but back to idaho and wyoming .... here is week 4 .....
24th may
On the way to yellowstone I visited the Lewis & Clark Caverns, wow ... totally worth the money and time .. 10 dollars for a 2,5 hour trip trough wonderland down below .... great stuff ... A bit tricky that the explorers Lewis & Clark themselves never set foot in these caves but hey .. it atracts the tourists huh ...
and they are amazing caves ...
When I went for some info about he area and options to spend the night, the ranger from the park told me about a free campsite that even had a natural hotpot ... it turned out to be a bit of a drive .. ha ha .. he did not exagerate at all when he had said it was a dirt road leading to the campsite .. but if he had told me about the mud along the way, I might not have gone all that way at all.
But boy was I glad I did .... and glad I had this great 4-motion vehicle with wintertires .. it was gonna get me anywhere ... I just thought that if there was gonna be more rain, I would probably have to spend some more time at that far away campsite, which would not be a problem at all ....
The campsite was actually totally deserted, small spots of snow were left in shadowy places, it was really perfect with a small river and peace ....
25th may
In the morning I went to the hotpot first before I made my way to yellowstone .... wow .... the tub was really like a small hot tub, without the bubbles but with hot water coming from deep below the ground, the place was properly set up with a drainage pipe and a small terrace made of wood so you could put your clothes there and get in .. yep .. bud naked .. and then enjoy this amazing view of the surrounding mountains with the snowcapped peaks .. unforgettable ...
Then it was time to head down, but not before the ranger very subtly asked me for some supplies I might have for him .. ha ha .. the guy hardly made it off the site and could do with some fresh vegetables or beer . ... I did not mind passing him some, so I left him a happy chappy and went on my way, the road had dried up quite well so the return trip went a lot faster ...
And then, finally, I made my way to the west entrance of yellowstone national park ... yes ...
Imagine a big national park, surrounded by mountains covered in snow, the roads inside the park consist of a figure 8 so basically there are two loops that lead you around the park and each loop is about 140 km long so you can see its a huge park ... The park can be entered from 4 sides but this time of year the east entrance is only accessible between12 midnight till 8am as there is too much snow up there and they want it to be frozen solid when you pass trough there as there is a risk off avalanches during the day.
I entered trough the west entrance (lower altitude and no snow there) and stayed in the lower loop for the first day, saw amazing landscapes full of steam and smelly sites ...
Saw Old faithfull do its thing and lost myself in that fairytale landscape.
That night I slept at a 20 dollar nottin special campsite but made sure that the next day I got up at 5am so I could get to the campsite of my choice at 07.30am.
This getting up early thingie would probably mean I would get a spot at the Tower Fall campsite, that is where I wanted to be, it was the smallest site, located in the top right hand corner of the upper loop, and very primitive without running water and pit toilets, but that was fine for me as there would be no huge rv's that had generators and screaming kids or small barking doggies they took along. The campsite I wanted hosts only 39 spaces of which most are meant for a tent and there is loads of space in between the spots and its on top of a little hill, in the midst of a forest. This site is "wanted" so to say, and you can not reserve spaces, it's first come first serve ... gotta put in some effort sometimes .. but that was a mission for the next day, first it was time to explore the geiser area with the sun setting ...
unforgettable again ...
26th may
5 am .. wakey wakey rise and shine .. before 6 I had started up all systems and was on my way .... wow ... it was hard not to stop everywhere ... so amazingly beautiful this place ,,, but ... I needed to push on, I was on a mission.
