Yellowstone - Queen of National Parks

Waving goodbye to our good luck moose, we headed off to Yellowstone.  It's a short drive north through the Grand Teton Park, with lovely views all the way.  Our approach led through Grand Teton, then into Yellowstone Park and out the western gate to West Yellowstone, where we had a reservation in an RV park.  We attempted to stop at Old Faithful on the way, but by that time it was the middle of the day, and there was literally no place to park a rig like ours.  The crowds were enormous.  So we continued on, vowing to return the next day for a visit.

Our reservation was at an RV camp a few miles north of West Yellowstone, located on National Forest land on the shores of a large lake.  It was a great location, out in the forest with miles of National Forest road all around.  There had been a grizzly with cubs in the area only a week earlier, so there were lots of alerts and we carried our bear spray faithfully when we went on bike rides in the area.  The only drawbacks were the access road, five miles of corduroy gravel, and the unreliable internet service.

The next morning we headed right off to visit Old Faithful and the surrounding geyser country.   We arrived quite early, which gave us a good parking place and a less crowded visitor center.  It seems that all the national parks have been seeing big increases in visitors this year, and the Yellowstone park is no exception.  The park rangers look very busy and traffic is a big issue.  But Old Faithful did not  disappoint, and the surrounding geyser country provided an endless variety of steaming, bubbling and exploding thermal sites.  We took lots of photos, but it's impossible to capture the variety and complexity of these sites.  We hiked the boardwalks around Old Faithful and wore ourselves out.

Yellowstone is a huge park, and we were hard pressed to cover even a small part of it.  The next day we toured further north, up toward Mammoth Springs.  We had to wend our way through all the construction, but the delays this time were minor.  We learned quickly that if we wanted to spot some wildlife, we just looked along the road for something that looked like a twenty-car pileup, and sure enough there would be critters.

It was as much fun watching the tourists following the critters around as the critters themselves.  Despite all the signs to the contrary, folks persisted in trying to get close to wildlife, even pretty dangerous critters like bears and buffalo.  We didn't see any actual injurious encounters, but the animals certainly had plenty of opportunities to squash, gore and/or trample tourists if they had wanted to.  Fortunately, for the most part the tourists were treated gently. 

We couldn't resist a stop at the Artist Paintpots along the way.  It was a great little geyser hike, with a lot of those colorful bubbling springs that are so common in the caldera.  There were great views and a variety of these displays.  Then a picnic at a small rock formation near the road and moving on to Mammoth Springs.  That end of the park has a large visitor center and the old army fort which was used to protect the park in the early days from poachers and illegal loggers and such. That army unit is credited with saving the park, and the history of their struggle is fascinating.  On the way back, we got our one and only look at a grizzly bear, with two cubs you can barely see in our photo.  There were plenty of people there running up to it to try and get eaten, but the bear was steadfastly ignoring them all.

The next day we got a late start, with a leisurely breakfast in a popular West Yellowstone bakery, followed by some serious internet time in the local library.  Then we were off again to the north side of the park, through the construction and then up to the Yellowstone Canyon area.  That spot is truly spectacular and lives up to its reputation as the most photographed site in Yellowstone.  Like everyone else, we took lots of pictures.  Then we drove off into the Lamar Valley, reputed to have lots of wildlife, particularly right at dusk.  We saw some buffalo and some pronghorn antelope, and had a pleasant conversation with a serious wolf-watcher who was following the pack that lived in the area.  But we weren't able to see them.  It got dark and started to rain, and we headed home.

The next day was a wildlife tour.  After a brief stop at Old Faithful, we went on the road toward the Hayden Valley, which was reputed to have lots of wildlife.  Sure enough, a crowd by the road indicated some bull elk.  How those critters ever get through the forest with all those antlers, I do not understand.  But they must do it.   We stopped for a picnic in a very nice uncrowded spot by a river with buffalo grazing in the distance and the ubiquitous fishermen casting their lines.  It was an idyllic scene, and just what we had gone on the road for.  

There were herds of buffalo all around, and no lack of photo opportunities.   We also saw a pair of coyotes.  These two were quite tourist-savvy, ignoring the dozens of photographers as they combed the grasslands for little treats.  You rarely see coyotes that are that indifferent to humans, but coyotes are smart critters, and they quickly figure out that we're no threat.  But that makes them a lot easier to see. 

