2019: STARTING OVER AGAIN! The Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks Part 3
As previously mentioned, I spent the night in the park so I could be waiting at the Snake River Overlook when the sun first came up. A couple of hours, and many photos later, and it was time to head north and to Yellowstone National Park. Shortly after I passed the Oxbow Bend area of Grand Teton National Park, a very picturesque part of the park, I saw many cars pulled over on both sides of the road. I knew, immediately that it must be a “bear jam.” Sure enough, there was a mother Grizzly Bear with her cub. Unfortunately, and they were a good way back from the road, the bears had gone into the trees before I could get a good picture of them. After passing the junction with Teton Park Road, the highway turns north. I pulled into Colter Bay Village, one of the more built-up areas of the park, at about 8 AM. I was hungry, in need of a shower, and a place to stock up on bottled water and munchies for my journey north to Yellowstone. Colter Bay has it all. There is a visitor center, general store with plenty of souvenirs, snack shop, launderette with showers, and in the John Colter’s Ranch House, there are a couple of restaurants for dining purposes. After paying a few dollars for a shower, I went down to the Ranch House and had a very nice breakfast that really didn’t cost too much for its value. That’s one problem with National Parks, everything tends to be a little pricy.
From Colter Bay it’s about an hour to Yellowstone proper. Actually, it is only a little over 18 miles to the South Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. Then it is about 31 minutes to West Thumb, the first built-up part of the park. From there, it is a little over half an hour until one reaches the signature spot in the world’s oldest national park. As it turned out, I arrived at Old Faithful Geyser just in time to see it erupt. The complex around Old Faithful is huge. I have never had a problem with parking there. At other places, the parking can be problematic. At the main visitor center, there is a chart telling when they guess the geyser will go off next. It’s not an exact science; basically, the geyser will blow-up about 17 times a day, and they can usually be predicted within 10 minutes 90 percent of the time. But the time between eruptions can vary from one to two hours (60 to 110 minutes) give or take a few minutes. So, if you arrive just after a discharge, it could be awhile before you get to see another. Fortunately, I got there and parked just before a blast. I was headed toward the visitor center when I noticed everyone was moving toward the geyser basin. I followed the crowd and arrived no more than five minutes before the geyser started venting. The eruption wasn’t one of the better ones that I’ve seen, but, still, it was rather nice. The good Lord blessed me on that day. From Old Faithful I traveled west and then north to Grand Prismatic Springs but could not find a place to park so I moved on. Now, there are two places, in Yellowstone National Park that I definitely recommend for all visitors. If you didn’t see Old Faithful blow its top at least once, I think you would feel cheated. So, you must make that part of your “to do” list when visiting the park. The other place is the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and, the Lower Falls. There are about half a dozen vantage points of this iconic point in the park. Except for one, I visited all of them, and took lots of photos. The one that I did not do was the Canyon Rim North Trail, which is almost eight miles out and back. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is like the Snake River overlook of the Grand Tetons and the Wild Goose Island overlook of Glacier. I never get tired of seeing them. Although I got some good snapshots of the falls, I was looking forward to the sunrise to see what photo opportunities I would have with the rising sun.
Since I was traveling alone, I was conserving my money any way that I could, and that meant, that once again, I spent the night in my automobile. This night it was in the parking lot of the Canyon Village complex. As at Old Faithful, there was much to see and do. There is a lodge there, expensive of course, a couple of dining facilities, a huge general store with all kinds of souvenirs to buy, plus a laundromat and shower facility. They even have a small shack that you can rent “bear spray.” As I was going into the store, a guy dropped his can of spray. I picked it up and said, “here, you might need this.” To which he replied, “yeah I almost had to use it today while hiking.” It seems a mother Grizzly bear was a little nervous that he might have been too close to her young.
