Monday, September 20, 2010

Yellowstone - Day 4 - The Grand Finale



Well we are sad to bid adieu to YNP but it is time to turn this rig in an easterly bound direction and head off for ports of call that are progressively closer to our Atlantic origins.
For our final day, we left our camp at the West Thumb of Lk Yellowstone and followed the Grand Loop road north to the extreme Northeast corner of the park.
This led us up thru the Hayden Valley (named after a good sailing acquaintance of mine). In the Hayden Valley we enjoyed seeing both more Bison,



and our first small pack of Wolves. Notice how the wolves blend into the grass.



The introduction of wolves into the park was controversial. Environmentalists feared that the wolves would impact the other wildlife, and ranchers outside of the park feared that the wolves would decimate their livestock. I think the bottom line has proved that fears on both sides were unfounded and that the park has served its role as an international biosphere well.

Leaving the park thru the Northeast Corner - the Lamar Valley - is a nice way to go. It is the most remote and least traveled way into the park, and you then have a choice to take the Beartooth Highway Northeast of the Chief Joseph Highway Southwest, which is what we did. Both routes take more time but the scenery is awesome.
After leaving the park we traveled East to the Bighorn Mountains, where I sit tonight in a beautiful camp on Sibley Lake. The only problem is no internet so I am preparing this for upload at a later time.
Our only disappointment with YNP (other than wanting more days there) was that I've been using this new HD Palm size video cam that you need a phd to operate, and when Old Faithful erupted it turned out I was not recording the event. Then when I shut the cam down, it turned out I was recording the inside of my cam case for 40 minutes.
We contemplated returning to Old Faithful to record it, but as Kate said - I have it in my head and my heart and that will last forever.

No comments:

Post a Comment

We love to hear from you... Please leave us a comment and let us know you are reading. If there is something that you'd like to hear about please let us know. Thanks for visiting!