Yellowstone – Day 3

Our third day in the park got an early start with us checking out of Mammoth Hotel at 5AM and heading toward Lamar Valley.   Lamar is known as America’s Serengeti because of the huge abundance of wildlife there.  We’d hoped to get out in time to see some wolves, since that is the one animal we’ve yet to see in the park on any of our trips.  On our way to the Druid Peak pack’s home turf, though, we got stuck in a massive bison jam.  The Lamar herd numbers well over 1,000, and we showed up just in time to catch a huge number of them crossing the Northeast Entrance Road.  We probably stayed in the jam for a good 30 minutes before we broke through to the other side.

There’s not much you can do until the bison decide they want to move.  Blowing your horn doesn’t faze them, revving your engine doesn’t faze them, you just…wait until they decide they want to move.  For some people this is a pain in the ass, especially if they’re in a hurry to get somewhere, but for us it is magical.  As they walk by you hear their guttural grunts as they communicate with one another and anyone who might be in their way.

We got to the Druid Peak Pack’s hangout, and there were plenty of people watching, but no wolves.  We stuck around for about an hour hoping to catch a glimpse of them, but they never showed.  Eventually the bison migration we were stuck in earlier made it to the point up on the hill where everyone was located, and there was a mass evacuation of the hill to vehicles by the people.  You don’t want to get stuck in the middle of a herd of bison, trust me on that.  It was quite funny to watch all these people running for their cars. 

With our poor luck catching the wolves, we decided to head out to Trout Lake, a few miles to the east.  We parked and began the 3/10 of a mile hike up steep terrain to the Lake.  We got there the lake was very placid; there were a few people fly fishing along the shore, but other than that, nothing but the light whistle of the wind in the air.  The trail around it was very muddy, though (due to all the rain they’d been having in the park), and our hiking boots got trashed.  The hike around the lake itself was a little over a half mile.

We’d gone to Trout for two reasons.  First was to see some otters in action – supposedly this is the place to be to see some.  We saw none – symbolic of our luck with animals thus far on this trip.  The second reason was to see if we could check up on the mama moose that was attacked by wolves a couple of weeks ago.  She’d been badly beaten up and it appears that she’d been forced into premature labor because of the stress.  She had a very wobbly calf with her in the photos others had taken.  Sadly, we learned from a gentleman fishing at the lake that the moose had died the week before we got there.  At the time they found her, the calf was still alive, but it would survive at best 5 or 6 days without its mother.  I cried.

On the way out of Lamar, we stopped to use one of the outhouses.  While I was inside I could hear a bunch of noise coming from right outside the building.  When I got out, looked on the side of the toilet and there were several swallow houses on the underside of the eaves of the little building.

On the way out of Lamar, we saw a single bighorn sheep, just chilling out in the brush, as well as a pronghorn antelope nibbling on the grass.  The little pronghorn stopped and posed for us. 

We headed back to the Roosevelt-Tower Junction, and then on to Tower Fall, where we ate lunch outside in the 50-degree weather.  We took the short hike up to the falls overlook.  There was no sun again today, so the photos of this turned out kind of shitty as well.  The trail down to the base of the falls was closed due to “washouts,” as it has been for several years now.  I wonder if they’ll ever get around to repairing that?

One of the other items on our “to do” list for this trip was to hike up Mt. Washburn from the Chittenden Road trailhead.  Sadly, Chittenden Road was closed.  I inquired about it when we finally made it to the Canyon Visitor Center (CVC), and was told it was due to open this coming weekend.  Crappy timing on our part in more ways than one it would seem. 

The road up is closed due to snow, with more than 5 feet in some places according to the ranger.  You can see why it might be a problem as you drive up through Dunraven Pass – the snow on the road is several feet deep in places.  We made it through to the CVC for a potty break, then headed to Old Faithful where we were to stay for the next two nights.

They’re building a new section of road between Norris and Madison, and damned if we didn’t get caught in a traffic stoppage there for 45 minutes (despite signs telling us to be prepared for 30 minute delays).  When we got through that we got caught in another traffic jam between Madison and Old Faithful, largely result of leftover traffic from another bison jam earlier.  So it took almost 2 hours for what should’ve been a 45-60 minute trip. 

Our original plans called for us to rent a room in the Old Faithful Inn for the two nights, but we decided to try a cabin if they had any available.  The Ukrainian girl checking us in asked if we wanted a cabin with one bed or two.  I told her one, and she looked at us kind of funny.  If I had been in the mood I’d have asked her if she wanted to join us, but I was still peeved at the amount of time it took us to get there, so she was spared the embarrassment.

We put our luggage and stuff in the cabin, went and washed some clothes, ate at the Geyser Grill at the OF Snow Lodge, then headed back to the cabin to turn in.  Our plans for the next day included tours of the Canyon area and possibly a hike to Fairy Falls.

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Tagged as: Alexa, Nikki, Yellowstone