Zion National Park - Day 6

Day 6 - It took all day on Thursday to drive down to Utah. So when we finally arrived we just ate, watched TV and went to bed. We were up bright and early on Friday and made our way to Zion National Park. We stayed at the Best Western Thunderbird Lodge which was about 12 miles from the parks entrance on the east side.

From the parks entrance it was still another 10 miles or so until we reached the bottom of the canyon. The drive was a windy road with the speed limit between 25 and 35 mph.

The views were pretty amazing. This was taken at the top of a ridge that we hiked up to. It over looked the canyon and if you look closely you can see pieces of the road winding down the center.

There were majestic views all around. The "Mormons" originally settled here and named many of the distinctive features of the canyon with very biblical/religious names. This is a picture of the three patriarchs: Abraham (6990'), Isaac (6825') and Jacob (6831').

Here the arch of Zion, a very famous landmark in the park.

We had to park at the visitor center and then take a shuttle system which has several stops up the canyon. We both were happy to take the shuttle as we were pretty tired of driving around. Once we got to Zion Lodge we did a hike to some pools and waterfalls.

There were a few people in the park. It was the Friday before Memorial Day so we were expecting the park to get pretty full. It wasn't too bad though and we didn't feel too crowded and always got a seat on the Shuttle.

This is the path along the river that takes you to the narrows. Later in the season when the water levels are lower you are allowed to hike up the river and through the narrows, which is basically rock walls along each side and a lot of wading through the water. We were hoping to do a small piece of it but the river was too full and so was closed to the public. Maybe next time.

The canyon is old and has gone through many geological changes and stresses to become what it is today. This is a picture of Checkerboard Mesa which was once a sand dune that has now become rock.



Here we are before dinner. We ate at the Thunderbird restaurant that night at our hotel. The food was alright but the beer was more interesting. We tried a few local beers in Yellowstone, mostly from Montana and Idaho like Moose Drool Brown Ale and Old Faithful Ale. They were ok, not great but they were fun to try. In Utah, we found some local beer that tasted better and had interesting names like Polygamy Porter and Evolution Amber Ale. Remember Utah is mostly Mormon and so a large part of the population doesn't drink. So it was a bit surprising to find some nice beer here. The food was better than Yellowstone but there was still room for improvement. The water was also interesting, it was spring water and had a very metalic taste to it. I was convinced there was something wrong with me, until we figured out it was the water that was causing the metallic taste!

Yellowstone Day 4 & 5

Day 4 - So by day 4 we had finally gotten used to the altitude and the weather had finally warmed up significantly. No snow to be seen this morning. So we decided to do two hikes. The first hike was pretty special it went along the rim of the canyon and was about 5 miles. This hike can also be called the hike where we saw a whole bunch of animals :)

As we were hiking we came across this guy. We had seen one before when we went camping at Sequoia. He stayed very still the whole time and Jamie was able to snap this great picture. This is a marmot. They are somewhat common, we saw two of them at different locations during our hikes. After Jamie took his picture he scampered off.

We had been scanning the cliffs of the canyon trying to see some big horn sheep. I finally spotted one along the edge with a baby. I thought that was great and we were really happy we saw one even if it was through the binoculars...but then we turned away from the cliff and onto a small meadow/clearing and a whole herd of big horn sheep were starring right at us.

Apparently, they graze here quite often. Its still early in the season so none of them had their fully grown horns yet. They were losing their winter coats and getting ready for the summer.

After getting excited about the big horn sheep we start to make our way down the hill and out of the corner of our eyes we spot something moving. Just in the distance, to the right of the white tree trunk in the center of the picture is a wolf. We had come to understand that the prize viewing of the park were the wolves. They usually are in a pack but this one was making its way quickly past us. We were able to get a good look at him and I'm sure he got a good look at us as well. It was amazing, the way it moved and held itself was truly spectacular. I don't think either of us will forget this moment.

We did another hike that afternoon in a different location. It was 4.5 miles and was called the lost lake hike. The lake was beautiful and a good place to spot a moose but no moose in sight. Unfortunately, another trip to Yellowstone without seeing one. At least the views of the area were spectacular.

We did another short hike to a waterfall and I came across this guy. At first I thought it was a lizard but then noticed it didn't have a body. So we even got to see a snake in Yellowstone.

Here is Jamie in our hotel lobby enjoying the fire and talking to his amazing wife :) The Park doesn't have any TVs, Radios, Internet or even cell phone coverage so we truly got to get away from the world for a while.

