Yellowstone is made to to be a drive through park. I wonder if the designers planned it that way so the not-so-interested would just drive through and leave the wilderness for them. Friday, we did just that. We made the driving loop that took around 9 hours and saw all the major sites Yellowstone is known for. In hind site, it wasn't unlike any other long driving day coming out here.
We started first at the only place open on the north side of the Yellowstone canyon. It was by far the best place of all the ones we walked to see on Wednesday. We continued on to see Tower falls and make the 1.5 mile hike to the base. Guess what, it was closed. Arghh! Shortly thereafter, we saw a large elk, 13 points, and moved on to the northern end to see mamoth spring and the huge calcite city it has made. It was very interesting, but it was one of the few places that made it difficult for RV's to park. We visited several other thermal sites including Glory Pond (see the picture) and of course Old Faithful. My excellent planning skills were evident with OF as we parked, walked up, sat on front row seats, and OF did its thing 1 minute later.
We left Yellowstone and went to the Flagg Ranch Resort to park our RV. It is just two miles south of the Yellowstone border. It had no wifi. Lincoln asked how it could be a "resort" and have no internet. I have to agree.
We saw most of the wildlife we wanted but were a little sad because no moose came our way.
2 comments:
You wondered about the design of Yellowstone as being made for being a "drive through" park with the wilderness of it left alone.
In part...
Yellowstone was founded in 1872, and the road system was in place in an approximation of its current design well before cars came into the park. It was designed, however, with wealthy tourists in mind - for stagecoach travel on what was known as the Grand Tour.
Cars came in the 1910s along with the NPS - who encouraged large traffic into the parks to build park advocates.
As more cars came, fewer areas were developed because more ground could be covered in a day. Eventually, the idea of park planners in what was known as the Mission 66 plan was to congregate large numbers of people in fewer and fewer areas.
That's in part why you see so relatively few people in Yellowstone's backcountry and absurdly many people in the campgrounds and places like Old Faithful. Over 95% of the park is undeveloped; well over 90% of visitors (or so I hear) never go into backcountry.
And, people don't realize some of the most spectacular sights in Yellowstone aren't even on trails in backcountry, especially many of the waterfalls (some of them only recently discovered in the past 20 years). There is a "hidden Yellowstone" that is even more spectacular in many cases than what is along the roads.
Take care and thanks for sharing,
Jim
James planning skills are excellent as he timed old faithful and look at the great weather your having. How do you do it James? I guess the skills learned from Michele and Linda are really coming in handy. I wonder if you will go over budget with Michele not present to keep costs down. Good luck..
DAF
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