Yellowstone

Over the labor day weekend I went on a 5 day camping trip in Yellowstone NP. We left Pasadena early in the morning to fly to Salt Lake City. On the way to the Long Beach airport, I unwittingly avoided a car accident. We were on the freeway when I overtook a red beetle, moments later the cars in front of me suddenly stopped. I stepped on the brakes hard (to it's limit) and narrowly missed the car in front of me. Then I heard a bump at the back. Did I just get hit?! Thankfully not, the beetle stopped in time but the car behind him did not. If I had not overtaken the beetle than I would have been rear ended - phew!

After we landed at SLC, we went to get our rental car. The compact car that we have booked wasn't available, so the sales person said that we could rent a mini van instead at the same rate. Driving a mini van?! That's high fuel consumption and bulkiness without the power, do I look that stupid?! I told him that we cannot take that one, what are the other options. Then he decided to show us the Mitsubishi Endeavor which we gladly agreed to take at $20/day. It only has 5000miles on it - practically new! In terms of handling it's quite smooth but for sure less powerful than my Saab.

The drive from SLC to Yellowstone took around 6hours and we crossed the state borders from Utah to Idaho and then to Wyoming. We camped at Grant Village Lodge campground. Each campsite was huge with it's own car park, picnic bench and fire place. They have showers there too which was an absolute necessity given that I cannot seem to go a day without showering. At an average elevation of 8000 feet, it was freezing at night and in the early mornings (below 0oC), my +20oF sleeping bag has helped me a lot.

We hiked around 8miles each day. During these hikes and car drives, we saw countless geysers of different shades of green and blue and tinges of yellow and orange. After seeing so many I got quite bored of them - ok, I wasn't super excited on seeing them in the first place. But such cannot be said about animals. We were lucky enough to see 7 different kinds of wildlife. We saw bison, elk, moose, marmot, canadian geese, a huge snake and wolves. The one that I liked the most was the bison. Bisons are so cute with their huge unblinking beady eyes. As well, the fact that they wander slowly on the road without giving a damn about traffic just make them appear so ignorant and hence more adorable (I can't exactly explain the correlation here). We saw a huge snake in the middle of a trail during a hike, I was really excited to see one - it was the largest I've seen in the wild! On the last day, while hiking in Teton NP, we saw some movement off the trail. On closer examination, it was a moose with her calf! They were very close to us at perhaps 5m away. Their huge ears were pointed in our direction and they remained alert yet motionless. My friend stepped closer to take a photo, to the point where the calf ran away. Apparently mother moose with calves are aggressive and can attack humans - oops...

West Thumb Geyser - Yellowstone

Bison wandering on the road

Moose with calf

I really wanted to see a bear. There are two species of bears in Yellowstone, Grizzly and Black bear. Completely different techniques should be employed when one encounters each species. If a Grizzly becomes 'interested' in you, you should back away slowly while speaking calmly to it, if it attacks, then you should use your bear pepper spray, if it continues to attack, then you should get down into a fetal postion and play dead. However, if you get challenged by a Black bear, you should make yourself seem bigger and shout at it. Yet it's hard to distinguish between them because unlike it's name, Black bears are not always black and in fact come in all colors. The determining factor is the presence or absence of shoulder humps (Grizzlies have them, Black bears do not). I suggested that we get bear pepper sprays since our lives may well depend on it. The plan was to carry one each in case the person carrying the spray looses their mind upon seeing a bear and runs away leaving the rest of us defenseless. So we went to the general store to hunt some down - it costs $50 each! At this price I'd rather take my chances against the bear! In any case, we didn't get to see a bear which was rather unfortunate or perhaps fortunate depending on the outcome.

A couple of mornings I got up early and drove to see the sunrise against the Yellowstone lake, the view was majestic and the colors were nothing short of amazing.

Sunrise over Yellowstone lake

Admittedly during the time there, I missed the comfort of home especially when it came to using the communal showers and the freezing nights and mornings. But I knew that all would be worth it in the end since it's the experience and the fond memories that we keep. And looking back - I was right :)