Day 5 - Day 5 was a transition day. It was time to leave Yellowstone and head south to a very warm Zion National Park in Utah. As we were getting ready to leave the park we were delayed by a heard of buffalo. The buffalo are allowed to roam freely in the park but are not allowed to leave the park in the spring and summer. They carry a virus that is detrimental to cattle and so they are always herded by mounted rangers or helicopters to move them back into the park if they are too close to the borders.

So we also got to see mounted rangers herding the cattle back into the park. It took 20 minutes for the whole herd to pass us and some of those buffalo decided to run away from the horses and towards the cars. It was quite a sight. Our total animal sightings were 13 bears, a dozen big horn sheep, 2 coyotes, 2 marmots, a few prong horns, a snake, a bald eagle, a fox, a wolf, and lot and lots of bison, elk and deer. From here we drove down to Southern Utah and on to Zion.

Yellowstone Day 3

Day 3 - On Tuesday, we decided to head up to Yellowstone Lake. It had snowed again that night but not as much as the night before. We were going again to a higher elevation so we weren't sure what we would encounter. The road again had been salted and wasn't too bad.

We drove through Hayden Valley which looked so amazing all covered with snow. The snow was good and bad. There weren't as many animals out but it did make the ones that were out easier to see. We stopped at a few viewing points along the way to scan the tree line for animals with our binoculars. At one stop we did see a big bear running out from the tree line. It was at full stride which was pretty awesome to see. We were sort of on a small cliff with the river below and then a big hill on the other side, so it was too far away to get a picture. Then another bear on the right side of the hill came out. A couple stopped next to us and they had a nice monoscope and focused in on the bear and let us have a look. It was a bit better then our binoculars but I was pretty impressed with how much we could see from our binoculars. It felt pretty good to be the first to spot the two bears and seeing on at full stride was great.

This is a picture of Yellowstone Lake. Last time I came to Yellowstone we stayed at the lodge here but the lake didn't look like this. In fact, the lake was suppose to open a week before we got there for boating and kayaking! The lake is at around 7,700 ft so it is pretty high, I think it is the largest lake in the U.S. above 7,000 ft.

Here is a picture of Yellowstone Hotel. The oldest of the lodges and hotels in the park. We stopped and had a tea and coffee to warm up. It was below 32F or 0C and with the windchill it was really cold. After seeing the lake we decided to go down to the "Grand Canyon of Yellowstone." On the way we saw a bunch of cars on the side of the road. We had seen a few on the way up there but couldn't see anything around. But as we were slowly driving past a bald eagle came swooping down near the river. It's a big eagle and so majestic. We finally figured out what everyone was looking at.

This is the upper falls in the canyon, just like the Grand Canyon the water is continuously cutting out the rock and making the canyon deeper and deeper.

The snow was starting to melt at this point but it looked beautiful with hints of white all around.

Another picture of us, I'm extremely cold at this point, lol.

After seeing all the viewpoints and short hikes of the Canyon we heading back to our hotel to do a longer hike. It was mid-afternoon at this point but it didn't get dark out until after 10 pm so we figured we had enough daylight to do it and after spending most of the morning in the car it felt good to stretch our legs out. So we did the Beaver Ponds hike which was about 5.5 miles. We saw some beautiful ponds but we were also very careful. A Grizzly had been spotted a couple days ago and frequented the area. So we kept talking the whole way so we wouldn't startle any bears...I think we may have scarred off most of the animals because we didn't see much.

Just to the right of the water you can see a damn that was built by the resident beaver. There were also a few trees that had obviously been gnawed away at. Along the hike we also saw several tracks and animal bones that had been immaculately cleaned. It made us both a bit uneasy but we finished the hike and all we saw were elk and deer.

This is the last bit of the hike which gave a great view of our hotel.

Yellowstone Day 2

Day 2 - I woke up Monday morning and opened the curtains to see what the day was looking like and to my surprise the ground was covered in snow. I immediately told Jamie he needed to come look out the window to see this. Our hotel was at about 5,500 ft and we were planning to go to Old Faithful that day which is close to 7,000ft.

We decided to start driving and see what the conditions would be like and hope that it would start melting off as the day went on. We stopped a couple miles up the road to take some pictures of the winter wonderland we encountered.

The roads weren't very icy and had been salted so we continued up to Old Faithful. The drive was beautiful and seeing the bison out in the clearings surrounded by snow was such a treat. I never thought I would see Yellowstone in quite this way.

We made a couple of stops along the way to look at different sites. This was the first one we had stopped at and we were obviously the first ones there. The snow was untouched except for a few animal tracks along the way. There were a few inches of snow to trek through but it was fun to be the first ones there. The snow was really light and powdery, the wind would just blow it gently off the trees.

With the colder weather it made all the sites even more dramatic with the steam rising off the ground. It also made it much easier to see the hot spots!

All the steam stretching up to the clouds was an amazing site!

