beartooth pass & yellowstone

tuesday, september 29, 2009

waking up tuesday morning and hearing the bear/dumpster story, we headed west to the northeast entrance to yellowstone.  this direction took us through the

bear

tooth

pass

i shake my fist to the sky and yell “kevin!!” to my ups guy at 2100 as it was he who recommended this route.  “beautiful country!”, he’d said, “not to be missed”.  well all i can describe it as would be death defying.  parts of it – the very top parts of it – were under construction, and when you are driving up a mountain at 10,000 ft, on a tiny road, WITH NO GUARD RAIL (!!), well, that defines death defying to me.  this experience runs a very close second to the blue mountain – 18 wheeler encounter on the pennsylvania turnpike last month, as most scary of my life. 

these pictures do not do justice to what scared the living bejeese right outta me, but, ya, the view (when i dared to look) was pretty awesome:

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the beartooth pass brought us right to the front door of the northeast entrance of yellowstone national park.  taking the advice of the ranger there, we purchased for $80 a national parks pass, which will get us into all the national parks plus hundreds of other places.  yellowstone costs $25, as does yosemite and to see the redwoods, so we got one.  it is good for one  year, for the family and is transferrable to one other person.  mighty good deal, yep.  we found out from the ranger that some of the roads through the park were closed.  one due to bridge construction, and the other because of a forest fire that they have been fighting since the 12th.  we could see the smoke from miles away through the beartooth pass.

much of yellowstone was flat – BEAUTIFUL -  and easy to drive, but they too have roads under construction and after the beartooth pass, having little time to recuperate, driving up mt wshburn at 10,243 something ft, my nerves were at a breaking point!! it's nice to look back at the pictures and the beauty of this, the nation’s first national park, now that the driving part is over. and to realize that i drove the vibe up to over 10,000 (that’s over ten  THOUSAND) ft. (!!)

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springs and things:

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one of the fires burning at yellowstone while we were there, wasnt in the closed off section, but there was a sign that said it was under control:

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and then there was the wildlife, of which we really didnt see much of. we did see some buffalo, and saw some folks with super lenses and telescopes who said they saw wolves and big horned sheep. these elk were at the visitor center towards the north exit:

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the original plan was to exit yellowstone at the west yellowstone gate, which would put us on or way to idaho.  because of the road closures, we 1) didnt get to see old faithful :o( and 2) had to leave out the north exit, putting us back into montana.

after leaving the park, we drove to bozeman, mt. for the night, guided by the best boyfriend ever via phone as he was checking the weather conditions and helping decide which direction would be best, as there was snow on the way!!!!!!!!

so we slept at the flying j truck stop in bozeman and met a couple of nice hitchhiking kids on their way east, to chicago (i think).  they were happy to be on the road, no worries…but no rides, and then there was the snow.