When I got to Tower Fall I found one site free, and it was perfect...
filled out the paperwork and after reserving my spot, I took off again, back into magic country ... I went back to the mammoth area where there was the visitor centre with an office for the backcountry ranger, that is where I wanted to go because there was the great memorial day holiday weekend coming up which probably meant a lot of people were gonna hit the main roads, so I wanted to make sure I knew where to go, off the beaten track so to say ... The guy was great, gave me loads of info about hikes I could do and so I did .. first I had to capture this guy I spotted, it was a challenge to get close .. but I did ...
then made a great hike to the beaver ponds that day, never saw the beavers, but there was the dam they had build .. fascinating stuff ... Then as I came back, it started snowing and I mean .. snowing for real .... the trip back was an adventure with bison crossing the road when you could hardly see a thing ....
but hey .. I got there ... there was already quite some snow at the campsite which added to the whole experience ...
i slept like a baby ...
27th may
Woke up in a white world ... what a present this was ....
Today I stayed close to base ... did not want to repeat that return trip to the site like last nights ... I did an amazing hike trough this white wonder world.
There were a few rivers that I had to cross sometimes, making for an exciting moment as they were big and flowing fast due to all the melting snow ... and I did fall one time, trying to walk across the river over a tree, but it was very much eaten by termites, so it almost snapped when I made my way across, did not fall in the water, but was left with some great bruises and scratches ...
The rest of the day was filled by visiting the nearby waterfall and river and I explored the Lamar valley, where a bunch of wolves were re-introduced some time ago ... I needed to see these but this would need to wait untill some early morning when the wolves would be up and about .. Spotted my first black bear and grizzly bear, be it from far away so no intimidating pictures for you to see ... the sight of the grizzly was truely awesome, this thing is BIG and you don't wanna run into that thing on your way trough the park ...... !
The night turned out a bit different as someone had decided to pull up into my site, what the fuck ..
They told me there was no reservation sign at the pole there (which at first I refused to believe cause I had even used ducktape to stick my proof of reservation to the pole, but nottin I could do, if they said there was nottin there ...... ) so they took the spot .. It was a french couple from canada with an older model volkswagen and they had their campfire going for a while, so I considered my options, I mean if I wanted I could make them move but I saw a free spot close by, not as nice as my original spot and closer to the neighbours there, but I could go there for the one night and that would mean the french couple could stay at their temporary basecamp and I was gonna return to my spot the next day .. so, thats what we did ... the night was spend very quiet again ... that campsite was magic !
28th may
Woke up with someone screaming : "there is a bear, dont run, dont run" wow ... are they actually in the site ? And yes, they do roam around the campsite from time to time .. so that was a proper warning for the hikes I was gonna be doing that day ...
Had another great bonus ... there had been a landslide on the one road that was open and was leading you towards our campsite from the rest of the park .. "we are dealing with an entire mountain that is trying to come down" said the ranger .. "so the road is closed and we dont know when it will be opened again" ...
uuuuh ... that meant two things, one, I could not get to the other area;s of the park, and the second was that no-one could get from there to here .... and that with the memorial day weekend and labour day coming up ... all americans have a long weekend off and traditionally it means the start of the season for most national parks, so it was gonna get busy, normally .. ha ha but with this landslide it was a different ballgame ... yes .... that was actually pretty special .... it meant we had this entire area of the park for just a small bunch of people ... ha ha ... great .. this meant undisturbed hikes and perfect moments of spotting wildlife without other people approaching and scaring them away ... I was gonna have a blast here ... let the road be closed a little longer .. please .... (little did I know that the road stayed closed untill the next wednesday .. so I was getting what I wanted, and more, for a full week .... A truely unique time in the park while the busiest weekend was getting on its way in the rest of the park ... busloads of tourists hopping from one site to another ... taking their pictures,, be loud and obnoxious and move on again.
I did loads of hiking today, doing the specimen ridge trail ...
awesome views .. flowers and animals ... very nice ...
hiking is one of the perfect ways to loose yourself in the moment ...
simply ... B E
29th may
Today it was time for the hellroaring trail, another part of the valley was ready to be explored, it was beautifull to see yet another part of the tower - rooseveld area -- on my way I found an antler of a moose (moose paddle)
before I crossed the yellowstone river bridge, then, soon after crossing the river for the second time I also found a deer antler which in turn was not far from the carcass of a bison that had been eaten completely, but the sight of that huge animal being totally stripped down to nottin but hair and bones, pfffff ...