Toward the end of the day, we took a very pleasant and peaceful little hike along the edge of Lake Yellowstone.  It was a lovely day, and a fitting windup to our visit.  We met one or two other travelers and had some good conversations, but for t he most part it was just sunny and quiet.  Ivy spotted this little fella emptying out his tunnels, popping his head in and out.  It took about twenty photos to catch him outside.  And there was a small flock of mergansers along the lakefront.  And there were lots of marmots, occupying the choicest real estate, sunny with a view of the lake, and chirping in outrage at their visitors.  After that it was the long drive back to the RV park.  A thoroughly satisfying visit, but one that leaves a whole lot of the park unseen.  We hope to return and spend more time at a later date. 

Visit to the Grand Tetons

So after many adventures we headed off to the Grand Teton National Park with our new tow car trailing obediently behind.  This time we opted to stay inside the park itself, and found a spot in a campground run by the Park Service.  These campgrounds have minimal services, with no hookups for water, electric, showers or the like. But since our rig is self contained, we are comfortable anyway.  With our senior discount we paid $10.00 a night for a lovely spot.

Well, once again the park is not overrated - there are stunning views everywhere and wildlife all around.  One of the most attractive parts of the park for us was the bike riding options that it provided.  They had just opened a new trail of about eight miles- completely off the road, and travels along the base of the Grand Tetons all the way, providing stunning views the total distance.  Each end of the trail has a visitor center and store, so you can get a well supported break, and the trail is mostly level and easy.  I had a great time riding it one afternoon, while Ivy watched a local artist demonstrate her techniques with poured watercolors at one of the visitors' centers.

Ivy and I  took another ride on the back roads near our campground.  These roads were open to traffic and had little or no shoulder, but the traffic levels were so light that riding was quite easy.  You had to keep an eye out for buffalo near the road, but we were able to complete our little journey quite easily.  We stopped to admire some longhorn cattle at a local ranch by the side of the road.   Ivy wanted to paint some of the scenery, so we loaded her paints into the saddlebags and headed off to a spot on Antelope Flat Road that provided great views.  She set to work.  I biked back to the campground to get the car so that I could pick her up after a few hours working outside.  After my afternoon nap, I drove the car back to pick her up, and just in time.  The afternoon thundershowers that are common in that area were just gathering and we scooped up her bike and the paints and retreated to our RV for an afternoon of rain.

Another treat was a ride on the aerial tram to the top of one of the mountains in the chain.  You have to go out of the park to the Teton Village, a resort community totally devoted to the Tetons, skiing, hiking etc.  But the views of the Snake River valley  from the top were lovely, and with the drop in temperature from the dramatic rise in altitude,  hot cocoa was in order.  A short hike around to admire the views and take some photos, and down we went.  

We discovered the National Museum of Wildlife Art, located just outside of Jackson Hole, on our way to our campground.  They had some great work by many of the most accomplished wildlife artists, including a painting of a buffalo by Robert Bateman, whom Ivy admires a lot for his paintings.  An accompanying video by Bateman talked about the creation of the painting and the techniques that he developed to do it. 

This visit, too, had its challenges.  The afternoon before we left, a sudden thunderstorm came up and lifted one of our canopy awnings on the RV off the ground, flipped it over the top of the motorhome, and snapped off and bent some struts.  After an hour or two of effort we were able to disassemble it and remove the remains from the RV and store the parts under and inside the RV for later repair.  Fortunately, an awning is not an absolutely vital component, so we will wait until parts and repair resources are available to fix the damage. 

The next morning, as we were pulling out heading for Yellowstone, we saw a small crowd gathering.  That's almost always a sign of wildlife, so we looked and sure enough, a pair of moose had wandered into our campground and were busily munching away on the local vegetation.  Ivy got a couple of pictures, though the male was down in the brush and harder to see.  A good omen for our travels, though, as we surely need some.

O, Lord, stuck in Ely again

So there we were.  No tow car, which had been dropped off at the junkyard,  and we were down to just the RV. It was pretty smelly, having been parked next to a raging car fire for an hour or so.  Ivy quickly deemed it too stinky to sleep in, so we rented a motel for the night – our first one on the road.

