Leaving Yellowstone

Thirty degrees when I got up this morning.  Good layer of frost on most surfaces.  A reminder that the seasons are marching towards Winter, faster at these higher elevations.  Also a reason we’re burning through our propane supply.  I’ll probably have to pick up some more in the next few days.

We took leave of our lovely camping spot and headed back into the south entrance of Yellowstone National Park.  First stop, after dropping off a postcard in Grant Village, was Old Faithful, not that we were dying to see Old Faithful spout off but we wanted to take the overlook hike behind the geyser.  My impression was the same as that of 25 years ago.  A vast parking lot serving a small city.  We arrived just before the next scheduled appearance of the geyser, so we waited the four minutes or so until it erupted.  Us and a few thousand other people.

It erupted right on schedule, accompanied by a chorus of camera clicks.  I wonder just how many pictures are taken each time Old Faithful erupts.  I added a couple more.

We hiked the overlook trail, which offers a higher view of Old Faithful and the surrounding area

I also had a view of part of the massive parking lot which was really filling up since we got here. This was just one section of one parking lot.

Maybe things will be quieter once we get to other points along the road away from Old Faithful.

Wow, were we wrong.  We were going to hike to Mystic Falls, but the parking lot and the trailhead were closed so we drove up the road to Midway Geyser Basin.  The Grand Prismatic Spring is here and we wanted to take a look.  The parking lot doesn’t allow large vehicles, not that we would fit anyway since it was full, so we parked at a crazy angle by the side of the road and hiked in.  Fist stop was the overlook.  A platform about 15 feet wide with 50 or so people all jockeying for that perfect shot or selfie.  I managed to get my time next to the railing to take my picture.

We were able to add a couple things to our Worlds Largest collection in Yellowstone.  The above picture is the world’s largest hot spring and the adjacent geyser, Excelsior, is the world’s largest geyser.

We stopped in the parking lot of  Excelsior, actually found a space big enough for the RV after waiting in line for 15 minutes and spent a little time walking the boardwalks around Grand Prismatic and Excelsior.  You get a better picture from the overlook, but being close by is cool also.

Every point of interest we have been to has been crowded.  And this is mid-week in September.  I can’t imagine what it must be like during high season.  I feel like a foreigner as the majority of people aren’t speaking English.  The majority is Chinese.  I figured out later that it’s perhaps because many Chinese have some time off for the annual moon festival and a good percentage of them ended up here.

We made for one or two other points of interest but their parking lots did not allow large vehicles so we moved on, eventually exiting the park at the west entrance.

About 25 miles or so west of the west entrance, we stopped for the night at Henrys Lake, finding a few apparent campsites along the shore.  Most of these sites had a nasty slant to them so we ended up in the large lot by the boat launch.  This lot has a vault toilet with a feature I have not seen before: art.  Kinda hits you in the face when you open the door.

The area around the lake is mostly dry grassland, and farther out you are in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest.  We passed quite a few decent dispersed camp sites on the way to the lake.  This one appears to be a bit more popular and better known.  Two other RVs pulled in after we did and now the parking lot looks like a campground.  So much for seclusion.