Labor Day Weekend in Yellowstone Nat'l Park

For Labor Day weekend this year we packed up the car and headed to Yellowstone National Park for three days!

It was a haul getting there. We left Longmont Saturday at about 530am and drove across almost the entire state of Wyoming - incredibly boring and barren - through the Grand Teton Nat'l Park and into Yellowstone in about 9 hours. The plus side of leaving so early is not only did we get to our campsite while we still had daylight to play with, we also got to see a few meteors that morning as we left Colorado (something about 2,000 year old dust finally hitting the atmosphere?).

While we were setting up camp we got a taste of some of the wild life we'd experience this weekend. A young, female moose walked right up to our campsite! She gave us a look over and wandered away into the trees. No way!

There was a ton of hydrothermal activity to see between our campsite at Madison Junction and Old Faithful (about a 30 mile stretch). We started at the Paint Pots (thermal pools with little water, so its just bubbling mud) and hit the Clepsydra Geyser that has been erupting since 1959! The colors of the pools and the areas around them are just stunning... but very smelly.

That night we hit the sack early (hey, we were up at 4!) and heard a bull elk we'd seen as we drove in bugling! It wasn't a bugle you'd expect out of such a massive animal, but something more musical - almost flute-like. We heard him all weekend, actually. And saw him a number of times - once right in camp, following two cows around.

Sunday morning we drove down to see Old Faithful. Our timing was perfect - we arrived about 10min before an eruption. No rumbling or noise really - just steam and then a huge spout of boiling water! The group of kids next to us thought it was just the coolest thing they'd ever seen.

After lunch back at camp we took the bikes out to Flatiron Trail. From there we found the trail head for Fairy Falls and split our bike ride up with a hike back to the falls to cool off. We saw a buffalo herd on the way out, and one up close on the way back. We also spotted an osprey hunting over the river. She didn't catch anything, but she was still trying when we rode off.

Monday it was time to pack up and head back down to 'Rado. More bugling from the bull elk somewhere off in the distance. And we got see more buffalo on our way out of the park. Before we left we hit a few more thermal areas that were highly recommended by one of the rangers we met. These boiling pools of acidic water are just fascinating! We also stopped by Lewis Falls and in the Grand Teton park for some photos. And just as we were saying we were disappointed we didn't see any bears.... 4 black bears pop up along the road side! We got one shot before they wandered beyond the trees.

Our journey home seemed to make better time than our trip out - only 8 hours rather than 9 again. The kitties were very happy to see us. Check out the pictures through the link above (click on the pic of Josh and I).