RV trip 2006 - day 23

Day 23 (September 12, 2006) - Yellowstone N.P.

What a day! Oh what a day! We have decided to drive the scenic inner route counterclokwise, starting with an obligatory stop at Old Faithful, the geyser that never misses spitting a fountain of hot water in the air every 1.5 hour around the clock. The place is highly commercialized, I think all the people in the park today are gathered here around the same time as we are, because the place is packed. I just cannot imagine what it must be like in July or August. To all of you who are planning a visit: just avoid the summer months, it must be crazy. There is a cafeteria with a line that snakes out around the porch, Petr stands in line for 25 minutes just to get ice-cream. We check the time for the next eruption and decide to go for a walk since we have just over 1 hour. There is a trail that leads up to a viewpoint, it's a 3 mile loop and we should have just enough time to hike it up and down. As soon as we start our ascent, we notice two bison 20 yards away from the trail, eating grass and not paying much attention to us and a few other people walking. A small crowd gathers within what seems a relatively unsafe distance, we take some pictures and press on. We strike up a conversation with a nice elderly couple from California, whom we will keep meeting during the day at other points of interest. In the end, they give us their name and invite us to stop by their place in Palo Alto, should we ever go there. Now that we know someone, we actually might! At the top of the cliff, the geyser looks a bit flat and far, we need to descend in order to take better pictures. The two bisons have left.

We find a decent spot to witness the eruption and we patiently wait.... and it really happens as predicted! After a false alarm, Old Faithful starts burbling and a fountain of water 100 ft high raises towards the sky. The eruption lasts about 5 minutes. When it's all over, we start hitting all the other points of interest in Geyser county. Men, I never saw so many eruptions in my life. Everywhere we went there were mudpots, bubbling waters, hissing caves releasing gasses, steaming pools of water. By the time we left the Geyser county we had probably walked 4 hours and seen at least 50 geysers in action. We then crossed Mammoth county (Madison and Norris) and finally made it to Canyon Village, where we thought we would spend the night at the campground. We took a wrong turn and found ourselves on a little stretch of a one-way road, with no possibility to turn back, so we decided to loop it and go back to the campground entrance.

Little did we know that we had entered the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone scenic road, and what presented itself in front of our eyes was the most beautiful view I had ever seen in my life. The canyon is deep, with the Yellowstone river running through it, the rock on both sides is red and yellow, which at 7:00pm also reflected the sunset colors and appeared in golden hues. I just stood there in awe, it was truly breathtaking. We stood there for a while and decided we would come back first thing the following morning. But, the campground at Canyon Village had just closed down the weekend before, so our only option was to drive back to Fishing Bridge where we had stayed the night before.

By then it's about 8:00pm and we notice a small crowd of people gathered on the side of the road. We know by now that where people gather, something is happening. They inform us that there is a pack of 5 wolves closing in on 2 elks. Through the binocular, we observe an incredible live attack for about an hour. The wolves are trying to separate the cow from the bull and the male is acting really defensive, putting his head down to keep the wolves at bay with his antlers. We are told that 2 of the wolves are cubs, about 5 months, still learning hunting techniques, this is why they are not actively participating in the attack. Someone else from the crowd, having lived in the "pure wilderness" of British Columbia, maintains that sometimes wolves kill for the joy of killing or to teach their young, not for food, and this may be one of the teaching lessons. We observe until it gets too dark to see anything, but it looks like the elks manage to chase the wolves away. We drive away still amazed at what we have seen: the closest I ever got to witness something like this before was a National Geographic documentary on TV.

Not 2 minutes go by when we realize that the jeep that just passed us is swerving aside slamming on the breaks. We slow down and notice 2 bisons off the road to our right, a lot of blood on the street and the jeep's hood over the roof. We pull over and quickly realize that the driver has hit a bison, the car is totaled and completely covered in bison "soft poo", but the driver, although in shock, is unharmed. We hear bisons grunting in the woods. We offer help and I quickly run for my cellphone but there is no signal, so we wait until another car drives by and ask the driver to alert the rangers at the next junction, about 5 miles away. We don't want to leave the poor guy alone: the smell of blood may attract bears at this time of the night, and the other bisons are close by. If the ranger doesn't show up fast, at least we can offer him shelter in our RV. I can't stop thinking that if he hadn't just passed us, it would have been us hitting the bison! These animals are huge - an adult male can reach up to 2000 pounds - and their fur is very dark, it's virtually impossible to see them at night. Luckily the ranger shows up in a matter of minutes, we give our statement and he assures that everything is under control, that we may leave. Needless to say, it took us 20 minutes to drive the next 5 miles to camp, so scared we were of hitting anything along the way. I went to bed with my head full of today's adventures. What a day!