Okay, let’s continue the trip recaps. When I left off on the last post, I was enjoying an evening sleeping in a bed rather than an air mattress on the ground. The Historic Madison Hotel was very nice. They claim to be the oldest hotel in West Yellowstone that is still operating as a hotel, and we did stay in the historic part (there is a new addition part that is around back and didn’t look like anything special.) Reviews said the hotel was loud, but I slept great!
The hotel gives you a coupon for $10 off breakfast or dinner at the restaurant next door, the Timberline Cafe, which claims to be (it may well be true, I just don’t know!) the oldest restaurant in West Yellowstone operating still operating as a restaurant. West Yellowstone had a mask ordinance inside and required masks, but to eat at a restaurant would mean taking it off, so no. We were able to order takeout, and ate our eggs and potatoes outside on the balcony again.
We checked out of the hotel and then headed for the Wolf and Grizzly Discovery Center. My dad had visited Yellowstone in February (in the before times) and had said it was well worth a visit, so we made plans to stop. It was a sunny day and you could tell it was going to be hot. I couldn’t find my hat, so we popped into a souvenir shop to get a new one. After that, we walked over to the Center.
There was a short line to get in, and mostly people were distancing (it was outdoors). The law was to wear face masks while inside, or standing in line outside of somewhere, but naturally there were some special snowflakes who weren’t and also a few under the nose types. We steered clear as best as we could. I think especially looking back, knowing what the scientific evidence for masks, even cloth masks, now, we definitely felt good about our mask wearing and felt good and continue to feel good about avoiding indoor dining or removing masks inside. Anyway!
This is a cool place. Your ticket could be used for two days but we weren’t planning to return. We poked around the indoor museum very briefly, lots of interesting displays, some taxidermy of course, and then went outside. The Center has wolves and bears that for various reasons, can’t live in the wild so they live there. They had a large area for the bears and would have one or two bears out for public viewing at a time. After 45 minutes or an hour, they would switch out the bears. It was a lot of fun to see the bears lumbering around, and to see the crows hanging around waiting to get their food, very brave crows!
The Center is basically just a very small zoo, so it’s easy to wander around quickly. The wolf pens are opposite the bear area so we could easily go back and forth depending on where the action was. The Center wasn’t too busy and so it was easy enough to distance from other people.
We enjoyed watching the wolves interact with each other. I believe there were three different enclosures for the wolves, one had young wolves and the mom would be allowed in occasionally, and two others with adults. The people who worked there would set out antlers and raw meat and then let the wolves out to discover them. We joked that the wolves would be going crazy wondering how they’d missed the deer that was obviously just there.
I should mention there are also some large birds you can see, some Bald Eagles and other birds, each with their own issue that keeps them from being able to survive in the wild, and an otter area, and a few more things.
After we finished at the Center, it was lunch time! The best place we could tell was the Taco Bus again: outdoor seating, quick and easy, delicious.
After lunch, it was time to head back into the park. Our plan was to go to Bridge Bay Campground first and set up in our new tent site, and then see what to do next. It was probably at least 1 1/2 hours drive to Bridge Bay from West Yellowstone. Along the way we saw a few of these guys in the road, at Hayden Valley.
And then we were right behind them.
After the fun of the Bison Jam, we made it to the Lake and then to our campground. We had camped at Bridge Bay years ago and liked it, so we were hoping to enjoy it as well this time. We did get lucky and were in a tent-only loop, which was up into the woods a bit, though…very hilly. The bathroom was uphill quite a bit, but not far, but our site ended up being on a ridiculous slope. It was probably about 20 yards downhill to our tent, which had to be where it was because there wasn’t anywhere else remotely flat. We did have a tiny view of the lake, but the hilliness of the site was not great. So, the steep downhill to the tent, then the picnic table was on such an incline that I couldn’t even use the stove on it, and then uphill further back up to the bear box, and the fire pit was in a fairly flat area, flat enough to put two chairs on one side but not flat enough to have chairs all around. Basically the site was pretty terrible, but the area of the campground was much nicer and it was more private than Madison, so it seemed like an upgrade. It was supposedly a large tent site and the area we put our small tent in just barely made it, however. Not super pleased, again.
