Yellowstone 2016

It is much harder to find unexplored and undocumented territory nowadays, than it was at the time of Washburn expedition. Nevertheless, even after I have seen tons of photos and videos, and read the National Geographic special issue on Yellowstone park, it still felt very special to be there and to see all I saw. No photo can capture the scale of it, the sound, the smell, the variety of landscapes, animals, plants, and colors.  Even though Yellowstone is extremely popular touristic attraction (7.2 million visitors for 2015), it is also a place, which represents what I imagine to be the Wild West. It is rough, beautiful beyond description, and also dangerous. Yellowstone is a national park, still it is not your town park, zoo, or a spa. Twenty two people have died in thermal pools and geysers since 1870 (source: The Washington Post). The latest one dissolved in the boiling and acidic pools of Norris Geyser Basin this summer.

Yellowstone was on my to-visit list for quite some time now. It proved hard to find time to go there since it is more than 6.5 hours away from Laramie. But then, my brother came to visit us this September. Niels and I spend some time discussing what to show him from Wyoming (and Colorado) and I thought “Now is the moment, if we don’t do it now, I will probably never see Yellowstone”. Everything was planned, my brother arrived,  we were ready to get on the road. We were lucky that by that time (middle of September),  the temperatures cooled, there was some rain, some snow, so the wildfires were almost entirely put down. Few days earlier, the highway to Yellowstone South Entrance was closed due to the forest fires. We were hatching an alternative plan to spend two days in the Grand Tetons instead. Fortunately, the road conditions were safe again, so we could go with our initial plan.

So, basically there are two ways you can get to Yellowstone South Entrance from Laramie. The first one is through Rock Springs and then Jackson. The second one is through Lander (or Riverton), then Dubois, the Togwotee Pass and you’re there. We took the first one on the way to Yellowstone and the other one on the way back. The stop in between was at Dubois. So, on the first day we drove through the sagebrush sea, got some local beer in Jackson, saw the Tetons and Jenny Lake, drove through a snowstorm at the Togwotee Pass, and stayed for the night in Dubois. On the second day, we woke up early, drove through the pass again, and spend the whole day (up to 3-4) driving around in Yellowstone National Park. There was not much traffic, which was great, so we actually managed to see all I wanted. Except, the eruption of Old Faithful. But, it was getting late, and it was Old Faithful eruption versus chicken fried steak at Dubois. The later won.  So, we drove back to Dubois, spend the night there and on the next day took the road through Lander.