Yellowstone, West Thumb, Geyser Basin

We left Aspen House Cabin, called in for the best coffees of our stay in West Yellowstone at the ‘Free Heel and Wheel’ bike shop/cafe before entering the Park through the west gate for the final time, turning south at Madison to the Geyser Basin.

Driving through to Old Faithful we had our first rain showers whilst in the Park. Spring is really on its way here now: snow melting; fwildflowers appearing in the meadows, animals arriving but still no sign of the large birds of prey.

Everywhere you look in the Geyser Basin there are vents steaming. We arrived at Old Faithful in good time before the famous Geyser went on show, so we took a look in the Old Lodge before going out to join the couple of hundred people waiting on the boardwalk.

The show would have benefited from a blue sky backdrop and no breeze but still it was good to see.

From there we moved on to the Grand Prismatic Spring but sadly the boardwalk which took you up on the hillside to the overlook, where you get the best view of the amazing colours, was closed due to bear management. The bears have just woken up and are a bit dozy at this time of year so they are given time and space to sort themselves out. We don’t begrudge them that, the Park is their home after all. It was interesting to see both bison and bear prints on the bacterial mats around the springs, both animals obviously coming down for a bit of warmth on occasion!

Driving over Craig’s Pass we crossed the Continental Divide three times. Either side of it the rivers run either into the Pacific or Atlantic. Cue ‘The Band’ and their song ‘Across the Great Divide’.

We stopped off at Yellowstone Lake at West Thumb to walk around the hydro thermal pools on the Central Basin, and to marvel at the still frozen lake. Surprising that otters are to be found here.

From Yellowstone Lake we drove out of the Park and in to Grand Teton National Park, and the rain came down!

We should have had awesome views of the Grand Teton mountain range as we crossed the open sagebrush plain but only the foothills were visible through the curtain of rain.

Most services here are closed until the season starts properly, but Becky found us a restaurant in the Lodge on the side of Colter Bay on Jackson Lake so we parked up and tucked into chilli and fish n chips before driving twenty miles further to our comfortable cabin here at Moose. As I write it looks like Scotland on a bad day out of the window but we can’t be dismayed after the last week we have had!