West Trip Day 4 - Cody, WY to Yellowstone National Park

   We awoke early and were totally ready to be in Yellowstone National Park. I wanted to get the car washed, since the bears from the previous day ( ok one bear in particular ) loved licking the bugs off the front of the Xterra. Knowing we were going to be in grizzly territory I wanted to leave nothing to chance. After giving the car a good washing we made our way on Rt. 16 to the East Yellowstone entrance. On the way we stopped at the Buffalo Bill dam. The dam was built in 1905 and was the tallest dam in the world until the Hoover Dam was built around 1931. Sitting on the Shoshone river it creates a reservoir behind it named of course, the Buffalo Bill reservoir.
      Continuing on the route to Yellowstone we noticed once again that the landscape was changing. We were slowly rising in elevation and would cap out around 8,200 feet into the Yellowstone Caldera. Along the way we were treated to our first Hoodoo's. Hoodoo's are really cool rock formations created when sedimentary rock wears away due to erosion. They form some amazing shapes and we will be seeing many more of these later in the trip at Bryce National Park.
    We arrived near the entrance to the park, and had to wait in quite a line of vehicles to get in. This surprised me since it was Tuesday, but I wasnt too concerned. After showing our pass and my ID we were given the park newspaper and a map of the park. The newspaper is a seasonal publication describing various hikes, ranger programs, and details regarding ecology and what to expect for each area of the park during the particular season.

      Following the east entrance we made our way through Sylvan pass. This is a high mountain pass that brought us near 10,000 feet in elevation. The driving was a a bit slow and tricky. There is no shoulder and in certain spots there was no gaurd-rail. A quick jerk of the wheel and we would test the Xterra's ability to fly 2000 ft. to the bottom of the pass. After topping out on the pass we started ascending down through the remains of a burned out forest. Forest-fires are a continual and essential component of any large forest ecosystem and it was very evident here. In fact while we were at the park there was a very large fire in the northwest section, but we saw no evidence of it. The park is so large that none of the roads or trails were affected.

  As we continued on we were treated to our first glimpse of Yellowstone lake in the distance. Yellowstone lake is the largest fresh-water high mountain lake in the United States. It is also bitterly cold as a result. The majority of medical emergencies in the park are directly related to the lake and hypothermia. We pulled off to a section of the main road called Lake Butte. Drove up a precarious  road to a viewpoint of the entire lake and of the park. After a quick PBJ lunch and some photo-ops we descended down to Fishing Bridge, a small village at the northern-most section of the lake.

      On our way to Fishing Bridge we came upon what I had planned for our first Yellowstone hike. It was a short 2 mile hike called Storm Point. It would meander through some dense forest and meadows with a section traversing along the lake. We were a bit apprehensive since this would be our first hike into grizzly, bison and elk territory. Not 1 week prior a woman was gored and thrown by an angry bison. Getting ourselves prepared for the hike we strapped on our bear-spray and our usual hiking gear. We walked through a beautiful meadow and passed by a family on their way back. The father was decked out with a canister of bear spray and even had bear bells, this made me feel more at ease for some reason. In our pre-trip research we learned that most incidents with grizzlies could have been avoided simply by making your presence known. In sections where we could not see the trail ahead, we would make noise. It was rather comical since we had the most banal conversations during these times. “HI HEATHER”. “HI MIKE”. “NICE HIKE”. “I LIKE CHEESE”. This along with some 80's rap and we were guaranteed to annoy any animal and hiker in the area. During the hike my head was on a swivel constantly scanning the forest and meadows for any movement. We were paranoid for sure.  When the hike was over, and we realized the forest wasn't out to eat us, there was a sense of relief and accomplishment. We could do this.

   The park is setup exceptionally well. There are 4 entrances from the north, west, east and south and the park interior is setup as a figure-eight , with the bottom section encompassing the lake. This allows fairly easy access to all areas of the park. At Fishing Bridge there is a gas station and a bunch of facilities including a store and gift shop. We visited the small museum that was dedicated to the lake and its ecology. We are always looking to learn more about our surroundings and what we are going to experience.
    We continued along the park road to our first destination for the evening which was in Grant Village on the western side of the lake. Prior to reaching this location we pulled off to the West Thumb Geyser Basin. This would be our first thermal section of the park. It should bear explaining that the entire park is an active volcano. The middle of the park is called the Yellowstone Caldera. 650,000 years ago there was a massive eruption, blowing off the mountain from Mt. Washburn in the north to Mt. Sheridan in the south, roughly 34 miles long. A massive lava-dome was created and fell under the weight of itself creating the Caldera as it is today. To this day it is still thermally active and we are due for another eruption. When and if that happens, civilization as we know it will end.

      The West-Thumb basin had a number of great thermal pools and hot springs. There were signs all over to strictly stay on the wooden walk-way. There have been incidents where individuals have been severely burned by walking off-path and breaking through what they thought was solid-ground, into boiling water. They also stated that it was strictly forbidden to throw any objects in the pools. There were a number of people viewing the pools and we witnessed a teenager throwing an object in the pool to the delight of his friends. I came very close to saying something, but decided it wasn't worth any sort of confrontation, since they were part of a large group. Again the parents said absolutely nothing to this kid.  Heather and I adopted a name for these individuals...”Tourons”. Tourist morons.
       After leaving the geyser basin we continued to our hotel for the evening at Grant Village. The room was quite nice and setup well. There were two restaurants in the village and we ate at the lake-side restaurant. The food was excellent and the staff was pretty funny. We realized that in most of these parks they hire individuals from other countries for the season. They place the name of the person on the name-tag and a description of where they are from right under that. Our waiter was from an eastern-blok country( the name escapes me now ) and he acted like Heather didn't even exist. Not sure if he got the memo that women rule the USA.