Tuesday, July 06, 2021

We're Back!

After spending a week with no wifi and intermittent cell signal in the Flagg Ranch campground between the northern border of Grand Teton National Park and the southern border of Yellowstone National Park, we are once again fully electronically connected.  We left the campground this morning for our move to Gardiner, MT for a week.   Our route led north through the entire length of the western half of Yellowstone.  

The park was packed with tourists.  It took us 20 minutes to crawl along the 2 miles between the campground and the southern Yellowstone entrance.


Once through we drove through backed up traffic and vehicles lining both sides of the road at each major attraction:  Old Faithful (not visible from the road), the upper, middle, and lower geyser basins.



travertine terraces, Mammoth Hot Springs (also not visible from the road).
Travertine is a chalk-like substance made from the interactions of water and limestone.


All of the most popular pull-off attractions like Biscuit Basin and trailheads like Fairy Falls also had their share of traffic.


Between these attractions we drove through beautiful alpine meadows forests, accompanied by the Snake, Firehole, Gibbon and Gardiner Rivers, all beautiful clear mountain waterways, alternating between rugged canyon rapids,


and placid meadow streams.



Traffic grew less the further north we went


until we reached the north park entrance at the Mammoth Hot Springs Albright Visitor Center area.  


All was well, though, we amused ourselves by watching an elk herd browsing in the area, ignoring all the people and traffic.



Once through the town, we drove down 5 miles of 6% grade



to the North Entrance and the Roosevelt Arch which stands on the border between Wyoming and Montana.


From there was a short hop to Gardiner and the rv park where we parked next to our friends Brock and Leola for the next week,

but that's another story.

Louise and Duane



 


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