June 10th - Yellowstone IV

Saw a couple of elk in the morning, but nothing bailed us up!  We spent a couple of hours in Tower Fall, admiring the elk that were sunbaking on the lawns. We also shook our heads at a tourist who walked right between some elk grazing in front of a building. His wife looked scared, but I swear he didn’t even see them! They saw him though and looked a bit menacing – we half expected them to charge him. What an idiot! We watched another video of Yellowstone, this one about how the park was first founded and almost loved to death. To be honest, I don’t know why they don’t have a bus shuttle service like they do in Zion and Bryce. That would take care of pollution issues and people going where they shouldn’t be! Maybe there are just too many places to go that it wouldn’t be economically viable.   we were on the road to Tower Fall, the last leg of our Yellowstone adventure. A nice drive out there, seeing more and more bison. No moose though. The pass which had been closed when we arrived was opened today, but we already had our plans to head out of the north-east part of the park. We filled up with petrol and then went up to the Tower Fall campground. As we were driving we saw lots of cars stopped in front of us again. We expected to see moose, but then we saw the ranger cars with lights flashing and a ranger directing traffic. Then we saw it – over to the side of the road was a black bear! It looked pretty awake and was walking along looking quite purposeful. So we took as many bear pictures as we could driving past. How exciting!! 

We stopped further along at a look out, admiring the little chippies trying to run under parking cars. A nice view of the river in a steep sided canyon and there was even an obligingly photogenic bison on the opposite side. Then we continued on, but Tower Fall campground was full, having only about 30 sites. Darn. We decided to have lunch and then continue on. We stopped at about the only picnic area in the immediate vicinity (not like other areas where it’s bench to bench picnic tables) and shared a table with a family from Indiana who only just managed to snatch the table we parked near and were eyeing up. They were really nice and told us about the bear that broke into a bin near their place and also how they’d loved Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and had even seen a moose there (damn, should’ve gone there). Their moose picture was so cool! They took a picture of us and we gave them this blog address – so if you’re reading this, hi! Then it was time to hit the road again.

Those little specks are bison. 

We drove through the most gorgeous valley that really personified all I imagine Yellowstone to be. Snowcapped peaks in the distance, rolling hills and a huge wide valley with a thin river snaking through it. Bison were everywhere – hundreds of them spotted across the valley. And of course there were plenty of cars stopped everywhere trying to take photos of these huge shaggy beasts. A few pronghorn antelope were also around on the prairie and we even saw some elk with freshly grown antlers! They still looked velvety and not quite fully-grown. Magnificent. 

Icebox Canyon.

We also drove past Icebox Canyon, a very chilly spot where ice had formed big spikes on the side of cliffs beside a small river. The sections of ice were at least two metres long – obviously the sun doesn’t get down in this part of the park, hence the name. Lots of huge cliffs towered above us as we continued on our drive, sadly, out of the park. 

The last campground before the park ended was closed, though we weren’t sure why. I felt pretty nostalgic driving past the ‘Leaving Yellowstone National Park’ sign, as it was such a milestone in my travelling. It is definitely a spectacular park, not to be missed. I guess I was sad because I knew that I might never go back and I wanted to remember all the cool things we’d seen and done!

Eventually we found a campground that wasn’t closed, a small one with mountains on two sides. Our camphosts were so nice and friendly and chatted to us for ages. They are both retired teachers, he a high school science teacher and she a kindergarten teacher. Teachers – everywhere! They split their time between being here outside Yellowstone and staying with friends in Florida. A tough life! It was nice to find out a little about teaching in the USA – our holidays are very similar, though their class sizes can hit the 30s!

A relaxing afternoon, cooking tacos on the fire and toasting marshallows (again – I’ve never camped so much or eaten so many marshmallows in my life!!). Will made me ration wood, but we still had enough to enjoy a s’more or two. After dinner we went for a quick walk up a little hill near the campground to admire the elk in a paddock in the distance and also the snowy mountain peaks. We also went across the road and checked out the falls smashing their way down a cliff face. We were a little afraid of bears, so we made plenty of noise walking along! The camphosts were adamant about reminding us to be careful leaving food/plates or anything out in case bears arrived. We’ve heard it a million times on this trip and I find it irritating as we can’t just tip out our washing-up water anywhere we like! However, the lady said that last year two people were killed by a bear. They were sleeping in their tent and they had food in there with them and that’s what the bear could smell. Thank goodness they haven’t worked out how to get into RVs for food yet! 

Another bison, just hanging out on the side of the road as we drove past!