Day 7 - Yellowstone in One Day

Today we saw everything in Yellowstone we could see in one day, which turned out to be a lot. We woke up to a very cold but dry morning. I added socks and a hat to my winter sleeping gear and was reasonably warm. It is supposed to be colder tonight with a low of 37. Hopefully we will sleep better without a man snoring loudly in the next tent a few yards away.


We packed up and headed out first to Old Faithful and did a hike around there to see all the geysers near there. We saw Old Faithful erupt about 10:35 and then headed over to Yellowstone Lake. We stopped near West Thumb and looked at more geysers along the edge of the lake, then headed up the shore.


We had lunch at Gull Point where we had a very scenic picnic table. There was nobody there when we got there, but several people came before we left. There were some huge swarms of gnats, which ruined the atmosphere a bit. After lunch, we headed north toward Canyon Village. We had heard Hayden Valley was the place to go to see wildlife. We spotted two buffalo so walked over to see them, but they weren't very close.


Across the street was the mud volcano so we stopped there and hiked up the hill to Sour Lake. Most of the trees near there on the hillside died after and earthquake in the 1970s heated the ground to 2700 degrees. Once we got in to Hayden Valley, we saw several buffalo off by themselves, then rounded a turn and found the whole rest of the herd.


We went out to the Upper Falls lookout where we saw a rainbow, then down to the Lower Falls, which was really cool. We saw Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, then headed up to Mammoth Hot Springs and hiked around there a little. On the way there, we drove through a lot of the forests that have reseeded since the 1988 fire. Near the edge of Mammoth, there was a group of elk just hanging out so we took a few photos.


We drove the five miles to the park's north entrance, which was the original entrance, to see if there were any good souvenir shops but didn't find much. Lisa bought a stocking hat to keep warm in the tent tonight. We cam back in the park and drove to Canyon Village by way of Roosevelt Tower but didn't see any wildlife. All we hear about is bears and bear safety for five days now, but we have seen no bears. Our campsite in Canyon Village is nice and secluded, but it is cool here already. The low tomorrow night is supposed to be 29, so we'll be glad to move on.


Dinner was spaghetti again. We had a few sprinkles while we were doing the dishes but they stopped. We opted out of showers tonight and instead got organized and repacked the car. We just heard from the people next to us that Obama is coming to Yellowstone to visit Old Faithful tomorrow so we missed him by one day. Hopefully that doesn't cause any traffic delays for us getting out. We used the rest of our wood for a campfire and had s'mores again. Overall today we drove 168 miles in the park and saw just about every part. Not bad for one day.