The next day was spent cleaning up as many messes as we could.  All of the clothing and bedding in the back of the RV had to be washed and the cabinets cleaned to get rid of the burned smell.  The bicycles, which had been hanging on the back of the RV, suffered relatively little damage and were still working fine, aside from cracked mirrors and some melted plastic around the derailleurs.  The tow bar was in good shape – it’s made out of solid steel – but parts of it were covered in melted plastic and/or soot, so a major cleanup had to take place.  Lots of other miscellaneous checking out and refitting was in order. 

The RV itself was in remarkably good shape, considering.  The rear tail light fixtures were pretty badly melted and would have to be replaced, but other than that there was little real damage.  We decided to move on to Twin Falls, Idaho, where the resources for repair were more extensive.  The RV was deemed livable again, so we stayed one more night in the same Ely  RV park we had used last time, and the next morning headed off for Twin Falls.  After an uneventful trip we landed in a full hookup site near Twin Falls and settled down to work on the recovery issue.

First and biggest issue was, we needed a new tow car.  We had very specific  requirements – manual transmission, curb weight under 3,000 lbs, good mechanical condition, able to be towed with a Stowmaster 5000 tow bar, which we had.  Those requirements narrowed things down a bunch, and most used car places were only able to come up with one or two possibilities.  We spent a lot of time and looked at a lot of cars, finally settling on a 2005 Hyundai Elantra that seemed to meet all our requirements. 

At  the same time, we were looking for some help fixing the lights and a few other minor items.  We found a local RV mechanic who was able to fix most of that stuff and that got the RV more or less back into shape.  So we had a new tow car and an RV.  But the towing problem still needed to be solved.  We moved on to Idaho Falls, where there were more extensive repair facilities, and managed to get the tow bar parts shipped from Vancouver, Washington and installed on our new toad.  So after a little more than a week, we had a functioning unit again, in time to head off for the Grand Teton National Park. 

Through all this, our major focus was the tow car and getting our whole menagerie reconstituted and back on the road again.  But it wasn’t all work.  We managed to do a bit of sightseeing as well, in some pretty scenic parts of Idaho.  We took a tour of the Teton Valley, a high mountain valley on the west side of the Grand Teton Park, in Idaho.  We got some great views of the Tetons from that side, though road access is pretty much non-existent.

We were camping for a short while in Rexburg, a town north of Idaho Falls.  It's a very interesting place, with mountains of new construction, almost all due to the local Brigham Young University campus, which has been built up here over the past years.  The countryside was lovely, mostly plains, but with dramatic thunderstorms moving through. and some interesting birds.  It's odd, somehow to see pelicans and ibis in Idaho.  I just didn't associate that kind of country with them, but there they are. 

We didn't really do justice to the southern Idaho area, because of our need to find a new car, etc.  We missed a lot of the Snake River gorge areas, but we got to see quite a bit between shopping expeditions and internet searches.  It's a beautiful part of the country, which we hope to visit again sometime.  But for now, we are resuming our trip with the new tow car, still pretty close to our original schedule but with some unforeseen changes. 

Great Basin National Park - Nevada - and then The Meltdown

There was another long and quite scenic drive to get to Baker, gateway to the park.  We stopped at the visitor's center and then drove right in to the park and were able to get a spot in the Baker Creek campground, which had a few pull-through sites for RV's.  The campground wasn't too full, and we found a spot that was pretty isolated and gave us a lot of privacy.  There were no hookups, but there was some shade to protect us from the heat, and the campsite was quite cheap and very beautiful.

After setting up the campsite, we took a short hike around and went to the visitors center to get tickets for the tour of Lehman Caves, a major highlight of the park.  The tours are limited in both number and size, so reservations are essential.  We got a spot the following afternoon.  Afternoon tours are always preferred, because the temperature in the caves is in the 50's, while midafternoon temps in the park were approaching 95 every day. 90 minutes below ground is a real treat, regardless.  In the evening we attended a ranger lecture on the basque sheepherders and their history in Nevada. 

