Happy New Year Everyone!! I hope that you all had a great break. Back to where we left it in the last post in Wyoming and on the outskirt of the Yellowstone National Park.
We entered the park from the southern side and it wasn’t much of a queue to enter. The weather was miserable that day, cold, gray with drizzles but as Yellowstone is one of the most popular national parks in the USA, there were still a huge number of people at each attraction point.
It is interesting to know that Yellowstone is huge. And while it is famous for its geothermal activities, Geysers, mud pools, hot springs and wildlife, it has canyons, lakes, waterfalls and hundreds of kilometers of road within the park. So if you want to see everything and try fhe hiking tracks you can easily spend days in the park. We allowed for two days with the possibility to extend it if we needed too. There are few campsites at the park but they are normally booked months in advance, so we had to get out of the park each day to spend the night and re enter the following day.
Yellowstone is home to more than 500 active geysers (more than half the world’s geysers). And one of the fun activities in the park is to visit them. The colors, shapes and thermal activity in each one of them was mesmerizing. The first day, we visited few waterfalls but for the most of the day, we spent time on the walks that was going through geysers. The weather wasn’t great and it rained for the whole day. It was also very cold so the heat coming out of the ground was very pleasant. For a lot of points of interest, parking is an issue, due to the huge number of the visitors but bad weather discouraged people in the afternoon and it was easier to find a parking spot.
Late afternoon, we left the park from the western side to find a camp spot for the night. It was still raining and after driving for half an hour on a muddy dirt road we finally found a small opening in the forest and called it home for the night. And the next morning we woke up to this.
Well we didn’t expect snow in June! But that was a great surprise. After taking our winter gear and warm cloth from the bottom of the closet, we were ready to enter the park again. The plan for the day was visiting the famous Grand Prismatic Spring and then heading toward east to watch wildlife in the Lamar Valley and exit the park from the east side. We started early but still got caught in the traffic for entering the park. The second hassle is finding a parking spot close to the points of interest. It was freezing cold in the morning and still snowing when we managed to find a spot to leave the car down the road from Grand Prismatic Spring. We did the walk to the spring and few Geysers close to it but it was hard to see the vivid colors of the spring so we came up with the plan B.
While the main walk for Grand prismatic is packed with people and won’t give you a good view over the spring, there is a walk few kilometers down the road where you can leave your car there in a nice carpark, do a great quiet walk without the crowd and have a great view over the Grand Prismatic Spring. That’s what we did and the view was rewarding.
From there, we started to drive east, went through amazing valleys, great lookout points with lots of waterfalls and stunning views, before we got to the famous Lamar Valley.
Lamar valley is famous for encountering wildlife in Yellowstone. We saw Bisons, Mountain goats and foxes along the way and really enjoyed the ride. The other thing which added to the fun factor of the Lamar Valley was having less crowd on the road. It could be because of the bad weather or us visiting really late in the afternoon but overall it was a great experience.
From there we left the park from the eastern gate and camped somewhere out the national park boundary to rest before the next adventure begins the following day.
For the next day, the plan was to drive the famous Beartooth pass which is scenic byway out of the national park.
The drive was fun, with stunning views.
After an epic drive, we got to lower altitudes and a charming town called Cody where cowboy traditions are still alive. We visited few cowboy shops, selling everyday items like horse saddles and utilities, great handmade boots and clothing. That was a unique experience in an authentic beautiful town. After having a great lunch and local beer in the local pub, we headed to a nice lake on the outskirt of Cody to camp for the night and warm up a bit after few cold night in the mountains.
In the next post, we go through the last stretch of the road in the USA before entering the next country and do our first border crossing of the trip. Till then, take care.
michael Chernishov
January 10, 2025 at 9:09pmWow! That looks spectacular! I’d love to visit there one day! Great to hear from you guys!
Azadeh
January 18, 2025 at 7:56pmThanks Michael. We hope that you and your family had a great holiday.