Yellowstone National Park: Day 4 (a clos

Every time we passed by Norris Geyser area, it was always super crowded, so today we went there the first thing in the morning, and enjoyed this site with far fewer tourists.

As soon as you walked in, with all the smoke coming from many geysers, it looked like a battle field to me. It’s such a unique and interesting site!!

As we were leaving, the parking lot started to fill up, and a car was waiting for us to leave. Under the pressure to leave as soon as possible, Steve decided we were going to Lamar Valley. It turned out to be an excellent decision!

After another lovely lunch at the most scenic picnic table, we headed into the valley.

First of all, I have to say the this northeast quadrant of the park is very beautiful! The rolling mountains under the blue sky in the distance, the streams and rivers snaking through the vast plains, the wild flowers covering the the grassy landscape. Just WOW!

And the vast amount of animals!! I think we saw about 800 to 1000 bisons!! Herds of bisons were everywhere! A huge herd of bisons were migrating to the river area of the valley, so they were constantly crossing the road, causing traffic jams. The amount of baby bisons we saw assured us that the bison population here was very healthy!

As we were returning to the west side of the park, we noticed some cars were parked by the roadside, and a crowd was looking at something. So we asked a guy, he said:”a black bear!”

So we parked our car and running towards the crowd, sure enough, a black bear was under the bridge, and enjoying some shade.

Steve said:”Great! A bear at a safe distance.” Just as he said that, the bear started to move, and it climbed up towards to bridge, and getting closer and closer to us. Some people ran to the other side of the road, suddenly the bear was directly in front of me, about 20 feet away! I ran to the other side of road, just as the park ranger screaming:”everyone across the road!”

Well, apparently the bear liked to follow the order too… the bear crossed the road as well. 😳. Fortunately with the park ranger around, we didn’t feel particularly threatened.

Being this close to a bear in the wild was certainly the highlight of the trip!!Lue lisää