Room With a View

There are probably a lot of other areas of Grand Teton National Park we could explore but we felt the urge to move on.  Looking at our tracking history, we seemed to have covered quite a bit of ground.

So we left our gravel parking lot, so conveniently located, and headed north.

At Colter Bay Village we topped off with diesel fuel and drove to the campground to dump the waste tanks and fill with fresh water.  The cashier could not get the credit card terminal working so our ten-dollar dump fee turned out to be free.  Deb also mailed a postcard (remember those) in what turned out to be our last action in Grand Teton National Park.

We knew that Yellowstone was going to be much harder for finding places to stay.  Seems like they have all but rolled up the sidewalks for the winter.   Most of the major campgrounds are closed and the few that are open are full.  So we thought we would try the dispersed campsites along Grassy Lake Road, which is between the Tetons and Yellowstone, just outside the south entrance.

Deb researched this online and found out that these campsites, which are first come, first served, usually fill up by mid-morning.  Since it was now mid-morning, we may have a chance.

The sites are arranged along the road every mile or so, sometimes two or four sites together.  Camps 1, 2, and 3 were full but camp 4 looked like it had an empty site.  I drove into the very narrow access road and talked to the guy already parked there in a pickup camper.  Yes, the second site was open and he helped me get my RV turned around to I could back into the designated spot.  Not an easy task but once we were parked we could see how beautiful this site was.  High on a hill overlooking the Snake River, we have a great view of the valley below and the mountains beyond.  This whole area had a forest fire in 2016, so there’s a lot of dead stuff around, but looking the other way, over the valley, it’s a great view.

Mr. Pickup Camper told me that he has seen a bull moose every day walking along the river and he also showed me a video of a grizzly bear loping along on the other side of the river.  So far we’ve seen neither, but one can only hope.

We took a long walk along the road here, just to enjoy the area and the coolness of the morning and then had lunch with this as a backdrop.  Quite amazing.

After lunch we drove into Yellowstone, stopping in Grant Village to have our kayaks inspected.  This guy actually looked at the kayaks.  It will be another twenty bucks a boat to put them in the water here, but we’re not sure if we will do that. 

We went to the West Thumb Geyser Basin and walked the Lake Overlook trail.  This gave a great view of the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake.

We arrived back just in time to see a large tour bus parked next to our RV, disgorging an entire load of Chinese tourists, all coming to see the geyser basin.  This was a reminder that the national parks are very much a destination for foreign tourists, so much so that there needs to be signs instructing how to use such things as Western toilets:

We strolled around the geyser basin ourselves, probably showing up in the background of many Asian selfies.

Interesting that these pools of bubbling water didn’t smell near as much of sulphur as those in Thermopolis.

We drove back to our campsite, which we reserved by leaving a tablecloth and a couple of chairs.

So we had dinner with probably one of the best views of the trip, and certainly the most secluded.

One thing we discovered was that there were plenty of other people looking for somewhere to camp for the night, only they were coming by a little too late.  This was rather entertaining at times, but I felt sorry for those poor chaps who may not find a good place to park for the night.

One family came in a 30-foot rental RV. They came in the access drive and asked me if I knew of spots farther down the road.  I told him the ones that I saw on our earlier walk were all full.  He then attempted to turn the RV around in this narrow space.  Failing that, he backed up the access drive, and I heard a thunk as the RV contacted a tree as he was backing out into the road.  He disappeared farther down the road, but came by in the other direction about 15 minutes later.

A guy towing an Airstream trailer actually managed to turn around and a few people came by in cars, searching for a spot for the night.

The entertainment stopped when it started to get dark.  Maybe we're just easily entertained.

Tomorrow we will leave this beautiful place, spend the day in Yellowstone, and look for somewhere to camp outside the west entrance.  It would be nice to stay here for a few days, but the drive time to see anything significant is just too much.  Yellowstone is a big park and to get anywhere requires a lot of driving.