The bison liked the hot spots because it exposed all the grass to graze on!

They also liked traveling along the roads, it's much easier than trying to go through all the snow.

We finally made our way to Old Faithful and got to see it go off around 11 am. It goes off every 90 minutes or so. Unfortunately, a lot of the trails around the other geothermal sites were closed because a dead carcass was located on part of it and had attracted a Grizzly to the area. We did see Old Faithful Inn and it was amazing, the architecture was fantastic. It was made to look like a forest inside and they used plenty of trees to create it. It's definitely a must see if you are in the area.

We did manage to see a few other sites in a different part of the area. The pictures came out better than we thought. With all the steam we couldn't see much of anything but the camera certainly captured the color.

There were plenty of boiling spots and mud pots.

The colors were really spectacular and it's amazing to think small bacteria thrive in the springs.

We made our way back to our hotel around mid-afternoon and the snow had more or less melted by then. On our way home we did see two bears in different locations. One of them was only about 20 feet from deer but they both seemed content just grazing on the grass and shoots. You can just see the bear through the trees. We weren't expecting snow but we were prepared for cold, wet weather. It actually wasn't too bad as long as the wind wasn't blowing.

Yellowstone Day 1

We are back from vacation and have so much to share! We had an amazing time, definitely a trip to remember. We drove for hours and hours through the California desert, across Nevada and a small corner of Arizona, up the state of Utah, through Idaho, a tiny peice of Montana and finally into Yellowstone National Park in the top left corner of Wyoming. Remember though, Yellowstone was a national park before any of the surrounding states existed so it is really a territory of its own complete with a court of justice and a federal judge. When we arrived it had been lightly snowing, which was a bit worrying, but nothing that was staying around. Within the first 15 minutes of entering the park, we pulled to the side of the road and saw buffalo and a small coyote running along the road near by. We hoped this was a good sign of things to come but were ready for a hot shower and a nap so we headed straight for the hotel.

On Sunday was our first full day in the park. The snow was gone and it was a clear but cold day. We headed out to the Lamar Valley and Tower / Rosevelt area pretty early in the morning to see what wild life we could spot. It's pretty easy to see when wild life is near the roads because you end up getting a few cars parked to the side and a lot of excited people with cameras. So after about 15 minutes of driving we pull over to see what everyone is looking at. To our surprise there was a Grizzly and her cub just in the valley below. They were too far away to get a good picture but we did have our binoculars and could get a pretty good view of them, from a very safe distance. It was pretty amazing and a great way to start the day.

The Lamar Valley is in the Northeast corner of the park. The park is huge, 2.2 million acres, and each village within the park is usually between 20 and 40 miles apart. So we did do a lot of driving but we did get to see some amazing landscapes.

There are rivers, streams, lakes and ponds all over the park.

The bison or buffalo roam all over the park. As it was still spring the calves were still pretty small and there were loads of them. They are usually in herds but often you will get a lone bison in the distance or right next to your car.

This is Tower Falls just one of the many falls and cascades that can be found throughout the park. We did a small hike down to the falls, it was sunny but the wind was really cold. The park is surrounded by snow covered mountains so when the wind comes down the passes it's freezing and always manages to go right down the back of your neck.

After we went to see Tower Falls we headed back towards our hotel in Mammoth Hot Springs but stopped for lunch at a picnic area. As we approached the picnic area we saw some people on the side of the road. We stopped and got out of the car to see what was there and saw these bull Elk lounging in the shade. Their antlers are still growing, it's still early in the season so they have a few more months to grow them

Here I am at the picnic area with a stream side picnic bench all to ourselves.

No Yogi Bear around though =>

After lunch we headed back to our hotel area to check out all the geothermal areas surrounding us. Here is one of the terraces.

It was still cool outside and the sky was a beautiful blue with clouds rolling by.

Jamie got some pretty amazing pictures!

We were determined to get more pictures of the two of us this trip:)

The colors were so amazing and the view spectacular but lucky for you, you don't have to smell the sulfur which was incredibly strong and according to Jamie not the best thing to be breathing.

This picture is my favorite, it looks so surreal!

The steam coming off of the Earth and the dead trees were quite a sight.

Later that evening we drove to the North Entrance to see Roosevelt's Arch. This was built to commemorate the 1st National Park. This used to be one of the only entrances because it is the lowest part of the park, about 5,000 ft but now it's pretty quiet.

As we headed back to our hotel this guy was there to welcome us back! They grazed near our hotel along with the Elk and just go about there day without any thought to the cars or people looking at them. Luckily for us the park didn't officially open for another week, so it was pretty quiet wherever we went. I'll be posting more pictures from each day that we were there.