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.

7/18/2013–A Day Trip to Jackson, Wyoming

While still in Teton National Park, we decided to take a day trip to Jackson, Wyoming.

A beautiful view of the Tetons.

We came across a large bison herd.

We made a quick stop and walked in to see the historical Cunningham Cabin.

They were either very short or had to duck on entering the cabin.

A current resident at the cabin.

Jackson is home to the National Elk refuge where large herds from Yellowstone migrate there during the winter months and return in the spring.

That’s a lot of elk antlers!

The visitor’s center had some very good exhibits.

After lunch in town, we drove to the west of Jackson, then drove up the eastern route through the Tetons on the way back to the RV.

This was a good sized beaver hut.

A couple of views of Jenny Lake.  It’s a popular place to visit in the park on a beautiful day.

Jackson Dam.

And then it was back to the RV for the evening.

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.