6-25-16 Wyoming Mountains (Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks)

We left Idaho’s Snake River Plains and its various extinct geologic “hot spot” venues to arrive at the northwestern Wyoming mountains giving many opportunities to cross the continental divide. The Grand Teton National Park is contiguous with the Yellowstone National Park which encompasses a single huge preserved Grand Yellowstone Ecosystem for the plants and animals.   

Grant Teton Range from Jackson Lake

The Grant Tetons are spectacularly beautiful.  Unlike most mountain ranges, where there are rolling foothills in front of the mountains, the Tetons appear to rise directly up from the valley floor along the Teton Fault up to 13,770 feet at the highest Grant Teton mountain. There are glacial lakes at the base of many of the mountains, beautiful but icy cold with snow melt. We arrived two days prior to the official opening of the Coulter Bay campground so we spent two days in Jackson before our week at the Colter Bay Campground (beautiful and convenient location).  We continue to push north with spring as it arrives in each of our destinations.  Of course, the mountains were still snow covered at the upper reaches. Being there early in the season means many hiking trails are still closed (dangerous snow conditions including snow bridges and significant bear activity).  

Grand Teton National Park

 

Jackson “Hole” (French for Valley) is comprised of the town of Jackson, the valley which is almost all national park or elk preserve, and the spectacular Tetons Range to the west. The lower but dramatic Gross Ventre  Range forms the eastern boundary to the valley.  As our substitute for strenuous hiking, we rode the Jackson Hole ski lodge gondola to see the massive fossil-bearing limestone at the top of the Tetons Range.   



 

Bob under Elk Antler Arch, Jackson Town Sq.

The town of Jackson is a cute western town, although it is transforming quickly with continuing influx of wealthy retirees (many locals can no longer afford to live anywhere in the valley).  The town square is quite interesting and antler arches mark the four entrances into the square. 

 

 

 

 

Linda Ridding

Our lunch spot was the very touristy Million Dollar Cowboy Bar; they have saddles for bar stools.  After 5 minutes at the bar, our very sore bottoms elected to sit at a regular table.  The waitress said you have to be drunk or a cowboy to sit on those stools for any period of time.  We celebrated Veterans Day with lunch at the Jackson Hole American Legion, a quant log structure one block off the square. 

 

When we arrived, there were still large herds of bison and elk roaming close to the north-south highway through the valley. We took a float trip down the Snake River early in the morning to hopefully see lots of wildlife along the banks.  We floated through the river section included in Ansel Adam’s famous photo of Snake River. It was rather chilly and slightly overcast.  While very scenic and enjoyable, we didn’t see much interesting wildlife. 

 

Red Fox with 2 ground squirrels in mouth

However on the way home, we had an incredible interaction with a fox at an exhibit pullout.  We watched for about 15 minutes while a red fox, about 30 feet from us, tried to catch ground squirrels.  He finally gave up and picked up his two prior catches in his mouth and trotted off….right next to our car.   

 

 

Linda's 65th at Armangani Grill

We celebrated Linda’s 65^th birthday in Jackson, at the Armangani Grill.  We opened a bottle of Opus One Cabernet we had obtained on Linda’s 50^th birthday trip to Napa to go with our steaks.  It was excellent, as expected.   

 

 

Yellowstone Hot Spring

 

 

Yellowstone National Park is just north of the Grand Tetons, but very different.  The mountains in Yellowstone are not as spectacular as the Grand Tetons, but are geologically very interesting. The huge magma bubble just 3-7 miles below the surface causes the “hot spot” features of the park.  The magma has moved northeast from the Snake River Plains (remember we camped at the Craters of the Moon) over the last 50-75 million years.  The common features include:  Fumeroles (hot steam emitting from openings), Hot Springs (steaming water bubbling up and out into pools and often forming terraces as seen in Mammoth Hot Springs), and Mud Pots (steam and hot water bubbling up and causing bubbling mud pools).  

 

Old Faithful, Yellowstone

The famous Geysers are caused by hot water and steam building up pressure in a “plumbing system” where there is a constriction near the opening.  When the pressure builds up enough, the water and steam “erupts” and forms a geyser.  When the eruption is finished (the pressure relieved), the process starts over again. The most famous, Old Faithful has only a 4.5 inch opening.  All of these features change over time, and even Old Faithful is erupting at longer intervals that 100 years ago (1.5 hours on average versus about 1 hour).  Yellowstone has more of these features than the rest of the world combined.  For Bob, this is a geologist’s delight.   

 

Females and Calves Bison Herd, Yellowstone

Also interesting is the incredible wildlife.  It was fabulous watching the huge herds of bison (buffalo) roaming the valley, often crossing the road in front of and behind our car.  The largest herds were the females and calves and yearlings; the males had been chased off while the babies are young and traveled either alone or small male herds. 

