Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks

Another update, another couple of days while I try to get back to regular posting after the laptop debacle.

Day 5, 9/14/08:

After waking up in Buffalo Wyoming I drove through the Bighorn National Forest on my way to Grand Teton National Park. Bighorn is high up, about 8k feet, and includes a stretch of road called the Cloud Peak Skyway. As you can imagine there are alot of high peaks along this road.



I saw my first real mountains of the trip here from the firsthand perspective. Also saw some glaciers on top of the peaks, which are included in archive pics that you can access from the link to the right.

I endeavored to stop at a site called the Medicine Lodge State Archeological Site, which, according to my guidebook was a working dig site that included paintings and much artifacts. Alas, I gave up on finding the site after 2 hours of searching the backroads of Wyoming for the correct needle in the haystack of unmarked logging and cattle roads. Even my GPS thing was confuzzled, always telling me to recalculate and turn around. I had some fun pseudo-offroading though. Besides, the book says I had to pay to enter (boo) and it was a Sunday and may not be open anyhow. meh


Quite by accident I stumbled on a place called Thermopolis, Wyoming which boasts both the largest natural hot springs in the world and a dinosaur museum. Cool. I tooled about the springs for awhile, finding myself at the orgin of one particular vent and the anticipated scent of rotting eggs-sulphur (or sulfur). Lots of multi-colored algae too.


The Wyoming Dinosaur Center is a privately funded dig site operation that is actually quite well done. Much of the place is a tour of the planet's geological and paleontological history from 5 bya to the present. I actually learned something that on its face should have been obvious: all dinosaur species were only around for 5-10 million years during the 300 million years or so years of the dinosaurs, so most drawings that show different species together are false on that account. The notable exception is the classic T. Rex vs Triceratops. They did in fact co-habitate in time and space, so childhood reminisces of Dinobots in battle are not broken altogether.


Next I drove through the desolation of central Wyoming on my way to Teton. This area is devoid of much vegetation save sagebrush and cows. Yay water!

The Grand Tetons National Park is smaller than Yellowstone but encompasses the imposing Tetons range. What makes this range particularly unique is their situation on a fault line that causes the Tetons themselves to continue jutting skyward with te eons while the land next to it that is covered by Jenny Lake and nearby environs is subsuming at a similar rate. One side is rising, the other is falling, creating the unique lake/mountain boundary that is so dramatic. The landmark in the top picture below illustrates this concept.

Anyways, the mountains are amazing. I stayed at a campsite the first night, near Signal Mountain lake. The campsite is nice, if crowded by other campers. I met a couple there named Jesse and Samantha. They were on a weeklong vacation and proceeding to Yellowstone and back to their home in Seattle. They shared s'mores and conversation for the night. The night which when I awoke had dipped to 35°F. Brr. But being the dry west it was 80°F and sunny by 2pm.

Day 6, 9/15/08:

I decided to hike around a Jenny Lake. Jenny Lake is a few miles north of the main part of the Tetons range which I show above. After a brisk 3 mile hike to the other side I started going up and found a place called Hidden Falls. As I'm sure you can image the falls are hidden in a ravine, and give some cool pics below. From there I climbed about 700 feet in half a mile of switchbacks to Inspiration Point. Real ingenuity and creativity in the namings; I suspect that the guy who named them is also responsible for such doldrums as North and South Dakota. The top pic is of course Hidden Falls while the bottom is facing East overlooking Jenny Lake from Inspiration point.


I saw two interesting animals up close on the hike. The first was a beaver, which I conclude it must be from the way it was wagging its wide tail and lines around its eyes. I saw it/him/her from about 10 feet as it drank from a spring along the side of the trail. Alas, the beaver did to cooperate in out staring contest for long enough to get my camera out, so I present to you a picture of the leaves it disappeared into, along with a image I ripped from the 'net of the markings I saw that told me it was a beaver (along with the tail).


On the way down I spied a peculiar critter in a rock, hunting for...something. I suspect it is a pika. Alas, the little ball of frenetic energy did not cooperate long enough for my camera to focus, so I present to you a Fuzzy Pika.


After the hike I tooled around the park, encountering numerous "Bear Traps" of stopped cars and gawking seniors watching mule deer eat or elk off in the far distance. I'm glad mom lent me her binoculars but unless you have one of the massive telephoto lenses some people cart around like bazookas I can't support looking at critters more than about 200 yards off, as there's no detail to be had.

Ate lunch of mom's strawberry jam with crunchy Jif on wheat hamburger buns, gassed up at the especially outrageous gouge of $4.15/gallon and proceeded across the Rockefeller Jr roadway to Yellowstone National Park. Along the way I encountered my first of what I doubt will be my last instances of road closures in the sparsely populated west. Because there are no side-streets to reroute traffic onto when a road is closed for repairs, they simply close the whole thing. Then they have these trucks called "Follow Me" trucks that go to one side of the closure and guide that direction's traffic across the unpaved and working construction vehicle infested roadbed. Once you're across the Follow Me truck turns around and guides the traffic on that side back across the Neutral Zone. Romulans are sure to attack at any time. But the worst part is that you can be sitting on your side for easily 30 minutes. The some shmuck in front of you falls asleep as you're getting the go ahead sign. geeze. I almost prefer the backups along I-80 outside State College to this.

But, I finally got to Yellowstone. 45 minutes after I wanted to.



Well, let me just say it. Yellowstone sucks.

• It is crowded, even on a weekday in September. Bear Jams everywhere.
• It is full of impatient a--holes who want to go 65 in the 35 zones. And there's seldom a place to let them by.
• Three-quarters of the campsites are closed for the season. In mid-September.
• The remaining sites are already full.
• The most basic cabin costs $90 a night and has no shower.
• The nearest town is 45 minutes on beartrap infested roads from anything cool in the park, and rooms start at $100 a night for the dumpiest dump that ever dumped.

So, when faced with an overcrowded, backed up, overpriced and unfun national park I decided to bag it. I instead drove til 11 pm on to Bozeman Montana where I wanted to try to find a new laptop. I stayed at The Rainbow Inn in downtown Bozeman for $50 a night. Yellowstone? meh

That's it for now. til tomorrow!