Yellowstone

We were excited about going to Yellowstone. World's first national park (purportedly), iconic American location, 'charismatic megafauna' (as the Lonely Planet sells it). Who wouldnt be thrilled?

We got up early to drive the 80 miles or so from Bozeman to get to a campground early enough to grab a spot. Unfortunately even by 10am all were full in the first two grounds we went to. Happily we found a lovely spot amongst the shady pines on strawberry vine covered grass near Indian Creek in the north of the park.

A drive to see some of the geothermal activity one day and a hike the next we thought. Well the round trip on the 'Grand Loop' as they call it was nice but just not as spectacular as we were expecting. Because of all the volcanic activity the soil is aparently not that great so the forests are practically a monoculture of lodgepole pines. A huge fire in 1988 burnt great swathes of the forest which is still slowly recovering, resulting in a landscape that is not that pretty. Having said that, bubbling mud pots, steaming mountainsides and spurting geysers were quite amazing to see (and pungent to smell).

We weren't going to the famous Grand Canyon on this trip but Yellowstone's Grand Canyon was a nice substitute. I'd been worried as to what the crowds would be like in mid summer, and certainly at Old Faithful there were probably about 1000 people waiting to see water and steam spurt out of the ground. There were a few traffic build ups but that was more due to buffalo leisurely strolling across the road than an excess of vehicles. The LP had said that if you go more than 100 feet from a car park you'll have the place to yourself and indeed we did.

The GC was narrow, with walls of yellow, red and pink rock dropping steeply downto an emerald green and foamy white river tearing its way east. The views along the rim as we wound through the pine forest were spectacular. Eventually turning away, we climbed up through forest, past a lily pad strangled lake to a moonscape of barren grey mud flats with bubbling ponds and then suddenly into lush green meadows sprinkled with wildflowers, more reminiscent of Switzerland than the heart of America. All in all an astonishing array of landscape types in close proximity to each other. Lovely but Yellowstone just didnt capture our hearts they way Glacier had and The Grand Tetons were about to.