Yellowstone Sidetrip

After breakfast and coffe in West Yellowstone and getting ice, we pulled into the Yellowstone gate. We decided to buy the annual pass as we thought we'd use it in The Badlands. It was snowing again as we drive into the park. The snow lends a different element to things. It makes it look like a Christmas village.

There was literally no one on the road. I'm not sure if it was because of cold weather or because it was not yet 9am. It was so glorious.

We drive up to Old Faithful to check on eruption times. I wanted to try and hyperlapse the eruption at sunset. Sadly either we miscalculated or Old Faithful ran slow or both. As you can see in the photo of us standing at the OF sign, there is no one there. Last year you couldn't even see the sign due to how many people were there.

As we were leaving OF we saw another cargo trailer conversion. We stopped to talk to the people who were from Lake Tahoe and we toured their rig. Omg it was so nice. The guy was a carpenter by trade so it was professional looking.

We decided to try to check into Canyon. We were stuck in traffic for at least 2 hours. Not sure why. So we decided to turn around and make a loop of the park and go the back way to Canyon. Got stuck for 1.5 hours in the Geiser Basin. Finally made it out of traffic. We were rewarded with 3 separate bear sightings that afternoon!

Went down to Slough Creek to see if the golden eagle was on her nest but it looked empty and destroyed. We did see the osprey sitting in her nest in same place as last year plus hundreds of chimney swifts in mud nests behind a thermal feature

The bison seemed to be up high in Hayden and Lamar. I think the Yellowstone is too high for the babies to cross. I saw only a few few cinnies.

Heading back to Canyon it began snowing again. We decided to eat at the lodge rather than cook. After dinner we drive an hour to Old Faithful but never saw the eruption. It was 30 degrees and I lost the light to film. But there was absolutely no one there which is a glorious thing.

Our side trip to Yellowstone was seriously a highlight of this trip. Even though it was cold, I loved the fact that snowed on us for 3 days. I loved how different the park looked and how it kept the crowds down.Read more