We're Going to Yellowstone -- But Just For a Little While!

The reason that most people visit Cody, Wyoming, is because of its location just 50 miles from the East Gate of Yellowstone National Park. It's probably the most famous Yellowstone gateway city, and we would guess that 90% of the tourists in town were heading to or just left the national park. Knowing how big the peak summer-time crowds are in Yellowstone, we had vowed not to make it part of our summer travel plans. But if you're this close, don't you have to go to Yellowstone National Park? So we decided we were going to Yellowstone--but "just for a little while."

We have visited Yellowstone National Park twice in the last eight years, once for a week. So we felt like we had pretty thoroughly explored this large park. But we convinced ourselves that we had never entered through the east gate near Cody. So we headed straight west after church on Sunday, and were welcomed by the snow-capped Yellowstone Mountains and wildflowers on the east entrance road.

Between wildfires and pine beetles, we saw that some sections of forest have been decimated on this east side.

Among all that downed timber, we had our first wildlife sighting of the day. A few elk were grazing on the grass between the fallen logs.

We weren't planning to stay very long on this half-day quick trip. But we did drive in as far as Lake Butte Overlook, to get a view of Yellowstone Lake from above.

It was on this high butte that we saw that someone had set up a spotting scope. It looked down on a redtail hawk's nest that was built in the hollow of a tree stump. Our picture is blurry, but the mother hawk was feeding the nest-full of naked hawk babies.

We were only staying "a little while," but we drove down to the edge of Yellowstone Lake. This is the largest high elevation lake in North America, and has 141 miles of shoreline in the national park. It's a hard lake to miss.

We're not staying long today, but we did want to get a little exercise. So we planned a hike that started along the lake.

We had read that this Storm Point Loop hike had lots of fallen logs over the trail because of a big wind storm about a week ago. But we found that the park staff had cleared lots of logs in the last day or two. The trail smelled like fresh saw dust from all the new fallen trees they had recently cleared.

That was quite a wind storm! Over and over on this 2.8-mile loop we found newly-uprooted trees . .  .

and trees that were snapped off six feet from the ground. You certainly wouldn't want to be hiking through the forest on a windy day like that!

We also found that the mosquitoes were out in force in this forest. We were hiking in high speed through this section, and swatting bugs that were getting uncomfortably large.

The winds picked up and the mosquito population went down when we hiked out to Storm Point. Here we got tall views from the cliffs on this side of Yellowstone Lake.

We started hearing whistling as we hiked by the rocky section on the lake edge. That was a sure sign that we were in marmot territory. Also called "whistle pigs," these cute little animals are a favorite because they love to pose for pictures.

It started sprinkling on this hike, and we were looking for a tree to take cover if it rained harder. It looked like this young buck had already spoken for this spot under this tree.

Now that we have gotten our exercise, we could be finished with Yellowstone. But what's that coming down the hill towards the lake? 

We spotted our first Yellowstone bison, and we got a close-up view of this big guy.

We watched him amble right beside the pickup down to the lake for a drink. That's a classic Yellowstone bison picture right there.

Now that we had seen one of those iconic bison, we could head home. But wait, we're very close to the Museum and Visitor Center at Fishing Bridge. Shouldn't we drive just a little further to see the nature exhibits? Mark tried on one of the moose antlers for size. Can you believe that for part of the year these bull moose walk around with an extra 60 pounds attached to their heads?!?

Then Mark tried on a new cap for size. Denisa had been trying to convince him to replace the old ragged one he wears every day. After seeing all the elk in the Bighorn mountains, he liked this embroidered elk cap from Yellowstone. Yay!

With that big purchase made, we're ready to head home. But it was just a few more miles to drive to see a view of the Yellowstone River.

We hiked along the river to get to the rapids. You can barely see Mark on the boardwalk on the right hand side of the picture below.

In a calmer section of the river, we found a single pelican cruising the water.

Instead of heading back home after the river, we noticed some cars stopping beside the road. We better check out what's going on. After finding a parking place, we heard that we just missed an appearance by a cinnamon-colored mother black bear and her two cubs. We waited around to see if she would make another appearance, but she had taken her babies deeper into the forest. Rats! Back on the road, we ran into another slow-down, but this was for a bison-jam.

Remember that single bison we were excited to see? Well, there were more than twenty lounging right beside the road near the river.

