It was 50 miles from Cody to the East Entrance of the park, which sounds like a lot, but the scenery was every bit as good as the scenery in the park.
We got about halfway when it began to snow.
We were half a mile from the entrance when we came to a complete stop. A guy driving the other direction told us the road was temporarily closed for snow removal. We sat in place for about half an hour.
Once things opened up, they moved pretty fast. Our first stop was an outhouse, and we found one none too soon. Next to the parking lot, a waterfall ran through the woods.
When we drove over Sylvan Pass (8,530 ft.) we could see where the snowplows had been working.
The day cleared up shortly after this, but it remained pleasantly cool. At least I thought so. A lot of other people thought it was unpleasantly cold. I think the temperatures may have kept the morning crowds down.
We drove along Yellowstone Lake for several miles. We got out briefly at Steamboat Point, where we saw our first evidence of the caldera responsible for the geysers and other features. But compared to what we saw later, it wasn’t terribly exciting.
We headed toward the center of the park and the Old Faithful area. Along the way, we stopped briefly to see the Kepler Cascades.
I’d always heard about the huge crowds at Yellowstone, and things were decidedly busier the closer we got to Old Faithful, but we were early enough (about 9:45, after a two-hour drive from our hotel) to still easily find a parking place about a quarter mile from the geyser. I looked for signs telling when the next eruption of Old Faithful would happen and learned that we had about an hour to wait. We took a short loop trail around the Upper Geyser Basin. We were nearly to Old Faithful when a young woman told us and everyone around us that another geyser, Beehive, was due to go off in “about seven minutes.” We walked to a spot where we could see it from about 150 yards away and waited. About seven minutes later, it went off. It’s considered one of the more impressive geysers in the park because it shoots up from a small hole and reaches the impressive height of 200 feet. It erupts irregularly, but when it has its groove on, it goes off twice a day. We were lucky to be in the right place at the right time. The water coming out of the hole made an impressive rushing sound.
We were less than half an hour from Old Faithful’s next show. We found seats on one of the benches that circle half of the glacier. It began shooting up steam about 10 minutes before it erupted, and each time people went “oooooo!” By the time it went off, there were several hundred people watching. It was worth the show. A lot of hot water shot up in the air and a lot of steam spread over the area.
We wandered the area looking for lunch. Our search included about three minutes in the old lodge — I’m not sure why we didn’t look around more. We finally ended up in a gift shop buying very expensive sausages and eating them on a bench outside. They were, however, very good sausages.
Then I made a mistake due to lack of preparation. We walked the boardwalks around the Upper Geyser Basin, and before we were through, Sally’s hip and my knee were very sore. We looked and acted like old people. Anyway, here’s what we saw on that walk in no particular order.
This is Morning Glory Pool. It looks pretty and remote. What you can’t see are the people lined up three deep on the boardwalk taking selfies. Or the woman not far away who was blocking traffic so she could take videos of her daughters doing cartwheels. On the boardwalk. In an area where falling off the boardwalk could kill you.
That’s the old lodge in the background. In the foreground is Beehive Geyser when it’s not erupting.
We limped back to the car and headed west. It was a great deal busier at this point, and we soon ran into a lot of traffic around Midway Geyser Basin. That must be where the best features are, or maybe there just isn’t enough parking. Cars were lined up on both sides of the road for a couple miles, and there was no way were in any shape to walk that far. We soon hit a dead stop for about 15 minutes, then crawled forward. This time it was for a herd of bison that were crossing the road at their own sedate pace.
Eventually we cleared the busy area and were able to enjoy the scenery again. This is Gibbon Falls. I’ll say this about Yellowstone. It lives up to they hype. Features like this — which aren’t even famous — are scattered all over the park.
Looking the other way from where I took the above photo of the falls.
Eventually we made our way around to Hayden Valley. This is one of the places where wolves are sometimes seen, and there was a crowd looking at something. But when I got out and asked, it turned out to be two Coyotes.
We stopped very briefly at the Mud Volcano. The smell of sulfur here was almost overwhelming. It wasn’t one of the prettier spots either.
By this time it was already late in the afternoon. We drove back past Yellowstone Lake, stopping only long enough to see the Grizzly Bear (see separate post). We then had the long, but pretty, drive back to Cody.
We didn’t get back to our hotel until after 8:00 pm. We stopped at Walmart and bought a couple microwave meals to eat in the hotel room.