Wildlife are just that. Wild.

Near the Grand Prismatic Pool

We woke up Monday (July 20) morning, and got out of Red Lodge as fast as we possibly could. Driving up the mountains was beautiful, though for some reason we had underestimated how cold it would be at the peak. The ice and snow should have been a hint.

After the drive through the pass (which wasn’t as treacherous as we’d thought, but still wouldn’t want to do it in the hail), we finally made it to the outskirts of Yellowstone. As we entered, they gave us many pages of literature to read about bear encounters, which Ash and I assumed would be out of the realm of possibilities, we doubted we’d see a bear at all. Practically immediately after entering the park, however, we saw our first bear! A grizzly cub, she was far away but completely adorable.

Fairly soon after we saw a black bear, and then a little later on, a full grown grizzly bear far down a hill. Someone had mentioned “bear jams” to us, and we thought they were joking, but they are aptly named; when there’s a bear sighting, everyone stops to look.

This just needs to be said: Ash and I read in her Deaths in Yellowstone book that parents actually put their children on the backs of bears to take a picture. Who are these idiots, and why are they allowed to have children?

Along the way to our campground, we stopped at Tower Falls, the Artist Paint Pots, and the Fountain Paint Pots. They smelled terrible, but were really such a variety of colors that it made them beautiful. If you didn’t breathe too deeply.

We hit another animal jam, this time a huge male elk, who was contentedly crunching on some leaves and ignoring the people who were getting, in my opinion, a little too close.

We set up our campsite and went to see Old Faithful. Even what was apparently a small eruption was pretty impressive.

Yellowstone Canyon

That night we slept well, with only ourselves and our sleeping bags in the tent because we’d heard so many warnings about grizzly bears, and there is one large female who apparently frequents our area.

Tuesday morning we woke up late, and went to try and find a campsite for the next night. Everywhere was full, but our neighbors had offered us a space on their site for the night so we weren’t concerned.

During our search for a campsite, we came across a mother black bear and her two babies, which were adorable, but a motorcyclist scared them away by revving his engine incessantly in front of them so his girlfriend could get a picture.

Apparently people who have worked in the park for three years never even see a bear, and we had already seen six. I feel pretty lucky.

Ash and I decided on a 10 mile hike around the Upper and Lower Falls, which were incredible and huge. The Lower Falls drop over 300 feet, and the Upper over 100. Much of the hike was spent discussing whether or not we thought someone would survive the falls, and we almost found out when some idiot was crawling around on the rock bank right near the top of the Lower Falls. If he’d fallen in, we’d have our answer.

The hike took quite a while, and it felt so good to be out of the car. On the way back to the campground, we stopped at the Grand Prismatic Pool, which was beautiful and practically a fully rainbow of color. It looked so inviting, but again, we’d seen the warning signs and read the stories of people’s skin melting off when the fell in, so we steered clear.

Tuesday night we went to Old Faithful again to eat dinner and sit on this huge log porch of the Inn right next to the geyser. This time it was an even larger explosion and even more impressive.

We returned to the campground we’d stayed in the first night to see if by any chance there had been any cancellations. Turns out, we were lucky again. One site left in the whole park, in the campground we happened to be in, and it was a group site. Our lonely little tent had practically its own forest to itself for the night because the area was so large.

Sometimes we get really lucky.

Animals we saw in the park: Male elk, female elk with their babies, more buffalo (which have lost their excitement after being in a herd of them), 4 black bears, 3 grizzlies, opsrey, prairie dogs, and yellow-bellied marmots

Total mileage: 3,896 mi

Female Elk

<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexaeve/3749091659/” title=”Yellowstone Canyon by uhlecksuh, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2665/3749091659_60c14f4fe3.jpg” width=”375″ height=”500″ alt=”Yellowstone Canyon” /></a>