Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park
-We toured many of the major attractions in the park on a Monday in mid-August. Although we spent only one full day in the park, one could easily make a 3+day vacation in the park to give ample time to see all attractions and take some major trails. One major part of the park we missed was the northern loop from Norris through Mammoth Hot Springs through Tower-Roosevelt and back again to Canyon Village. A portion of the road between Tower-Roosevelt and Canyon Village was closed due to road construction. Another segment we did not see was the west shore of Lake Yellowstone from West Thumb to Fishing Village
-At the south entrance to Yellowstone, we received lots of useful information—warning about buffalo, warning about bears, map of road improvements, National Park Service Yellowstone brochure, Yellowstone Today Summer 2004 official newsletter, and Ranger Programs summer 2004 newsletter
-Our first major stop was Old Faithful in the late morning. There was sufficient parking and as expected sufficient people. Our timing for Old Faithful wasn’t perfect, as we had to hustle to the site just as it was erupting and didn’t have enough time to set up for the best pictures
-We made several stops in the midway and lower geyser basin areas, took several short trails to the various geysers, pools, paint pots, etc. All were excellent
-The one-way Firehole Canyon drive was very scenic
-We were able to get excellent views of the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River at Lookout Point, Grand View and Inspiration Point. We saw an elk while leaving the Lower Falls area
-Due to a major road construction delays just south of Canyon Village and our need to tour the rest of Yellowstone Park and get to Cody, Wyoming for our overnight stay and because the Sylvan Pass to East Entrance road is closed after 8 pm due to road construction there, we did not proceed to see the Upper Falls of the Yellowstone River
-Mud Volcano was interesting; we also saw large herds of bison between Canyon Village and Fishing Bridge
-We had very good views of Yellowstone Lake from the Fishing Bridge area and also at several lookouts heading east from Fishing Bridge. By this time—after 6 pm—clouds were gathering to our immediate west, with showers and thunder not too far away. Consequently, we were not able to see the characteristic deep blue waters of the Lake; instead there were shades of gray
-We made it to the east entrance about 1 hour before it closed—about 7 pm—and were led through the mountainous scenic road being reconstructed by a pilot vehicle
-We all enjoyed our day in Yellowstone. However, the day would have been better had we encountered less road construction. Why does there have to be three large sections of major road arteries within the park all closed or experiencing road construction at the same time during the height of the summer tourist season?
Yellowstone National Park ratings (on scale of 1 to 5, with 5 the best)
-Upkeep = 2 (park facilities all had very good upkeep; this score is relatively low because of the timing of several major road construction projects, which caused major delays, prevented us from seeing the Upper Falls—all having to occur at once in mid-August)
-Beauty = 5 (as expected, geysers, paint pots, pools, mountains, forests, roads, Yellowstone Lake, Yellowstone Lower Falls, etc., were all excellent)
-Peaceful = 3 (with the crowds—even on a Monday in August—it is asking too much for a lot of peace in this park, so I would consider a score of 3 as pretty good given these circumstances)
-Informative = 5 (as much as the road construction was a pain, all were informed about it at their first entrance to the park; bear and buffalo warnings were great; National Park Service brochure was excellent, and newsletters were very informative)
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