The next morning we took a hike down the creek from our campsite to an area known as Grey Cliffs.  It was nice hike, with some great scenery, a bit of wildlife and a lot of heat.  Ivy was having trouble with the altitude, and so was I, so we decided to head down to the town of Baker for lunch.  "Town" probably overstates it a bit - there was a curio shop and restaurant/bar, and an unattended gas station.  But we had an enjoyable chat with the curio shop owners and one of the customers, a colorful lady driving a three-wheel Harley Davidson motorcycle around the country.  Her husband had died in a motorcycle accident and left her some money, so she decided to honor his memory with the tour.  It was a great bike, too, full of hidden compartments and surprises.

We had a pleasant lunch in the little restaurant, and then went back to take our Lehman Caves tour.  The caves are truly spectacular.  They are not really huge like some others, but they belong to the category of "decorated" caves, those with many elaborate variations on the usual stalactite/stalagmite configurations.  These include "cave bacon", "cave shields", and a truly baroque and dazzling variety of shapes, each different from the other. The late afternoon was spent as most are in that part of the country, lounging in the shade and waiting for human-scale temperatures to return.  There were lots of little squirrels and birds around the campsite to watch, and Ivy did some art work.   Then there was another ranger lecture, this time on wild horses.  A fascinating and quite timely and controversial topic.

The next morning we got up early and headed up to the top of the Wheeler Peak road.  At over 10,000 feet, this spot was the highest we'd been to, and both of us were a bit worried about the altitude, but it all went OK.  We took a walk around the campground and then a hike along one of the mountain trails leading up to the top of Wheeler Peak.  We only went about a mile in, but we had a great time, with a lot of birding and some great views of the peaks.  In  the afternoon we went down to the Grey Cliffs area again and Ivy painted awhile, while I wandered around and looked at stuff.

 The next morning dawned, sunny and fateful.  We packed up the RV and headed down the long grade from the park into Baker.  Well, we never seem to lack for adventures on our little tour.  Halfway down the grade, the Geo tow car caught fire and burned to the ground.  We’re still not sure why, but it probably had something to do with brakes.  Poor little Geo – died with its boots on.  Fortunately, because of the prevailing winds, the RV, which was firmly tethered to it, did not catch fire and suffered only minor damage.

It could have picked a better place to pull this particular stunt.  Imagine our situation.  Halfway between Baker, NV, a town with one restaurant, one curio store and a self-serve gas station, and the Great Basin National Park, out in the middle of the desert, with no pullouts and no cell phone or any other phone service.  We stopped in the middle of the road and waited with the Geo burning merrily.  There was nothing to be done at this point, and we were worried that the RV, still attached by multiple cables and towbars, would be involved in any explosion that ensued.  A kind visitor eventually came by – there isn’t much traffic out there – and, seeing our plight, drove into town to get help.  They sent out the BLM people with a small fire truck.

Well, it turns out that the BLM people are not authorized to work on car fires, only brush fires on the surrounding desert, so the truck pulled over to the side of the road at a safe distance and waited for our Geo to explode and start a brush fire so they could go to work.  In the meantime, we were stopping traffic and concern was building.  A park employee came by and got on the radio to HQ.  Eventually a larger fire truck from the direction of Baker showed up.  There were quite a few people there by this time, and they all ran around for awhile, but it turned out that the truck’s water system wasn’t working somehow and they couldn’t put any water on the fire.

So, another ten or fifteen minutes later, a third truck showed up, this one with both water and permission and the means to employ it.  The fire was brought under control while the bigger fire truck went back to get more water.  Then it came back and really drowned the blaze, then they put tons of foam on it and finally put the whole thing completely out.  The picture shows the remains of our poor Geo, totally gutted.  The radiator was a pool of metal on the highway, the tires melted down to radial fibers – it’s pretty impressive what a car fire can do.

Of course, to file a report on the incident, we had to get a Nevada Highway Patrol Officer from Ely, NV, over 60 miles away.  That took awhile.  Then there was a call to find somebody to pick up the carcass – this was no ordinary tow job, and it was a Saturday out in the desert.  Eventually, someone from Ely  agreed to come, at an hour and a half there, an  hour and a half back again, and maybe a half hour to clean up the mess.

But Ivy and I are hale and hearty, although beginning to doubt our travel karma in a big way.  Our RV survived remarkably well, apparently because the wind was blowing in the right direction.  We’re now set up in a motel in Ely and working on cleaning up the RV and contacting all the insurance, blah, blah.  But we are having to re-engineer the trip a bit, and we need to settle the issue of a new tow-car.