So we decided to go again since we remembered liking it so much. It's a fairly easy hike out to Storm Point and the views were beautiful. 

On our way back to the van we got stopped by a buffalo in the path. We did a little off-trail walking to get around this big guy!

We weren't able to check into Canyon Lodge yet but we were able to get our laundry started!

Did a quick trip back into Hayden Valley before meeting up with Josh's parents and sister at the hotel.

Em was up for an adventure so we once again headed down to the Crested Butte area and we got to see our first grizzly! We were beyond excited. Some lovely people helped us figure out where she was on the hill and we were able to get it in our scope. 

Then on our way back we saw another coyote. They were everywhere this time!

Wild West Trip II: Old Faithful Area

 THURSDAY JUNE 27th

We got a later start this morning from Roosevelt to go to Lamar Valley, but it ended up working out great because we saw wolves!! This was one of the animals I really wanted to see this time around so I was so excited. 

They were very far away but we could see them with the scope we borrowed!

After our Lamar adventure we came back to gather our things from Roosevelt and we ate breakfast at the Lodge. It was really great!

Next stop was Old Faithful Inn. We stopped at pretty much all the turnouts and boardwalks along the way including the rest of Norris Geyser Basin (it was so crowded by midday!), Artist's Paint pots, Fountain Paint pots, and a drive along Firehole Canyone Drive. 

This is at Fountain Paint pot. We loved this one, it was super gurgley! 

Silex Spring-so vivid. 

Firehole Falls. 

After our tour along the eastern side of Yellowstone we made it to our lodging for the night. Our room wasn't ready yet so we wandered around, watched Old Faithful erupt once, and got some snacks. 

We loved the Inn, but the area itself was way too crowded. Definitely something to go to once, but we prefer the quieter side of Yellowstone! Our room was in the old section of the inn without bathrooms. 

We had some dinner then went to the Grand Prismatic Spring hoping the crowds had lessened by this time. It was a great play, much less crowded and we got a parking spot! We did the hike up to see it from above which was super cool. 

It was sooooo windy!

One last place to visit on this side of the park-Biscuit Basin. It is now closed because of a major eruption, crazy!

Once we got back to the Old Faithful area the kids and I went on a hunt to see more of the geysers. Grand Geyser hadn't gone off for a while so we decided to hang out there to see if we could see it. Dave didn't make it until the end but Ike and I stuck it out! It was so so cold and windy by this point. 

That evening Josh and I played cards while the kids used some precious internet that was available. A musician played until later in the evening so the kids came out to join us to listen to the music and hang out in this crazy cool space. 

Friday morning we were up early to check out Old Faithful under less crowded conditions and then moving on to eventually get back to the Canyon area for two nights!

Wild West Trip II: Yellowstone Upper Loop

TUESDAY JUNE 25th

We drove the long drive from Rapid City to the entrance of Yellowstone, getting there around 3 pm on Tuesday. In Yellowstone we stayed at the following places: 2 nights in a cabin at Roosevelt, 1 night at Old Faithful Inn, and 2 nights at Canyon Lodge. It was a lot of moving around but worth it in our opinion. 

We stopped along the way at the Little Bighorn Battlefield which happened to be celebrating the 148th year. It was kinda neat and there was a lot going on but we mostly stopped so Josh could take a work call.

Then we made it to Yellowstone finally! I highly recommend getting the GuideAlong App. It was so incredibly helpful and told us cool places to stop and history about the park.  First stop was the visitor center to get the kids' passports stamped and buy a Yellowstone patch to make an ornament for Christmas. 

We stopped at Undine Falls for a quick picture.

We hiked the Forces of Nature boardwalk before driving the Blacktail Plateau Drive. We didn't see any animals but it was very pretty. 

We were able to get into our cabin at this point-we stayed in one of the three full bed cabins with no bathroom (unfortunately!). But we were right by the shower/bathrooms so it wasn't too bad. 

It was pretty early yet and the sun didn't set until late so we went to Lamar Valley to see if we could find any animals. We were pretty successful-we saw a bunch of bison and our first coyote!

Then we found a picnic area to cook up our dinner, it was freezing and raining by this point so that was not very pleasant!

But then the sun made another appearance and gave us another rainbow. 

After dinner we went to see Tower Falls and Calcite Springs Overlook super quick. Calcite Springs ended up being my favorite view of the whole park!

Then it was back to our cabin to clean up and get some rest, we were so tired!!

WEDNESDAY JUNE 26th

I woke up to a glorious sunrise the next morning. This was one of our best animal spotting days-we saw 13 bears, a bunch of coyotes, and a bald eagle. 

Once I got everyone awake we went back out to Lamar Valley.

On our way out of the valley we saw people stopped looking at a bear. He/She lumbered around for a while on this hill. 

We spotted two more bears on our drive back to Roosevelt.

More pictures of Lamar Valley. 

We went back to our cabin to regroup before heading counter clockwise on the upper loop. First stop was Mammoth Hot Springs and we walked along the lower boardwalk for a bit. 

We drove the Upper Terrace Drive because our guide fella told us to and that was a neat little side trip. 

We hit the Sheepeater Cliffs (a good stop but not super notable) then headed to the Norris Geyser Basin. We got there pretty early and it took us longer than I would've thought to park! But this was very worth it, we loved this area.

We did the Norris Geyser Basin Trail (the longer one) this time and saw the Steamboat (we were really hoping it would go while we were visiting but it's super unpredictable), and a bunch of other geysers and pits. It's a really cool spot. 

We stopped for a picnic lunch before checking out the canyon area. 

We did all the major outlooks but didn't do any hiking. It was pretty warm and we had a very long day today! On our way back to complete the loop we got stuck in a bear jam, but we didn't mind too much. We really loved seeing the cinnamon brown bears!

A coyote was prowling around in the same area. 

We drove up and over Dunraven Pass (where we had excellent internet so we stopped there for about 10 minutes to enjoy that!) then went back to our cabin at Roosevelt. For dinner we drove to Lava Creek picnic area to cook up some quesadillas. The kids talked us into going to get ice cream at Mammoth and we were glad we did because we saw lots of animals there and back!

This guy didn't have a care in the world!

Very long day but it was awesome!