Day 9: Day 5 in Yellowstone, Norris, and Our First View of the Tetons
This morning we got up, made breakfast, and over my daily cup of chai we planned out our last full day in Yellowstone. We had pretty much seen what we had planned and more, with the notable exception of the Norris Geyser Basin.
Although we had walked quite a bit on this trip, we mainly kept to the paths designated and didn’t grab permits to head out off a trail head. For hiking off of the wooden paths, you are required to get a “back country permit..” We talked about our options and decided that we would pass this trip on the back country hiking, and would find ourselves a nice waterside area to hang out and perhaps have a small camper’s picnic.
Some people like to have an itinerary that they keep to each day, some people just like to wing it. Dog and I find that a mix of the two methods works best for us. As you can see from previous the blog entries, we try to get a good idea of what there is to see so we can plan enough days, and most importantly plan enough rest days on a trip. This type of planning allows us to see what we would reasonably want to see and work in contingency days. For this trip I tried to work in about a day and a half of rest/contingency based on the information I had at hand. It was difficult because I didn’t find much out there that gave me a good enough idea of how much time we would need to get a good feel for a specific area. In the morning, we worked in travel times we got pre-trip from Google maps, lined up the the things left we had not seen, and planned for a relaxing day of touring.
The day before this one, we had planned to go to Norris Geyser Basin, but the rain and other factors did not allowed it, so we flexed. When we have flex days built into the plan, it allows us to jog and groove around any problems that may occur, and it insures that if one of us is not well, or just tired, we can just goof off. This trip most of our flex time was spent getting up later in the day. This was nice because we could snooze past camp check out time if we wanted too, grab a relaxing breakfast, plan our day, write in my journal, and then head off. In general, we were out of camp most mornings by 10:00 AM. There was one day where we were not out of camp till past noon with no worries.
In the evening on this trip, the sun at Yellowstone was setting about 9:00 PM. We usually got into camp about 8:45 to 9:15 PM most nights, which gave us a few minutes left of daylight to start dinner, setup our camp chairs, and start a fire. This operation based on traveling light probably took all of 20 minutes. Clean up takes less time. The days were hot, most days were about in the 80′s (back home I hear it was in the 100′s). The evenings were cool, a sweater over a T-shirt or light jacket were fine most nights. The mosquitos were nice to us, all of them were spending their summer holiday away, as they usually do, in Montana.
Norris Geyser Basin
Norris Geyser Basin was cool. This geyser basin was neat because the springs were acidic instead of alkaline in composition. This means that the chemical composition of the waters that sprung up there could melt the soles of your shoes. I could sing the praises of the wonders of the geyser basin, named for one of the first superintendents of the park. but after about 4 days of geyser basins, even the hot sulfurous steaming cauldrons of the basin started leaving us a bit dry. Norris was cool, but we had tetons on our mind.
Dharma’s Scat Collection
Ok. Since I didn’t give you any pictures of geysers to wonder at this blog post, I thought I would show you a few pictures in my collection that I’m sure no one has thought to keep. No… I didn’t get these on purpose.
As you can tell, we saw many animals in Yellowstone… Here I caught a shot of a young coyote:
Apparently he enjoyed pictures taken of him so much, he decided to show us his best side:
For those of you having trouble, and really need to see it:
Then there was this really cool prong horn I got to catch in my camera:
The prong horn is only second to the cheetah in land speed, but can hold up for a longer distance. While I took this first picture I think I heard his mating call, it was like a low groan, and sounded something like, “I’ll give you a Kodak moment” and then he posed:
I am one with the animals.
You are not going to guess what other types of creatures I caught showing me their better parts, but I might save that for another blog. Ahhhh… the wonders of Yellowstone. So… if a prong horn shits in the woods? Never mind…
Grand Tetons
After the coyote exposition all we could think of was… Picnic! We headed our ways down to Grand Teton National Park, and out to the south entrance of Yellowstone. The road from Yellowstone to the Tetons was very cool. There is a little area between the parks that do not seem to be owned by either one. We did a little off-roading there, were lowly enough to get that proud feeling you get when you see a non-4WD get caught in a ravine. Well, he got out alright… tsk tsk tsk…
There are some camping area’s between the two parks that are more for the all out camper type, a bit more rugged. Although Madison campground was cool because of its central location, it was still a little bit of a tent and RV city. Tent’s do have paper thin walls… hehhehehe….
If I were to do this trip again, I probably still would have stayed at Madison. If I were in these parts again for a second trip, I would probably choose a more remote area to tent from. I guess it all depends on where you will be traveling to. Camping up by the Beartooth high way would be hella cool, but there is actually much more of a risk of bears up there. Here is a animal sighting board we saw a few days earlier in the Fishing Bridge Visitor Center. Most of the animal sightings are more northern, and this was consistent with what we saw in the park.
And we actually saw all sort of animals in the park. The two animals we wanted to see and didn’t get to see in Yellowstone were moose and bear. 
; My other half had never seen a moose in the wild so this was kind of a disappointment for us. We actually spent some time later in the trip trying to see if we could locate one.
Picnic by the Tetons
The drive from Fishing Bridge to South Entrance was beautiful. Well, the area around Jackson Lake was beautiful. Wonderful drive. Where there were few places not populated in Yellowstone, we actually found moments alone around our little picnic area. Lake View was the name of this spot, and is about half way between Jackson Hole and Yellowstone.
Once we sat down to our picnic we spied some water fowl on Jackson Lake that were too far out for me to catch a good picture of. The bird’s behavior reminded me of loons from my travels through Maine. The birds seemed a little smaller than mallards, had a white line on the front of its neck, a black head (at least around the eyes), a smallish beak, and brownish marbled body feathers. The neat behavior was that they would dive below the water and stay below the water for well over a minute. I later found out that these birds are called Grebes. I don’t remember the exact name, there are two types of Grebes that are found in this part of the country; these were one of those two.
The view of the Tetons was just foreshadow for the rest of our trip. The sight of them was incredible.
It also appeared that the evenings light show was slowly rolling in; it was time to check out the facilities at Grant Village and then head back to camp.
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