We entered the park in the afternoon of the 31st of May. We saw Old Faithful and some buffalo but it was very cold so we didn't stay for very long. We spent the night just outside the west entrance to the park in West Yellowstone, MT. It actually snowed that night.
These are pictures of bison living in the park. The first on is of a lone bison crossing the stream. There weren't any other ones to be seen for a 1/4 mile.
We had to share the roadway with a herd of bison who found that the road was probably easier for travel than the meadows and woods with all of their burnt down trees. This was actually scary since we had recieved upon entering the park, notices advising of people being gored by the bison. At one point the bison were right next to the truck and I was afraid that one of them might spook and ram my truck!
That idiot in the red car in front of us actually drove his car between bison.
This is a picture of Old Faithfull as it begins its eruption.
We saw these elk the next day but behind them, you can see all of the fallen trees from the fires of '88.
This is a shot of the Lower Falls the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Please click to enlarge. The falls are something like 300 ft tall. That's snow on the left. To give you some prospective on the hieght, there is an observation platform 5 feet above where the falls go over on the right where the next picture was taken.
A view down the canyon from that observation platform. That was an easy hike down from the parking lot, but we had given up 350 feet in altitude which made for a slow walk back up. SORRY, I still have to scan the image in.
Pictures of Diane and I at the rim of the canyon, the same spot where the picture of lower falls was taken.
Two pictures of the Yellowstone river at the bottom of its canyon. The Yellowstone is the only major river in America to have been left 'wild'. That is it hasn't been dammed and the course of the river is left unaltered.
This is a picture of some of the geothermal springs called 'paint pots'. This is an arial view taken from a hillside. You can get a scale from the walkways on the upper left hand side of the picture.
This is a picture from the bottom of Tower Falls. This is a tributary stream of the Yellowstone river.
This is a picture of me at an overlook of a huge meadow in the park. We had just gone over a high mountain pass and were going to eat our lunch here but then Diane saw the informational sign telling us how bears could be seen from that point. We ended up eating our picnic lunches out of the cooler while sitting on my tailgate in the parking lot of the general store. We got a lot of jealous looks as people walked to and from their vehicles after eating the overpriced stuff at the concession:). That parking lot, incedently, was the only place that I saw a Connecticut license plate since we left the state of NY (on our way to NJ). One CT plate and I haven't even seen one out here in Seattle in the 6 weeks I've been here.
This is Mamouth Hot springs. There was almost no water comming out of the terraces. The Ranger said that the water comes out of different places at different times but I remember seeing much more water at this area.
