In Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone was the first National Park in the world when it was designated in 1872. The area, on top of the Yellowstone supervolcano has everything: mountains, plains and meadows, abundant wildlife (including bison, grizzlies, wolves, elk…), a huge lake, rivers, a canyon and plenty of volcanic features. Yellowstone last super eruption was 640,000 years ago, the continuous volcanic activity transforms the landscape so it’s impossible to see a volcano shape. They call the ‘caldera’ the crater area with geothermal features, it means the ‘cooking pot’ in Spanish.
On our first day we cover the north west of the park which has beautiful geysers and springs. We then drive the Lamar valley to the East to try and spot wolves at sunset but we see none. We however see a massive bull elk, a hunter’s dream with fully grown antlers. Next morning we get up at five and drive back to the Lamar valley to see a pack of wolves traveling along the river. The 5 or 6 wolves are far but they amaze us. They come across a male bison, go around it and keep going. There seems to be juveniles playing around. It was worth the short night. Driving the Eastern part of the park we see the canyon and the lake.
After sleeping in prime grizzly habitat without seeing one we head to the main area of the park, where most of the geysers are. The park has 500 of the 900 geysers in the world. We see the famous Old Faithful, an easy one to experience as it erupts every 90 minutes on average. Most of the others are unpredictable. In the end it took us three long days to cover Yellowstone, and it’s without doing any hikes!