Bison calf suckling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Bear, Yellowstone
 

The elk traveled in smaller groups, but also preferred the plains.  Antelope seemed to travel in small groups, but were much more wary of people than the elk or bison.  We saw quite a few bears, both grizzly and black bears, a few with cubs.  We even had a yearling black bear play with our car on a remote road….we got a great video of him running alongside our car. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coyote Cubs Playing by their Den

Other wildlife sightings included:  4 coyote cubs frolicking by their den (we were about 40 feet away), mountain goats, pronghorn sheep, mule deer, bald eagles, osprey and babies in the nest, swans, pelican (we were surprised they were here), foxes, and even far away through a spotting scope, a wolf.  Lots of other small mammals and birds.  

 

Lower Falls Rainbow

Bob, Breanna and Linda Lower Falls, Yellowstone

 

 

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is beautiful.  The Upper and Lower Falls are just two of a plethora of waterfalls in the two parks.  The melting snow provides lots of runoff and the streams and waterfalls were all very full and often overflowing their banks.

 

Breanna Surprised Bob with Snowball, Beartooth Hwy.

We left the Northeast Entrance of the park to drive the Beartooth Highway in Montana, a stunning drive through the Beartooth Mountains and over the very high pass; the lakes were still frozen, the ground was covered with snow, and people were still skiing. Breanna had fun frolicking in the snow.  The road had only opened about two weeks before we drove it.  After a huge elk burger in Red Lodge MT, we also drove over the Chief Joseph’s trail on our return to the Park, another beautiful drive. 

 

 

Breanna, Yellowstone
 

 

Linda’s great niece, Breanna (age 11), Valerie’s daughter, visited us for eight days, while we camped for two weeks at the Fishing Bridge Campground in Yellowstone (a tired, well-worn campground in a central location).  We were able to show her the highlights: geology, visitor centers, waterfalls, and wildlife from which we had already seen, and then added new adventures.  We went on a long horse ride in the backcountry; less than 1% of the park visitors ever get to the backcountry.  We closely passed two black bears on the trails which the wrangler had to chase off before we reached them.  The countryside is beautiful.  Although Linda had ridden as a child and we have taken several horse ranch/riding vacations, Linda’s bad knees (skiing) couldn’t stand the ride…it seems this was her last ride.  Breanna and Bob loved it. 

We toured the Wild Bill Cody Museum (don’t miss this) and went to the Saturday night rodeo in Cody, one of the best around.  We sat over the chutes to watch the cowboys and cowgirls get on the bulls and broncs for their attempted eight-second rides.  Most were immediately tossed off; not surprising since most were VERY young.  Breanna had a great time and went home with a Stetson, which she is now wearing in Florida  J. 

 

 

 

Old Faithful Inn Lobby

We really enjoy visiting the old lodges in all the parks.  Linda and Bob had a fabulous dinner in the Old Faithful Inn, the largest log hotel in the country.   It is classic for the log and pole construction hotels built in the parks at the turn of the 20th century when railroads started bringing tourists to the parks.  The Lake Hotel on Yellowstone Lake was fabulous; a more ornate structure built for the late 1800s for the railroad travelers (mostly rich).  We had dinner there with Breanna.  Dinners at both hotels were fabulous, and we found that we really like elk and bison (although neither of us is wild about venison-go figure?).  Even Breanna liked both.

Yellowstone had terrible fires in 1988; a significant portion of the trees in the park were burned.  At that time, people felt that the park had “died”.  We were here 28 years later, and could see the impact of the fire, but more importantly, the recovery.  It is incredible.  In the 28 year old burn areas, there are numerous burnt logs laying on the ground, a few standing dead burnt trees 75 feet tall, and “millions” of new 10-12 feet tall lodgepole pines per acre - which were the ones that burned.  In another 50 years, you would not know that the area burned.  More recent fire areas have a similar progression; the size of the trees and the numbers of trees still standing are an indication of how long ago the fire was.  The current Park Service policy is that fire is critical to maintaining the ecology of the forests; without fire, the new trees cannot grow and the forests mature and die.  Fire is a good thing as lodgepole seeds are released from the fire-heated cones. 

 

Yellowstone Traffic Jam

Over the almost-four weeks we were in the Tetons and Yellowstone, we saw a great difference in the snow pack and the weather.  Fortunately, at the beginning of our stay the herds were near or actually crossing the roads, but by the end of our stay the animals were farther away off in the distance or not visible at all.  The wildlife sightings decreased as they moved further up in the mountains as the weather warmed and the snow melted (and more people arrived and travelled the roads??).  The wildflowers increased dramatically and even the aspen went from winter bare to full leaves by the time we left.

We really enjoyed our time in the Tetons and Yellowstone.  We now move on to Glacier National Park, a very different scenic and geologic environment with the famous Lewis Overthrust Fault.   

Bob and Linda