National Park #9, canceled July 30, 2019
Oh, Yellowstone! After Yosemite, this is my favorite national park. I spent summer 2001 working as a housekeeper at Grant Village while serving with A Christian Ministry in the National Parks. Since then, I’ve returned a few times, but this was Briella’s first trip and the first one Mikayla would remember. Leaving from our campsite in Colter Bay in Grand Teton, our first stop was Moose Falls, our old swimming hole from my summer working there. It didn’t look like they allow swimming or even picnicking there now. Then we took a walk around West Thumb Geyser Basin and had lunch in Grant Village, my old stomping grounds. Next up was Fishing Bridge, where we ran up a hill to a meadow where Briella turned a bunch of cartwheels and Mikayla found a buffalo chip. We paid a visit to the Mud Volcano, the stinkiest place in all of Yellowstone (in my humble opinion), then saw the Lower and Upper Falls from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
When we arrived at camp in Canyon, rain was threatening, and we worked as quickly as possible to get the tent together before it started coming down any harder. We got ours up just as it started pouring. It cleared up pretty quickly, and we were able to cook Frito pie in our Dutch oven and make s’mores. We took advantage of the free showers for campers and made it back to camp just before a thunder and lightning storm let loose right over our snuggly tent. It was pretty crazy there for a while!
The next day was jam packed! We started out at Norris Geyser Basin and walked the Porcelain Basin, then my friend and the girls explored the Artist Paint Pots (Jeremy and I waited in the car because parking was crazy, and we’d seen them before). We drove down Firehole Canyon Drive and Firehole Lake Drive, where we saw Great Fountain Geyser (it didn’t erupt while we were there, but is still gorgeous).
We picnicked at Whiskey Flats before exploring Midway Geyser Basin. Then we took the trail to the Grand Prismatic Spring overlook, which was amazing! Of all my times going to Yellowstone, that’s something I had never done. Our last, but hefty, stop was the Upper Geyser Basin. We arrived in time to book it to Riverside Geyser, and only waited about 10 minutes for it to erupt. We saw Morning Glory Pool and Grotto Geyser, then waited over an hour for Grand Geyser to erupt (the adults thought it was worth it, but we’re not sure the kids agree). It’s the world’s largest predictable geyser. We returned to the visitor center in time to see Old Faithful, then had dinner and went back to camp.
After a good sleep, we set off the next morning for the Mammoth Hot Springs area. Along the way we stopped at Tower Fall and Undine Falls, then detoured over to Boiling River. We all found a sweet spot where the hot thermal runoff mixed pleasantly with the cold Gardner River and soaked for a while before setting back off on the trail to the car. We paid a visit to Roosevelt Arch at the North Entrance, and enjoyed cell service for a little while as we had lunch at Yellowstone Pizza Company in Gardiner.
The wind picked up a lot as we walked the travertine terraces of Mammoth, but the ominous sky didn’t dump heavy rain on us this time. The girls went to a Junior Ranger talk, finishing their books and earning their badges. We took a drive along the Upper Terraces, and as we went out Golden Gate we saw two mountain goats on the hill! We stopped a couple of times along the way back to camp, including North Twin Lake where we saw a pair of trumpeter swans, and Roaring Mountain where the guy parked next to us randomly gave the girls red clown noses.
At the Canyon junction, we went south towards Hayden Valley instead of going straight to camp in hopes of seeing more buffalo. Instead, we found a black bear! We did see a herd of buffalo further down, but decided to turn around before we got fully stuck in the jam they created. It had started to rain as we returned to camp, so we decided to eat at the Canyon Soda Fountain instead of cooking.
Three days was definitely not enough to explore all Yellowstone has to offer, but then again, neither was an entire summer. Just gives us motivation to return!
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