Yellowstone (25 June)

We were on the road by 6.50 this morning!! The countryside opened up and we could see rolling pasture in every direction, sometimes edged by higher hills with trees and sometimes reaching to the horizon. This may be why they call it Big Skies country. We saw several deer in the fields and a few cattle in some places.

The altitude gradually increased and most of the second part of the journey was above 6,000 feet (about 1,800 meters). Eventually we reached West Yellowstone and joined a long queue to enter the park. The park was crowded and twice we had to stop because of people stopping to observe bison. We were prohibited from taking RVs on some roads and struggled to find parks at other popular stopping areas. However, we did manage to stop at Midway Geyser Basin where we saw Grand Prismatic, said to be the largest hot spring in the world. It was certainly big but, more impressively, it boasted superb colours from the various minerals and the microbes that inhabit it.

Next stop was Old Faithful. The biggest challenge here was finding a park at all, let alone one that could take an RV. We stumbled upon a small gap in an area reserved for buses but the presence of other RVs and cars encouraged us to stay there. We waited with hundreds of others for a scheduled eruption. They can predict each next eruption within a 10 minute range. It was worth waiting for, even though it wasn’t as big an eruption as sometimes occurs. The visitors centre stated that there are only six such sites in the world: Russia on the Bering Sea, the mid Atlantic Ocean, Iceland, Nevada, Yellowstone and Rotorua.

We are staying two nights at Fishing Bridge RV Camp within the park. We crossed the continental divide a couple of times, the highest being 8,391 feet (over 2,500 meters). We entered Fishing Bridge via a bridge that had clear signs saying no fishing from the bridge. We had an earlyish dinner and then set out up the road in the hope of seeing wildlife. The general rule is that they are more likely to be active in the early morning and late evening. We weren’t disappointed. We saw lots of bison. Some were in largish groups of eight or more with young calves. Others were in small groups of two or three or were solitary. On looking closely and recalling information from wildlife TV programmes, we concluded that the larger groups were mothers and calves, juveniles and young females ready for breeding. The small groups were young males who had been ejected from the matriarchal group and the solitary bison were mature males getting ready for the breeding season. These solitary males were big powerful fellows and they have an “attitude”. That is, they ignore us completely, crossing the road when it suits, independently of whether traffic is about. We saw one whose hind legs were on the road as he rubbed his head against a tree on the roadside, requiring traffic to wait until he was satisfied. Wonderful. As we were discussing this, two of the young males faced off and butted heads but there didn’t seem to be much serious intent. Brothers?

 We also saw a large blue heron, about 1.2 meters high, and a member of the deer family; we think it was an elk. And of course there were ground squirrels and chipmunks and we saw something swimming near the heron; possibly a beaver or an otter.