But, whatever. We are in Yellowstone, right, and that’s what mattered! We set up a few things, and then headed back out for some geysers. We had a plan to end up the evening at Grand Prismatic Spring to hopefully avoid the most of the crowds, and there were a few neat stops in between.
We drove to Black Sand Basin, which is near the Old Faithful Area. We bypassed a few stops we would plan to do next. We saw some great springs and geysers and pools there, and then headed to Biscuit Basin. Neither place was very busy at all, which was great. We then wanted to hike up to the overlook of Grand Prismatic, which is a relatively new legal hike. The information I’d read said short hike, which was both true and not true: it led us stupidly to think we didn’t even need to bring water. We did, but we lived, at least.
I highly recommend this hike. You park at the Fairy Falls Trailhead and it’s about 2 miles. It’s not very shaded until the end, and then it’s steep, so do bring water. It was pretty busy for it being so late in the day so I can only imagine how busy it would be earlier. This is a better late in the day hike, because in the morning they say the steam coming off the Spring obscures the colors. It was beautiful to see up there, though seemed quite small, which it isn’t!
That’s my new hat which I bought in the morning.
We enjoyed the view, and then headed back to the car and glugged water.
Next we went to Grand Prismatic up close. We made the mistake of thinking at close to 7 pm that the parking lot would be a good idea. It worked out and we got a spot but we probably would have saved time parking along the road and walking in. This was definitely a good time to see the Spring but it was the most crowded place we had been in Yellowstone!
I recommend doing the order we did as well, because you see the Spring from above and THEN you see it up close. You can’t get a picture of the whole thing because it is unbelievably large, and unbelievably amazing. And along the edges by the boardwalk you’ll see the footprints of bison…and hopefully no people! It’s worth fighting the crowds in ordinary times, and we were glad we made the effort. There were quite a cast of characters around taking pictures as well, people dressed to the nines as if they had just stepped out of a limo or were doing modeling, and people setting up to try to take sunset pictures.
We headed back then, as we figured we had about an hour drive. Amazingly it was a full moon that night, and Louie was thrilled to try to get some pictures over the Lake. I snapped a few with my phone (he uses a fancy DSLR camera and knows much more than I do about photography.)
It was dark by then so we wanted to make an easy dinner. We had the worst dinner ever: we had decided to try some Spaghetti-o type thing but from Trader Joe’s. So I made that, plus a can of lima beans…I enjoy frozen lima beans and had bought some canned ones thinking they would be okay. OMG this was disgusting. It tasted like the “O’s” were in ketchup and the lima beans were just disgusting. Plus I’d been cooking on the stove and the pan kept sliding off because the picnic table was too slanted. It was just awful. We choked it down because we didn’t want to waste it, but trust me: don’t buy either product.
Our site at Bridge Bay. Honestly, if it had been a bit more level it would have been a really lovely site. The trees, there was a good bit of space (of course it was all a steep incline, but you know, space!)…and you could even see the Lake through it.
Anyway, the next morning we had our breakfast and headed to West Thumb Geyser Basin. This is one of my favorite basins because it is right alongside the Lake.
This was the famous “Fishing Cone” but mostly submerged. Back in the old days people would stand on it, fish, catch a fish, and then dip the fish into the cone to cook it! Now that would be totally illegal and ill-advised, and yes, people did get injured, and they also damaged the cone. The Lake water was pretty high though due to heavy snows and such so the cone was mostly submerged.
After getting our fill of the West Thumb Geyser Basin we took a little hike up to Lake Overlook. It leaves across the road from the parking lot and it is just over 2 miles. It was a very nice hike. We kept thinking it would rain on us but it didn’t. You get to the top and there is a nice view of the lake, hence the name.
After that hike we saw a sign for Duck Lake so we did that too, just over a mile. It was nice, but you could see the highway from the Lake so, less exciting, in my opinion.
