7/20/2013–Day Trip to Mammoth in Yellowstone National Park

We got an early start as we wanted to drive out to the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park today.  We lucked out and some better wildlife sightings today.

A few elk in this photo including the one where only it face and ears show.

We turned into a service road and had this big guy headed right at us…that caught us by surprise!

It look like he was giving us the “evil eye” as he continued across the road.

At one of our stops to watch the elk, Ken was talking to this couple when their son decided to use Ken’s camera’s mono stick to stand up.

We watched this cow elk for quite a while and we assumed she was keeping an eye out for her calf.

We never did see the calf, but this young bull elk walked across the hillside.

We pulled into a parking space near the post office in town, and looking at the next building to the north, there was a cow elk grazing on the lawn.  Her calf was hidden behind a bush up against the building.

Later, it was time to rest in the shade of a large tree.

We drove out the north gate and looked around the town of Gardiner.  This is the arch at the north entrance.

The sign on the arch.

Back in Mammoth, we took time out for an ice cream cone at the store before heading back to the RV.

We saw this unusual RV parked in town.

There’s plenty of unusual landscape within the park.

Sheepeater Cliff

Even more elk than we saw earlier at this stop.

Love to watch all the geothermal activity.

After a long day in the park, it was nice to get back to the RV and just relax the rest of the evening.

7/19/2013–Colter Bay Campground, Teton National Park to Baker’s Hold Campground, West Yellowstone, MT

We left Colter Bay Campground and headed into Yellowstone National Park after dumping our holding tanks and filling with fresh water.

We saw very little wildlife on our way to West Yellowstone.

Once in West Yellowstone, we turned north about 4 miles to Baker’s Hole National Forest Campground where we would be staying for the next 2 nights.

After getting set up, we ate lunch then drove into town to check out the visitor’s center and just looking around to see how much the town had changed.

We were surprised to see that Lapp’s Cabins were still there and not replaced by a bigger, newer business.  We’ve been to West Yellowstone about 4 times in the past for snowmobiling trips and we stayed in one of these cabins on two of those visits.

Driving out by the airport, we found the West Yellowstone smokejumper’s base and went on in said there was a sign indicating that visitors were welcome.

While looking at this display in the lobby, we were greeted by the office manager, a nice young lady who gave us a tour of the facility.

The table behind her is where the jumpers pack their chutes.

This is the drying tower where the chutes hang until ready to be packed.

Each of these boxes of various items have their own chutes and are ready to be dropped to the fire fighting site.

We continued north of Lake Hebgen and had this deer cross our path and jump the fence.

After returning to the campground, we walked out to the river to see if there was any wildlife.

The black in the water of this photo is a beaver who was very busy in the water for a long time.  It eventually went up in the brush and returned with a mouthful of tree limbs.

Back in the water, the beaver drug the limbs as it went with the current, and losing quite a few as it swam away.

Once in the small rapids, it dove underwater and disappeared.

We made plans for an early start the next morning to drive to the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

7/17/2013–A Day Trip to Old Faithful

When we got going on the morning of 7/17, we didn’t have any particular destination in mind other than to drive about 8 miles north to look at another campground near Teton National Park.

This is our campsite in Teton’s Colter Bay Campground.

We hadn’t packed a lunch to bring with us for the day, but we decided to drive on into see Old Faithful for the day and get some lunch in that area.  Old Faithful was great…the lunch was just okay.

Driving back to the campground, we go by Lewis Falls.

We decided to make a trip to Jackson the following day.

7/16/2013–Day Trip to Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park

On Tuesday, July 16th we drove north into Yellowstone National Park on a day trip headed to the northeast entrance of the park.

We were lucky to see a grizzly sow and last year’s cub along the way.

These two young ones seem to be putting their heads together to see what they could get into.

We stopped along the river to watch a bison make it across.

We saw a few of these old tour buses.

While we’ve seen very few wildlife sightings throughout the park where we would normally see them in past trips, they were very scare.  It was very interesting to get up to the Lamar Valley in the northeast section of the park to see very large herds of bison of well over 1000.

We stayed in that area long enough that we were able to tell that there was going to be a mass exodus of the herd crossing the road in front of us, so we got in a good position to get some photos.

A couple of bald eagles sat in a nearby tree to watch the show.

And after the crossing, this one had to roll around a bit in the dirt.

 

Bison Rolling in the Dirt

 

After a long day of touring we returned to the RV for the evening.

07/15/2013–Cody, WY to Teton National Park

We had a short distance to go today, but it would be slow winding roads all the way, so we were on the road early.

Ken spotted this unusual building on the hill as we headed west.

After an hour or so, we approached the east gate to Yellowstone National Park.

After going over Sylvan Pass, we went by Sylvan Lake.

As we got close to one of many construction areas, we had a view of Yellowstone Lake through the trees.

Our next obstacle was a couple of bison in the road daring cars to pass them.  There was another one off to the side of the road.

There were several pelicans resting in this pond we drove past.

Traffic slowed down quite a bit to take a look at these antique cars in a pullout.

The Tetons range.

After we got parked and had lunch at Colter Bay Campground in Teton National Park, we went out for a drive.

At our first stop, we were just sure this was a moose near the water.  We could swear we even saw it move…however, when we stopped again on our way back to the RV, we saw that we were wrong.

Our next side trip was up a road to Signal Mountain.  I’m thinking it’s called that because there was a cell phone tower at the top.

Here’s a view from the top of that road.

Another view of the Tetons.

Next we took a one way road marked Jenny Lake.  This doe and her fawn crossed the road in front of us.

At the Jenny Lake Overlook, we could see across to a tour boat stop.

This next view is of the waterflow coming out of Jackson Dam.

Then it was back to the RV for dinner and an evening of rest…no cell phone signal, no internet (this will be posted later)…only quiet time for us.  Tomorrow the plan is to head back north into Yellowstone and see what it looks like for getting into the park later in the week.