Jackson to West Yellowstone

Thursday the 27th

A cool morning, jacket and hat weather but by 9:00 AM it had warmed up enough that I was in a short sleeve shirt to hook up the car. We were on the road a half hour later headed north on US-89 through Jackson and into the Grand Tetons National Park. We drove through the park and missed one turn. Fortunately we found a big view point pullout about two miles down the road and did a "U" turn.

Back on route again we made several stops for pictures before exiting the Grand Tetons headed for Yellowstone. Since we had purchased our National Park Passes (Senior Lifetime - $10) the day before we breezed through the park entrance exactly 74 miles from our KOA campground.

Our first stop in Yellowstone was at a construction site where we had a twenty minute wait, so Tina put some lunch together then went out and took some pictures of the snow. Yup, snow! And lots of it! In fact a little further on we came to Lewis Lake and it was still frozen over. We had to climb over a snow drift to get to where we could take pictures. Of course, Don started a snowball fight so we had to have our fun in the snow - heheheh!!

On the road again we crossed the Continental Divide at 7,988 feet. Coming down out of the hills we stopped at the West Thumb Geyser Basin at the south end of Yellowstone Lake. This is one of the smallest geyser basins in Yellowstone yet its location along the shore of the lake ranks it as the most scenic. West Thumb has less geyser activity than other basins, but we made the trek around the boardwalks and past the hot springs, pools, mud pots, fumaroles and lake shore geysers.

Along the lake shore is Fishing Cone geyser. Its unusual location along the lake shore and its symmetrical cone were popularized by early stories of "boiled trout." Abyss Pool is also noted for its depth and colors. The paint pots were pretty spectacular with vibrant colors due to their principal minerals. In the 1920s and 30s they were very extensive and active. Now they are less active but, depending on moisture, they still build mud cones.

Since the mid 1970s, West Thumb has decreased in thermal activity. Some temperatures have cooled in the basin allowing large colonies of algae and cyanobacteria to grow. As a result, large newly-formed microbial mats flourish on the run-off channels and along the edges of pools. We spent about an hour at West Thumb before returning to the road.

After leaving West Thumb we crossed the Continental Divide for the second time at an elevation of 8,391 feet. Another five miles further on we crossed it once again at 8,262 foot high Craig Pass. Fro the pass we went steadily down until we reached Old Faithful where we pulled into the parking lot to check out the area.

Since Diane wasn't up for a big walk from the RV's and we didn't know when the next eruption would be we decided to make for West Yellowstone and the Grizley RV Resort (http://www.grizzlyrv.com/). We got into town and stopped at Northern Energy Propane to fill up. Temperatures over night are going to be in the low 30's for the next few days so we'll need to run the furnace a lot more.

We got into camp, registered, parked and hooked up by 6:00 PM. I had to buy another ten foot sewer hose extension so I could reach the drain, otherwise we have a nice spot. While we were eating dinner it started to rain but it only lasted an hour. After dinner we all sat down and decided our plan for the next few days, then Don and I went outside to put a proper connector on his sewer hose, then we took the kayaks off the car.

That pretty much wrapped up our day!

Distance for today's leg, 140 miles. Total for the trip so far, 7,740 miles.

To see all our photos, click on http://picasaweb.google.com/mjdolanski