Journey Day 4 - Yellowstone East Loop from Cody (Yellowstone 1)

This was our first National Parks day, Yellowstone. We are in this area for a few days and will do a series of passes through from different sides. At the entrance, we purchased out "America the Beautiful" annual National Parks pass for $80 which will give us free access throughout our trip.

We were aware that Yellowstone is massive but that word doesn't do it justice. We tried for an early start and it was for us setting out just after 07:30. It is understood that the animals are most likely to be seen outside the core of the day but actually, this means being in the Park before 7am or after 7pm and that wasn't going top happen for us. Our journey today was a tour heading north from Cody over stunning lands, entering Yellowstone by the NE gate and driving south via the Park exiting this evening by the East gate, a drive of some 230 miles. We had anticipated getting back by 5pm but even with the 7:30 start it was 7pm we arrived back at Cody. A gorgeous route but long slow sections, too much to stop and look at and to photograph and many slow sections due to traffic. In the Park the speed limit is 35-45 so even when moving progress is not like public roads.

It is impossible to describe as the terrain varies hugely. The 100 miles or so before we reached the park was through massive landscapes and within the Park there are extremes of change thro' rolling meadow, canyoned rivers, massive multi-coloured cliffs, spiked young peaks and so on.

A benefit of entering from the NE gate was seeing herds of Bison (Buffalo) of which we only saw odd ones in the more popular areas of the park. We also spotted a couple of Prong Horn antelope.

A late lunch was enjoyed in the shade in a shaded picnic area - we laughed at memories of Yogi Bear and Boo Boo stealing pic-er-nic baskets and hiding from the ranger.

Highlights of the afternoon included the view of Lower Falls from Artists Point, Sulphur Cauldron and Mud Volcano areas. The way these road trips work only allows a 'dib' in wherever we go so we pick and choose, for example, at Mud Volcano we only checked out the features near the road but they were amazing, especially Dragon's Mouth.

Heading back we saw a large group of people all standing looking out over the a pasture, most didn't know what they were looking at but Lynne picked up that it was an area populated by wolves and between us with binoculars and a high zoom camera we did in fact just catch an Alsatian shaped head pop up before resting down into the grass. We asked a ranger near by who confirmed it was the wolf area and when we described what we had seen he said we had described a typical sighting.
This sort of re-affirms that reality is nothing like the documentaries, you may, if you are very lucky, see Elk, Moose, Bear, Coyote, Wolf etc but it will probably be at long distance. Prong Horn and Bison I think you have more chance if you are in the right place.

We were also lucky with the weather as rained heavily yesterday afternoon but we got good weather today.
I'll leave it to some photo's to speak:

Bear's Tooth

Dust bath

Prong Horn

Yellowstone River

Lower Falls and Yellowstone River from Artist's Point

Red Squirrel

Higher Falls

Vent at Sulphur Caldron

Dragon's Mouth

Hot spring rising far right

Steam rising from vent in background

Yellowstone Lake

Tree Skeletons from forest fire

 On reteurn to Cody at 7:30pm we headed direct to eat Ribs at Bubba's then had a brief walk up to the 'Old Town' a collection of old cowboy time huts relocated from all over and preserved as a mini high street which was just behind our lodges. The attraction was closed so after a look from the end of the street we returned to our room and tried to catch up on some writing and planning.

Today's route

Statistics: Miles today: 234 miles; Miles so far: 850; Fuel added so far: 21.5 gals; States: Wyoming, Montana, Wyoming; Time Zone: Mountain Daylight Saving (UK-7)