Wednesday, June 6, 2018
This morning we entered the park at about 8:45 AM and had no problem heading North toward Roosevelt Tower. As usual there were lots of buffalo and we tend to ignore them now that we’ve seen so many. Today, however, we stopped to take photos of calves that happened to be closer to the road than usual. Once again we were thwarted in our attempt to take a hike, this time to Cascade Lake. We met a young man named Rick who offered to walk with us one way and protect us with his bear spray. Unfortunately, about 10 minutes later we came upon a sign informing us that the trail was closed due to possible dangerous bears.
From Roosevelt Tower we headed further North through the Washburn Mountain Range. All around us were beautiful green mountains (except where there had been forest fires) with streaks of snow. A few times we saw kids playing in the snow banks and having snowball fights. Suddenly we spotted a group of people standing in a field – that meant an animal sighting. It turned out to be a Mamma Grizzly bear and her two playful cubs. This is where a good camera would have come in handy.
On our journey we made a quick stop at Tower Falls, like all the other waterfalls we visited it was impressive and beautiful. At Tower Falls was one of the parks stopping plazas. One thing that is a plus at Yellowstone is that in each section of the Park there are places to get gas, food, and gifts. There are also basic restrooms at all of the major tourist points plus many more scattered everywhere. For the last two days we picked up lunch at a Park store and had a picnic. Today, Dan and I shared a huge turkey sandwich.
Earlier in our visit we had seen a sign to see a petrified tree and skipped going there, but today we went. We can’t seem resist trying to see everything. Once upon a time there were three pretrified redwood tree trunks, but tourists chipped away at them and only one remains. There also happened to be a hiking trail that wasn’t closed, although it did warn people to travel in groups of three and to take bear spray—neither of which we did. It was a very lovely walk with plenty of wild flowers to admire. We actually had to strain ourselves a bit by jumping over a stream twice in order to reach The Lost Lake. I’m proud to say we discovered the lake along with the bleached skeletal remains of an elk. So far, it’s the only elk we’ve spotted. A cute little prairie dog entertained us for a bit almost coming right up to us. On our way back, a couple of cowboys rode past us with pack mules. They were actually maintenance workers using the mules to haul stones they would use to fix the trails.
The rest of the Day was spent driving through the Lamar Valley, known for one of the best places to spot wild life. It was here we saw a very large herd of buffalo on our trip. It didn’t take much imagination to picture what herds of these animals must have looked like to Native Americans. At another spot we saw a female moose. In addition to animals, the Park is filled with geological wonders. Glaciers picked up and moved huge boulders and tossed them helter skelter in the middle of fields, up mountain sides and into small lakes.
Here is where our luck didn’t hold out very well in terms of lines of traffic. First, we were stuck waiting for a huge line of cars to snap photos of a grizzly bear. Then when we thought the coast was clear we were stuck again, this time for 45 minutes. Were people gazing at a wondrous elk, moose, wolf, or fox? NO! We were stuck on the road because people were taking photos of buffalo. There are buffalo throughout the park and one would think that by 5:00 PM they would have seen at least a 100 of them.
Finally, back in West Yellowstone, we grabbed a quick bite at Las Palmitas for some Mexican food. The place is in a converted bus and served up pretty decent fajitas. Tomorrow we head to Grand Teton National Park.
BY THE WAY WITH WENDY & DAN 