Yellowstone Visit!
May 17, 2012Most people come to the Jackson area just to visit Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park. Honestly, before researching and becoming interested in Jackson, I don't know if I'd ever heard of GTNP, but I have definitely always known about Yellowstone. We visited GTNP in the first couple of days we were here simply because it's less than 10 miles outside of town. It is absolutely beautiful- the Tetons are nothing like mountains in the east.
Since we hadn't ventured into Yellowstone, we decided to visit on Sunday. The south entrance (the one from Jackson) had actually just opened a couple of days before for the season. (The parks actually close to traffic in the winter and the only way to tour them is by snowmobile!) The park roads are split into a figure 8 pattern and we drove the lower loop of the park.
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Overall, it took us around 8-9 hours. We covered a lot of miles and it's definitely not a highway in there, so it took a while. I feel like the lower loop covered a LOT of the big attractions of Yellowstone and was a great day trip, even though it would be best to stay for 2 or more days to really get to see everything. Here are some of the highlights in photos. Some of them are from my phone, so they may not be that great.
Waiting for Old Faithful to erupt and wondering if this is really it...
There we go! I don't know how "faithful" I would call it, though, since it was over ten minutes late. Apparently, Old Faithful isn't even that large of a geyser, it is just famous for its accuracy. Personally, I thought the explosion was pretty big and crazy... I can't imagine some of the geysers that are actually considered to be big!
Crazy hot springs and pools with orange colored bacteria that looks like lava. These things were amazing colors, but a little scary when you think about the real, active lava sitting underneath just waiting to explode! They have boardwalks all around because it is too dangerous to step on the ground near these things- you never know what is safe to walk on!
This is the canyon in Yellowstone. It was amazing! I honestly didn't even know this was in Yellowstone. It really was like a mini Grand Canyon.
Possibly the best part of the trip- a "bison jam"! I have been waiting for this to happen! You can't see it here, but there was an adorable baby bison. We were lucky to be the first car in line so we had a great view of them crossing. They were very cautious, and it seemed like some of the bison watched out for the others. One would cross the road and just stand in the middle or on the other side, let a few others cross, and then continue once they were safely past. At one point, there was one standing extremely close to the car across from us and just not moving. For a while, we just weren't sure what he was going to do.
There was a TON of snow still in Yellowstone! It was pretty insane that it has stuck around so much. This is actually a photo of one of the lakes there, which is still frozen!
Yellowstone is definitely a must-see kind of place in America and I'm happy that I got to experience it, and that I live close enough to experience it any time I want! I am a little curious to see what it will look like once the snow melts off. Out of the two parks, Yellowstone definitely has the most interesting geological features, but I might like the scenery of Grant Teton National Park a little more, and I'm sure that I will be exploring GTNP more than Yellowstone because of it's proximity to Jackson. There are some really popular trails along some lakes in GTNP, and Jackson Lake (which is in GTNP) is a pretty large lake and big enough to boat on, which will be fun when it warms up a little more!
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