The Great Western Tour: Part 1

  Badlands, Tetons, Yellowstone

   Regular readers know that Shirley and I rarely travel in a straight line out and back. We like to expand the experience by stopping at secondary and tertiary destinations both going and coming. Perhaps the best example of this was our Great Western Tour. It took us to Wyoming to visit Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone, across Idaho to Oregon and Washington, around the northwest tip of the Lower 48, down the Pacific coast to Redwoods NP and across California to Lassen Volcanic, Yosemite and Sequoia, and down to the five national parks in Utah before returning home. That's far too many places to cover at once without boring you more than usual. And that doesn't include spectacular other attractions such as Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Monument, Devil's Tower and the Columbia River Gorge. So, this is just the first installment. Most of the story will be told via photos. Hope you enjoy. Please leave comments or questions at the end.

Badlands National Park

   This is a regular stop on our way to Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone. The landscape is fascinating--if, unlike early explorers, you are not threatened by unpleasantness such as heat, lack of water, and the prospect of getting irretrievably lost in the maze of dead-end canyons. Speaking of getting lost, our neighbor Craig suggests that I sometimes assume readers have more knowledge of geography than is warranted. Just for the record, Badlands is in southwestern South Dakota near the home of world famous Wall Drugs. 

                              

Early explorers nearly died of thirst before they found their way out.

Prairie dogs carry the plague. Coyotes eat them anyway but

you might want to keep your distance.

Grand Teton National Park

        We casually refer to the park as The Tetons though officially is is named for only one of those mountains--Grand Teton. Its neighbors are South Teton and Middle Teton. Shirley and I think all of them are just grand. This park is located in northwestern Wyoming just south of Yellowstone NP. We don't go to one without including the other. Neither should you. The photos will show you why.

The scenery is dramatic because the mountains have no foothills.

They just rise abruptly from the valley floor like a great trumpet blast.

  A pedantic observation: Jackson Hole is the valley; Jackson is the town. 

Our favorite hike is up to Taggart Lake.

Sometimes smoke from wildfires in Idaho almost obscures the Tetons.

Well, maybe we can disregard that "almost" part.

  

In Antelope Flats. A pronghorn, by the way, is technically not an antelope.

The Chapel of the Transfiguration

Through the window behind the altar. Inspirational.

From the Summit of Signal Mountain looking across Jackson Lake.

Yellowstone National Park

    At last. Just when you were afraid I was never going to get around to the main attraction. Everyone wants to visit Yellowstone, established in 1872 as the world's first National Park. The place is literally so awesome that early reports of its wonders were dismissed at tall tales. It was said, for example, that you could catch a trout in a cold mountain stream, swing your fishing rod around behind you and, without even moving your feet, cook the fish in a pool of bubbling hot water. But the tales were true. 

The historic Roosevelt Entrance Gate at Gardiner, MT. Most of the park is

in Wyoming but it spills into Idaho and Montana as well.

The actual park entrance is now inside the old gate. That left lane is

usually for outbound traffic but the growing number of visitors can 

call for one-way inbound use. Once in, nobody wants to leave, of course. 

The Lower Falls of the Yellowstone, 308 ft. tall and downstream from..,

...the Upper Falls, 109 ft. tall. So Lower is higher, right? 

Every year a touron (tourist behaving like a moron) decides it is OK   

to ignore all the signs and step off the boardwalk into boiling water.

Sometimes thermal features are hidden by a thin crust so the place looks

dry. She's probably on the phone telling someone you can safely ignore the

Danger Fragile Thermal Area Keep Out signs.

It is only OK if you are a thermophile--a heat tolerant organism that

gives color to the edges of thermal features.

Bison jam

The Yellowstone River used to be a prime fishery but it was

"combat fishing" shoulder to shoulder, tangling lines with the

next guy. We prefer small streams in secluded valleys. 

I'm not revealing locations. 

Sometimes we can't get to a favorite fishing hole because others 

are blocking access and don't tolerate intruders.

                  

A trail leads down to the brink of the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone.

Times of eruptions are posted in the lobby of Old Faithful Inn.

You could elbow your way through the crowd for a closer view.

Or you could share a bear berry ice cream and watch it 

from the upper deck of the Inn. Unless someone eats your

share while you are busy taking  pictures.

You might be able to guess why it is called Yellowstone.

Is is six miles roundtrip to the summit of Mt. Washburn. You probably

shouldn't try it until you body has acclimated to higher elevations. Thin

air can lead to unpleasant altitude sickness that is made worse if you fail

to take water. There is none along the way or at the top.

There is a good chance you will meet bighorn lambs learning to climb.

Below the tree line, wildflowers bloom profusely.

At higher elevations, the weather is too challenging. 

That's the fire tower at the summit.

Bighorn ewes look rather scruffy when shedding winter coats.

That's the trail running along the ridge top

While you're in the area...

      We have met a surprising number of travelers who have driven right past, or close enough, to what we consider attractions without knowing what they missed.  Still, all of us have our own definition of what constitutes an attraction. For example, Shirley and I have been to Las Vegas several times on our way from southern Arizona to Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Parks in California. Along the way we camp at Lake Mead, site of the Hoover Dam, and go into town to shop at Costco and Trader Joe's. We have never been to the Strip to see the shows or dropped a single penny in the slots. That's just weird, right, so we are not judgmental about people who don't share our preferences.

   Even so, there are travelers who would have included a place in their itinerary if they had only known where it was. Hence neighbor Craig's observation that we should not take knowledge of geography for granted. Or history. If you have no idea who Lewis and Clark were or what they did, you are probably not interested in places on the Lewis and Clark Trail. So, here's a list of places to consider when you are on the way to or from the Yellowstone area. We have never included all of these on a single trip so we vary our route to include something different every time. 

• Scottsbluff  and Buffalo Bill's ranch in Western Nebraska
• Wind Cave National Park, Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota
• World famous Wall Drugs near Badlands NP (Really!)
• Cheyenne Frontier Days the last 10 days in July
• Fort Laramie in Southeastern Wyoming
• Devil's Tower and the Bighorn Mountains in Northern Wyoming
• The Beartooth Highway connecting with the Northeastern corner of Yellowstone
• Pompey's Pillar on the Yellowstone River named by William Clark
• The Little Bighorn Battlefield in Southern Montana
• Glacier National Park in Northern Montana
• Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.

    Here is how the process works--for us, that is. First, before a trip we have already done considerable research about what we might like to see along the way. We also get advice from other travelers. Then there are places we just stumble on by pure chance. But that is not what you would call planning. So, if we're on the way to Yellowstone we might take a short cut by leaving I-80 at Ogallala, NE and angling northwest on Rt. 26. Scotts Bluff, a major landmark on the Oregon Trail, is along that route. So are the related landmarks Courthouse Rock, Jailhouse Rock and Chimney Rock. Because the pioneers were the tourists of their day, they left their marks on the landscape. Thousands of wagons wheels cut grooves  in solid rock at Oregon Trail Ruts. But wheels are anonymous so pioneers carved their names or initials in Register Cliff just to brag they had been there. Near all of these is the Fort Laramie National Historical Site which looks nothing at all like forts in the movies. We would never drive 1,000 miles to see any of these things but as long as we're in the area....