We ate a bit of lunch and then drove to the DeLacy Trailhead to hike to Shoshone Lake. Shoshone Lake is the largest lake in the 48 states NOT accessible by road, so we wanted to check it out. There are several trails that will take you there, and there’s even a Geyser Basin, but we decided to do the most direct and shortest route, which was 3 miles each way (not much elevation change.)
We enjoyed this hike immensely. We passed only a few people on the way out and there were bugs (that was the biggest downside) but it was very enjoyable.
We got to the lakeside and were amazed by how big it seemed! There were a few other parties out there, and the trail would have continued various directions, but we just stopped to enjoy the lake. One guy was wading out pretty far into the water –evidently it stayed fairly shallow even far out. I didn’t do that, but I did take my shoes and socks off and step into the water…oh it was refreshing and the sand was just rough enough to feel terrific on my sore feet.
Normally while hiking I resist taking off my shoes to get my toes wet because I worry it’ll never be quite right again with my socks on. It was totally fine: smart wool socks combined with a pretty dry air meant I was able to get my feet rinsed off and back into my shoes quite easily.
On our way back another couple wanted to hike with us: I guess they were worried about bears…they never really said but just ended up hiking right behind us and then didn’t want to pass when we offered. We chatted a bit, though we felt at times maybe they were hiking a little bit close. It did make the 3 miles back go quickly.
So what to do next, that was the question! We decided to double back and head towards Bridge Bay again. We got close and then decided to head to Mud Volcano just a couple of miles past it. Mud Volcano is one of my favorite places, because on our first trip we had a wonderful visit there with a bunch of bison! We have never seen them there again, but always hope.
The Park was trying to get people to do things like only go one-way. Most were following these rules, even though technically it was the opposite of the way we would have preferred and there was a place where a one-way meant doubling back.
You can see the sky looks a bit foreboding…we were thinking, nah, it’s looked like that all day, and so we kept looking at the thermal features and taking pictures. Finally it started drizzling, and we could hear thunder and ran for the car!
We ended up driving through a hailstorm! It was very exciting for a short period of time. We got back to our campsite and the rain hadn’t gotten there yet…Louie and I made a quick decision to put up the tarp over our picnic table so we could be out of the rain, and we worked very quickly and got it up just before the rain started! It was wonderful timing. Luckily it was a very brief storm, so we were able to make and enjoy a nice campfire as well.
I don’t remember whether it was this night or the next night when Louie had to go get ice. This was one of the downsides of being in the middle of nowhere and not having phone service because it shows you how much you depend on it. He took the car and I had a guidebook to look at while he was gone, because he wanted to go get ice for the cooler from the front office. Well, he ended up being gone a long time. How long, I’m not sure…because I only had my guidebook. I ended up getting really worried and freaked out and somehow had convinced myself he had been eaten by bears and wouldn’t make it back, and was getting seriously panicked when he finally got back. I was so mad! He explained they didn’t have a functioning ice machine at the office so he had to go to Fishing Bridge which was “only 10 to 15 minutes” so that meant like 30 minutes, and there I am, no phone, no kindle, no nothing! I didn’t even know how much time had passed except that it hadn’t been dark and it was dark by the time he returned. Granted, I shouldn’t have worried so much, but with the pandemic, normal stress levels are high, and stress just goes into panic mode entirely too easily. I just don’t remember if this was the second night at Bridge Bay or the third night (I think the third night, because of the rain, but here we are on the second night and I’m telling you…it’s also very possible we set the tarp up earlier in the day and I’m forgetting about it…either way, when we set it up, it rained immediately after), and it doesn’t matter. It may seem like we are just having fun exploring, but trust me when I say normal was hard to come by and though we had some wonderful moments, we had some really hard moments too, for things that should have been easier.
What’s left? One more night in Bridge Bay, and then a night in Silver Gate, then a night in the Bighorn Mountains further East in Wyoming, and then a night in Nebraska…so lots more to go! One more full day in the park though, and I’ll start with that next blog post: the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.