We returned at midnight last nite from a week+ trip up to Wyoming to visit the
Yellowstone, and Teton National Parks. These are some of the remotest, and wildest game management areas in the lower 48 states, and home to moose,
elk, bear,
bison, wolves, and many other fairly rare and endangered animals. Our trip started with a stop in Cheyenne for a rodeo at the
Frontier Days celebration. Next stop was Jackson Wyoming just south of the Tetons National park. Jaimie had a hanker'n for a buffalo burger so we spent about an hour trying to find an affordable one there. Being the tourist trap that it is we were unsuccessful so we settled for an un-affordable burger. That's the last time I spend $15 for a hamburger (probably).
We packed a lot into the first couple of days in the Tetons. Whitewater rafting on the Snake River came first. It was cold, and raining that morning but since we were on the river getting wet anyway the rain didn't make much difference. Jess managed to get the wettest although both she and Jaimie were sitting in the bow and got a good bath. Hiking around Jenny Lake that afternoon we encountered a cinnamon
black bear along the trail. This is one of the closest sighting I've had of a bear on foot (about 20 meters) but he was more intent on chowing down on berries, then paying attention to the tourists taking pictures.
The next stop was Yellowstone National Park where we toured several of the
hot spring, and
geyser areas, and got our backcountry permit for a backpack into the upper Gallatin river valley. The geyser basins were packed with the usual crowds of obnoxious tourists. Although I really expected worse crowds, we never had a problem getting into any of the campgrounds that we wanted to stay at. The one huge annoyance is the driving. I can understand it when people stop in the middle of the road to look a animals, but time and again people would simple stop in the road or turn only lanes, and just get out to rummage around in the trunk and completely block traffic for no reason. If you want to find the worlds most inconsiderate people, this is definitely the place to go.
After a couple of days sightseeing, we headed out on our
backpack trip.
We hiked up the Gallatin River 4 miles, and made camp at the first backcountry site. It was very pretty, and finally we got away from the crowds. Unfortunately, we didn't see many animals as they aren't out to much this time of year, but we did talk to others who saw a sow grizzly, and her cub about 2 miles from our camp. Caught some nice
cutthroat trout in the stream. After that it was back to the town of West Yellowstone for showers at a motel.
The last two days we spent in the northern part of the park. The girls were interested in a
horseback ride so we set up a ride for the following day. It seemed that the ride wouldn't go too well at first since they got paired up with an Asian family that had never ridden before. The family had lots of trouble with the horses so the guide ended up bringing them back a bit early. Jaimie was initially pretty mad, but the guide offered to take Jess, and Jaime back out for another two hours after he got rid of the family. This was pretty unexpected, and turned out great for the girls since they got an opportunity to run the horses, and cover more ground than would be normal for a paid trail ride.
Finally we headed out of the northeast corner of the park, and came home via Cody, and Thermapolis. Next up is climbing a 14000 foot peak (Colorado has 52), and possibly more whitewater rafting. Stay tuned...you never know what these girls will get into next.
Back in camp some of the adults organized some games for the afternoon. Probably the funniest one was the Gordian Knot ala Cathy. The kids were made to form a circle, then they all put one hand into the middle and grabbed someone elses hand. Then they put their other hand into the middle, and grabbed a different persons hand. Without letting go they then had to move around and untangle until they formed one giant circle. It's kind of like Twister on steroids. After twenty minutes they were still pretty tangled up.
it wasn't too bad. However, you could definitely see a lot of places where flash flooding had washed new sand and gravel into the Arkansas. In fact the whole Hecla Junction take-out was pretty devastated. When we got there the county was hard at work with a backhoe, and road grader trying to make the area accessible again. The made for a pretty chaotic scene, but in time we got picked up and driven back to our raft outfitter.