Now that's our classic Yellowstone bison picture!

This was getting fun! Maybe we should stay in Yellowstone for "just a little while" longer?!? We saw a bigger traffic jam up ahead, with the lead cars lost around the curve in the trees. This looks like more than a bison jam.

Sure enough, we had our first bear sighting of the day as we got a glimpse of a black bear running into the tall grass beside the road.

Once he was off the road, traffic started moving again. But as we drove slowly by, Denisa snapped a couple pictures of the bear walking through the grass.

Denisa noticed on our national park map that there were two "points of interest" on the road ahead. We're just staying "for a little while," but shouldn't we see at least one geo-thermal sight while we are here? So we wheeled into the busy Mud Volcano parking lot, lucky to find a parking place. We started the loop trail, that started with the "Dragon's Mouth Spring." Besides steam spewing from the mouth, we could also hear the rumbling sounds of gases exploding inside the cavern.

The next stop on the loop was the Mud Volcano. The smell of sulfur permeated the air, as the hydrogen sulfide deep within the earth was belching out of the volcano.

We found out that we were walking a loop that was over a mile in length, so we didn't have any problems getting our exercise on this short little road trip. The next stop on the loop was the Black Dragon Caldron. While it was now just a bubbling caldron of soupy sulfur, for several decades it erupted in 10-20 foot bursts of black mud. As we walked, we mentioned that it would really be cool to see a bison walking among these caldrons and volcanos.

Each of the geothermal events that we were hiking by were unique, and each had signage and explanations of what we were witnessing. The next was named the "Churning Caldron," with an explanation that even though it looks like the water is boiling, it isn't that hot. The gases escaping from the center of the earth are making the muddy water rumble and bubble, in an action they call roiling--not boiling.

The next stop across the road was the "Sulphur Caldron." We decided to walk instead of taking the chance that we wouldn't find another parking space. As we walked closer to the stinky caldron, we saw that a small herd of bison had found it first.

We decided that hanging out with the sulfur steam emitting from that vent was giving them some relief from the flies today. It was nice to see that a number of calves were in this herd.

We snapped another picture, thinking that was really the iconic Yellowstone bison picture. We had wanted to see bison among these geothermal oddities, and we got it!

We had decided to stay in Yellowstone "just a little while," but not too far ahead was Hayden Valley. We visited here two years ago in the early morning hours and watched a pack of wolves stalking a herd of elk. No action like that going on this afternoon, but there were more bison lounging in the river valley.

The ranger at this pull-out was watching for any animal action, but it was too early (or too late) for that. She did bring some touch and feel items, and Mark tried on the elk antler that matched his new elk hat.

Leaving that pull-out we saw more vehicles stopped beside the road. It looks like a large bull bison had decided he preferred walking on the road instead of the grass. We stopped and watched as he walked closer and closer . . .

and then brushed right beside our open pickup window. No zoom needed to get that close-up picture! Now that's the classic Yellowstone bison picture.

We're just going to be in Yellowstone for "a little while," but the spur road to the waterfalls was ahead. So we stopped and walked to the Crystal Falls viewpoint. It's an easily over-looked waterfall, but Crystal Falls has a beautiful 129-foot drop that was roaring in front of us. Every time we made another stop along the road in this epic national park, we kept thinking that was so neat and we were glad we got to see that today!

We couldn't resist the walk further down into the canyon to see the real star of the show here--Yellowstone Falls. There were three view points that we could hike to see Lower Yellowstone Falls and the roaring Yellowstone River that was fueling it.

We were standing right on top of the 308-foot-tall waterfall. That's a hard place to take a good photo of the falls, but another visitor offered to take our picture.

Mark found that by climbing up on the side of the rocks he could get a better angle of the Lower Yellowstone Waterfall.

The other thing we saw here was a swarm of these two-inch-long flying bugs. They were leaping into the waterfall and surprising on-lookers by flying into their faces.

We later found out that they were salmon flies, a delicacy for the fish here at Yellowstone. One man explained that fly fishermen would be copying their size and colors with their fishing flies. It's a rule of fly fishing that you should "match the hatch," because that is what the fish will be eating. The salmon flies were definitely hatching out in large numbers at Yellowstone.

As we pulled out of the waterfall spur road, we saw that several vehicles were stopped on the side of the road. We joined the crowd taking pictures of this bull elk, tired from holding up that impressive rack of antlers.

