Yellowstone.

After dropping off our rental car in Fresno, we flew to Bozeman, Montana, gateway to Yellowstone National Park. Let me just say that Bozeman was without doubt the nicest airport I have ever visited. Built with stone and timber, with large open fires that you can actually sit near, and lots of beautiful sculptures, its in the style of American lodges and is a fantastic entry to the national park region. Due to all the flight changes made by Delta we had to stay the night in this town and thought we might as well get into the swing of things by going to typical Bar and Grill, a term that features heavily when looking for eating places in rural America (well, this part anyway).

Dave’s Bar and Grill is a chain, which we would normally avoid, but as it was just a short walk from our hotel we gave it a try. A huge timber lined room with an open fire, elk horn light fittings and servers dressed as cow boys and girls greeted us. It had a massive menu with steaks and ribs being the big feature, but we managed to find some cat fish and vegetable “sides”. For those of you who haven’t been to the US, it is common for there to be a list of sides and each main course (or entree as they are called here – yes I know, go figure) will come with two or more sides which you have to pick from the list.

It was good fun and we felt like we had had a good introduction to mountain country. We went on our way next morning in our new hire car to the north entrance of Yellowstone and the town of Gardiner. Our accomodation there was a place called Wonderland Cafe and Lodge, which was right in town, very close to the entrance of the park.

It is a lodge, in that it has lodgings, but is not of the old style. Built a year ago, it has modern apartments above a cafe that is open all day every day. It is owned by Stacey, who is without doubt a Wonder Woman. Her husband is a wildlife photographer and his work decorates the lodge and cafe, which serves fresh and creative food, vegetable heavy, so we were very happy.

So after settling in there and wandering the few streets of Gardiner, enjoying the very fresh mountain air and the sparseness and frontier feel of the place, we headed into the national park for the evening hoping to see some wildlife. And indeed we did!

We drove through the Lamar valley and in no time at all we were looking at our first black bear! This one was a light coloured black bear, known as a cinnamon black bear and she was at a good distance for us to see very well with the naked eye, but not to feel that we were disturbing her or that we were in any danger. It was a very big thrill for me, let me tell you. These critters have been on my bucket list for some time. As it turned out, we were there at a very good time because by the end of that trip and our days excursion with a wildlife guide the next day, we had seen about a dozen bears, grizzlies and blacks, including three sets of sows with cubs. Two of the mothers with cubs were a long distance away and we viewed them with the guide’s high powered scope. The advantage of that is that they were not aware of us and we could see them playing and interacting with each other in a totally natural way, undisturbed by onlookers. The cubs were doing all those cute things you have seen on the nature docos, playing with each other, falling off logs and rolling over each other.

And there are always plenty of onlookers. Cars and people soon line up to view whatever has been located and when its busier, bear jams and wolf jams are common.

We saw wolves as well! Including one that was in waiting near a bison that may have had a stillborn calf . We could not see into the grass but the guide was sure that this would be the case. Bisons will stay with their dead young for a couple of days and wolves will wait patiently for them to leave. We also saw a lone male eating a carcass and a lone black female wolf travelling at a fast trot. We were able to see her first with the scope, then the binoculars, then with the naked eye. Then we had to be careful not to be too close to her as she crossed the road and continued on her mission.

Of course we also saw the more common animals like elk, bison and their calves, pronghorns, longhorn sheep, mountain goats, coyotes and deer. Our guide Cara was fabulous. She is American but has also lived in Australia for a long time and has citizenship there. She spends most of the time in WA but in the east her favourite place is Guerilla Bay! Small world.

We told Cara of our interest in birds so she took us to see the nests of a Horned Owl, Peregrine Falcon and an Osprey and we did lots of other spotting on the way. She came to pick us up at 5.30 am (!) and we had a brilliant day with her. SO much fun and excitement. Surely one of my favourite activities of all time………….

Cara also knew all about the vegetation and the geology, so Jock was happy too. She thanked us for not complaining about the cold! Apparently people do. It WAS cold, even snowed at times. But she had some hot coffee and hot chocolate, lots of lovely food, and a nice warm car, and we had our layers of clothes. Apparently the overcast weather makes for better wildlife spotting……….

Following that we headed south into the other part of Yellowstone, geyser country, and Old Faithful. We stayed two nights in the Snow Lodge right next to Old Faithful geyser and the original Old Faithful lodge, and walked all the geyser basins. So, there is a super volcano under Yellowstone and these geyser basins exist across a huge area of the park.

It’s easy to imagine yourself on another planet, standing in clouds of steam, listening to bubbling water , looking at scorched and weirdly covered earth, and seeing the geysers shoot water high into the air. We watched Old Faithful, which erupts about every ninety minutes , four or five times. In the evening we could do that without the bus loads of day visitors who crowd the space during the day. We were also lucky to see the Beehive geyser erupt, as it is not a frequent one and is very dramatic. The pools and springs can be a stunning blue which you can only see when the wind blows the steam away sufficiently. It is as I said, very otherworldly, as was the frozen Lake Yellowstone. We have never seen a frozen lake before, and it was a massive expanse of ice.

So the cold weather continues but we are lucky in that even on the worst days we have had some sunny periods and when were staying near Old Faithful we could go back to our room when it rained or hailed. That particular day we had snow, rain , hail, wind, and a long period of sun. Spring, for sure.

From there we have moved on the Grand Teton National Park which abuts Yellowstone, and are enjoying gazing at the mountains, but more of that next post.