Wanted to get out of there just in case there was a hungry bear somewhere around, before I left I decided to take one of the two horns from the bison to have a closer look, later I put it up at some tree for someone else to discover ... did the same with the two antlers I found .. but first I made some use of the thing .... I actually used the deer antler to make some proper noise ... with a stick I would bang on the antler to let possible bears know that I was around and making my way trough the area .. bears dont like people and they get dangerous when you scare them, or surprise them .. so you must make noise and shout out loud every now and then ... I had this whistle with me, playing referee in a deserted forest .. ha ha .. I also did some proper singing about two bears making sandwiches (a well known childrens song in holland) so I never saw any bears (apart from the one crossing the road early in the morning on my way to the trailhead) .. I did get to see a marmot , some deer, beautiful birds, squirrels and pronghorn antilope .. and not to forget the landscape ... wowie .. all in all It took me a great 5 - 6 hours to hike some 10 miles, lost in paradise .. for real ...
That night was filled with re-arranging some pictures and I watched a nice movie, too tired to do anything else.
30th may
By late sunday and monday right before sunset the animals would come out to eat and drink and as it was so extremely quiet in our area, they had gotten used to the idea that they were sort of out there alone too .. still, they were allways " potential pray" and they were allways on the alert ... bizarre how I got to see a baby deer that could barely walk, let alone run ... the parents had run away as they heard me coming, I could just see the baby being all shook up and try to run after the parents, but it couldn't, I could see it did not know what to do with its legs, it tried but soon, it simply duck down, slightly underneath some grean bushes, covering it somewhat. The parents were standing 10 meters further uphill, clearly worried, but I had seen in some nature documentary once that these animals know what to do, and this was a survival reaction.
On tv they showed that the baby dropped down as it had gotten a few feet away from the attacker after it first had been grabbed but then as it was being played with by the wild cat or cougar it managed to jump away, and drop down in the high grass withoit the cougar being able to find it again ... it meant it got away from death and lived on to see another scary moment turning into a lifechanging event .... it's truelly life or death, eat or be eaten out here .... literally, as I had read in a brochure about the park, the green gets greener and the sounds get intenser knowing that around the corner there might be that great grizzly bear to give you the scare of your life ... when you are OUT THERE.
Wow .... what a morning this was, spotted my wolfs, yes ... that is what I had wanted ... this was cool stuff. .. it was trying to hunt down some pronghorn antilopes and in doing so it actually made its way to the road, I was in a line of cars, all following the "leader of the pack" There was this guy who was following the wolves for a government programm, he also had a radio system that allowed him to track the wolves, so as soon as you would see the yellow range rover drive by, you knew something was on ... when the wolf started to come towards the cars, it was time for another government official to step in and chase the wolf away, as that was behaviour they could do without in the park, they cant have wolves approach human beings, they should be scared of them .. so they chased it away .. I was stunned, here was my first wolf, getting closer and closer, and now someone chases it away .. later when I heard more about the what and how of it all, it was ok but for a moment I was pissed off ... Not long after that I saw more of the wolves, as they had a dead rabbit and a carcass that they were chewing on .. a nice sight from far away, again, I needed someone else's scope to see, cause my binoculars were way too primitive for it all ... I started to understand why all these folks are out here with these huge camera's and professional scopes ... it gives them a true live national geographic experience !
In the afternoon I needed some rest after the early morning for the wolves, so I slept some of the afternoon away and felt great when I woke up at 17,30 ready to make a good supply of pasta sauce for the coming three days. The night was filled with some reading, a movie and ... pictures .....
Actually I need to check out my pictures for this last day and the coming week ... I made so many .. and I cant find some of them for my blog ... so ... its a quick finish .. on to week 5 ... and I am on my way to chicago right now .... ciao4now
