Wonderland

 From the moment we entered Yellowstone National Park until we drove out after three days of touring, we were completely enthralled by the beauty.  We saw the park snow covered and we saw it green.  We at first thought that we were enchanted because of the beauty of the snow on the mountain tops and trees but we discovered that Yellowstone does not need snow to be Wonderland.

Some interesting facts about Yellowstone:

• 3,472 square miles
• Larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined
• 96% in Wyoming, 3% in Montana and 1% in Idaho
• Highest Point is Eagle Peak at 11, 358 ft

There are five entrances into the park:

• West Entrance (West Yellowstone, Montana)
• North Entrance (Gardiner, Montana)
• Northeast Entrance (Cooke City, Montana)
• East Entrance (Cody, Wyoming)
• South Entrance (from Grand Teton National Park)

We stayed in West Yellowstone and entered from there every morning.  We highly recommend this entry point.  The second entry we would recommend is the North at Gardiner.  We were unable to visit the Northeast and East entry as the roads were closed because of snow accumulations. We did enter thru the South entrance the afternoon we visited Grand Teton National Park.

Yellowstone has eight junctions and these serve to help navigate around the huge park.  We visited all of the junctions except Tower-Roosevelt which we couldn't because of closed roads.   

• Mammoth Hot Springs
• Tower-Roosevelt
• Canyon
• Lake Village (Lake Yellowstone)
• West Thumb
• Grant Village
• Old Faithful
• Madison
• Norris Junction

The time to travel from one area of the park to another can take large amounts of time.  While it is only about 16 miles from Madison up to Norris Junction, it took us about 1 1/2 hours on our second drive in that direction.  We encountered three "bison parades".  You begin to see brake lights and know there will be some type of wildlife causing the traffic jam.  Sometimes the bison will be grazing in meadows but on this particular drive, they were parading down the highway mostly on the southbound side but of course, traffic has to stop both ways.  They don't know about traffic protocol and they just wander wherever they want.  A couple of the parades had young calves with them.  They are so cute and are called "Big Reds" because of their red coat when they are young.  Every parade seemed to have one bison who was designated to stay between the calves and the cars.  Very interesting.  

Neither of us has a favorite section of the park.  Every section is gorgeous in it's own way.

The elk just wander around Mammoth and the old fort area

View of Mammoth Hot Springs from the Upper Springs

Mammoth Hot Springs is where the original entrance was in 1872 when Yellowstone was designated as the United States first National Park.  It is also the location of Fort Yellowstone which was established a few years later to protect the park from poachers and looters.  The army had personnel on-site until about 1915.  The fort area is in the middle of Mammoth Hot Springs and we very much enjoyed a walking tour of the area.  The upper spring area is different than any other springs we saw.  They cover huge areas and look like ice.  They are actually hot springs on a hill of travertine!

Madison is the first area that we explored and were delighted when we discovered Firehole Canyon Drive.  We did this drive a couple of times, once with snow and once without.  

Canyon is the area where the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone is located.  Snow was coming down with winds of about 30 mph.  It was so cold and hard to stand upright at times as we walked the icy path to view the canyon.  

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Lake Village is the home of Lake Yellowstone, the largest high altitude lake in the lower 48 states.  This means the lake is at an altitude of over 7000 ft.  The lake is so big it looks like the ocean and was complete with white caps on our visit.  It is also over 400 ft deep in some areas.

Yellowstone Lake

Old Faithful is incredible.  We actually were able to see it erupt on two different days, again once with snow and once without.  The first impression upon seeing the viewing area is that it is too big and there are too many people but actually it was not.  They even have signs asking for viewers to silence their cell phones.   Our experience was that it was quite reverent, people were even speaking in very hushed tones.  

Old Faithful

We drove the road from Madison Junction to West Yellowstone a number of times.  One of the first times we discovered a side road, Riverside Drive.  This little one-way drive runs along the Madison River for about a mile off the main road.  We so much enjoyed this, there were seldom other travelers there and we really enjoyed just stopping, putting down the windows and listening to the river and birds. 

Riverside Drive

We took about four hours one day and made the drive down to Grand Teton National Park.  It is breathtaking especially with the peaks covered in snow.  Our drive back to Yellowstone became a bit interesting as we drove into heavy snow and the road was getting covered quickly.  We were thankful for our AWD vehicle.