Spring in Yellowstone

Where: Yellowstone National Park

When: Friday May 28th – Monday May 31st, 2010; aka Memorial Day Weekend

Who: Caitlin, Andy, thousands of Buffalo, some elk, grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, moose, antelope, and the most dangerous animal of them all: tourists.

Have you every heard of this place called Yellowstone? Because I never have and rightfully so as there is not much to do there. We happened to stumble upon it when we decided that we should drive North through that mostly empty piece of land above Colorado that some historic maps have listed as “Wyoming”.

While driving through this land we eventually landed in this weird place called Yellowstone, which apparently is somewhat famous as it is designated as a National Park (what-ever that means). So we decided to hang-out for a few days (mainly because we were sick of driving through that barren land north of Colorado).

So there is not much to see there which should be expected as it is in the middle of nowhere. Not sure if anyone should ever go to this place…

Not really that many bison roaming all over the park, hanging out on the road or on the trails where you would least expect them.

Or are is there any other wildlife like the herds of elk or Pronghorn Antelope.

Or are there any Grizzly bears taking down elk calves in plain site and proceeding to eat them.

And there are most certainly no Wolves hunting elk herds for their newly born calves.

Lastly the landscape is extremely boring as things such as geysers, springs, bubbling mud-pits, sulphur pits, or stunning mountains and valleys exist anywhere in this park.

Anyways if you want to see some horrible photos of probably the most boring place on earth, please read-on and don’t come crying to me when you are bored to death as I warned you fairly.

The Trip: Yellowstone over Memorial Day Weekend:

Our first Wildlife encounter was on the first evening where we went on our first short hike in Yellowstone (2/3rds mile). We went out around a small geyser basin (Mud Volcano basin) through some insanely wet rain/slush:

Out on this short hike in the wet rain/slush we rounded a corner on the trail right before our eyes was the first (and certainly not last) buffalo;  Caitlin exclaimed “Is that a real one!?!”…why yes I believe that is a real one:

One advantage of really wet/slushy rain of the first evening was that the pesky Tourist animal was no-where to be seen. The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone Lower Falls which we enjoyed in complete solidarity for  at least 20 mins:

Caitlin demonstrating the proper way to deploy Bear Pepper Spray when a bear, bison, chipmunk, moose, bighorn sheep, or RV decide that they will charge you and attempt to maul/gore/eat/cuddle/love/stomp you:

Saturday morning looked pretty much the Beach Vacation we were expecting (2 inches of Fresh!) the next morning near the Hayden Valley:

Damn tourists can’t walk down the road right:

Porcelain Basin near Norris Junction was insanely awesome:

Some really colorful Extremophiles found in the Porcelain Basin:

The Northern Lamar Valley after a fast moving rain storm (which is about 1,500 ft lower than were we camped and was significantly warmer), also known as the Serengeti of Yellowstone:

Momma and Baby Black Bear were hanging out giving the crowds a show (Near Tower):

Sunday Morning we were treated to some excellent GORE!!! Yogi the Grizzly Bear had chased down an delicious Elk Calf for breakfast and I was jealous as I hadn’t yet had my morning baby animal breakfast.  Anyways we finally got a decent photo once he got-up and re-hydrated (but people with high-powered scopes helped us see closeups of the grizzly enjoying the various parts of an elk calf):

Then out of no-where some Wolves attacked a small herd of elk on the same hillside!!! Unfortunately they were hidden by a small hill and they would only pop-out occasionally and were running so quick it that I could not get a photo that was worth anything at all 🙁

Once our killing appetite was taken care of we went and checked out some more Geyser basins near Old-Faithful (Old-faithful was probably the least exciting part of the trip):

The very large Grand Prismatic Geyser from a good vantage point (there is a boardwalk to this geyser but since it is so large and hot all you can see is steam):

So we randomly went to this one small side road and got out of the car to wander around. There was a small group near this one geyser and out of no-where the thing started to erupt and was really sweet to watch it shoot about 25 ft into the air. The White Dome Geyser:

Sunday evening the skies cleared and we were treated to some excellent visual pleasure over the Hayden valley and Pelican Creek (just before sunset the temperature peaked at a whopping 54 degrees):

Monday morning we packed-up and headed out. There was some excellent viewage at Yellowstone Lake (which like most things we saw in the park was still frozen):

Then back in the car again and across that vast land of Wyoming…

Yee Haw!

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