We could see that it was raining in the Yellowstone Mountains ahead of us, so maybe it was time to head home since we were just visiting "for a little while."

But we could see on the park map that another little hike was ahead to a viewpoint over Yellowstone Canyon. We've said it over and over today--we have wandered into more of God's wonders!

As we pulled out from that stunning view, we saw that it was now 6:00 p.m., and we needed to be heading home from this trip to Yellowstone that was supposed to take "just a little while." Then we saw another traffic jam ahead, and had to find out what was happening. This one had a ranger, yelling out instructions to motorists to take a couple pictures, then keep on moving. 

As we edged by, we could see a black bear in the trees. He must have been here long enough to get a ranger's attention. We got to snap our two pictures before we had to keep moving.

As we headed further down the road, we saw that the earlier rain had brought a rainbow to the skies over Yellowstone.

By this time, we were nearing the Tower-Roosevelt intersection. To turn right would lead us into one of the most remote sections of Yellowstone National Park, and the one section that we have explored the least.  Guess what--we turned right even though it took us even further from home on this short visit. This was Lamar Valley, famous for its large population of wildlife. One of the first animals we saw was a pronghorn.

But the bison is king here in Lamar Valley. 

This 29-mile section has almost no tourist attractions, so few visitors will make this drive. Its only attraction was the herds of bison that were everywhere we looked.

On this evening drive through Lamar Valley we saw thousands of bison. We read that Yellowstone's herd of bison had grown to 6,000. But the unusually cold and snowy winter caused many of them to migrate to lower areas outside of the park. A large number of them were hunted, with one source quoting that 1,530 bison were killed this spring. Even with the unusual number of losses, the bison herd seemed to fill this section of Lamar Valley.

The birds also like Lamar Valley, as they often hitch a ride on these beasts of the prairie.

We were at a standstill while a herd of bison decided that the grass was greener on the other side of the road. We got the iconic Yellowstone bison picture when we had several cross the road right in front of us.

While the western side of Yellowstone National Park has Old Faithful and most of the geysers and best-known geothermal attractions, this trip we enjoyed the eastern section--that we were planning to visit "just for a little while." We have to say that while we did see lots of tourists, the eastern section was much less crowded than the western parts of this very popular park.

Now we had worked our way all the way through the eastern quadrant of this two-million-acre national park. We were at the Northeast Gate--far way from the East Gate where we entered. What were our options for this day trip that was supposed to last "just for a little while?" We could make this into a loop drive, going through the little towns of Silver Gate and Cooke City that are right outside the Northeast Gate. Then we could drive the scenic highway through the Bear Tooth Mountains, and then the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway back to Cody.

But that would be a winding mountain drive, and we wouldn't get home until well after dark on our "just for a little while" day.

We were actually planning to make those scenic drives tomorrow. So what if we got a motel room and just spent the night here instead of making that drive back to the motor home tonight? We had no cell phone signal to call places or to check reviews, to see if that was an option. But we went into the lobby of one of the little lodges in Cooke City. No rooms left for tonight, and the cheapest they did have was over $200. 

Perhaps we should just sleep in the pickup in one of the forest service campgrounds? Because of all the bears in the area, no tenting is allowed and all camping units must be hard-sided. Could we sleep all night in the pickup with the windows up? We pulled into a couple forest service campgrounds and they did have openings.  

Would that be crazy?!? Would we get any sleep?!? We stopped for a barbecue sandwich in Silver Gate because we hadn't eaten anything all day. Do we have enough food to spend the night? Were we crazy for staying in Yellowstone so long?

Yes, we were. We finally pulled out of the campground and decided to make the long drive through the mountains, back to Cody and the motor home. On this evening drive, we spotted a couple moose in the trees to finish up more of our wildlife sightings of the day.

The sun was setting as we went through Dead Indian Point, and we could look down to see the steep switchbacks that we had just driven up.

We took a panorama picture from the top of the Dead Indian Pass. We could see the snow-topped Beartooth mountains to the left, the granite peaks of the Absaroka mountains to the right, and the squiggly roads that Mark was having to drive as the sun was setting on this planned short day in Yellowstone. We were too close not to make the trip to Yellowstone--but we're now realizing that it was impossible to visit this national park "just for a little while!"