David & Donna's Great Adventure: Grand Tetons & Yellowstone Natl Parks

Saturday, May 20, 2023

Grand Tetons & Yellowstone Natl Parks

Satire, but it gives you an idea of Yellowstone's lower loop road

Settled in enough to start making our way out into the parks. We're still a little early in the season and combined with a heavy snow over the winter, may facilities and services aren't up and running, yet. Most should be up and running by Memorial Day weekend.

First trip out was Wednesday afternoon in the Grand Tetons. We really went for lunch at Signal Mountain Lodge area. To save time waiting in line, we ate at the bar. One of the bartenders told us to go down to the boat ramp for a better view. We did. Cloudy & light rain, but it made for dramatic pictures. More snow than we're used to seeing this time of year. Jenny Lake isn't frozen nor was Jackson Lake. Jackson Lake remains very low.

Friday was a trip out to the Old Faithful basin to shop for a new jacket to replace one of my jackets. My Smokey Mountain NP jacket was wearing thin after 12 years of use. I wanted a new one with a national park's name on it. Jackets are few and far between in the gift shops, but we managed to snag one with Yellowstone NP (YNP) on it plus get a replacement shirt for Donna's Mt St Helens t-shirt (a light, 3/4 long sleeve t-shirt).

The trip up into YNP was great until we started west from West Thumb basin to Old Faithful. The trip from YNP's south entrance along Lewis River's gorge area was great. Heavy snow remains in the area in heavily forested areas. Unfortunately, the great views from the truck couldn't be captured as the piles from snow plowing that were too tall to see over, and I didn't come prepared to climb those little snow mountains. Lewis Falls was running at high level but the pull overs are blocked with construction equipment as it appears they're working on a new new bridge. Traffic control there was by a signal light when one-lane traffic was in operation.

The Loop Road appeared just beat up by winter and some rough areas existed and there was the occasional frost heave to pass over. Head west to Old Faithful and things got interesting fast. Several miles on two lane, gravel road. An additional 5+ miles of single lane where some sections the out-of-use lane was being dug up as if a new base was planned. Get stopped here while you're waiting for opposing traffic to pass & you'll be waiting awhile.

Old Faithful area busy, but not too crowded. Daytime temps were warm. Talked with a ranger and decided to make it a longer day and travel clockwise from Old Faithful up to Norris Basin, over to Canyon and back south to Jackson. Missed most of the construction and got some great views and more snow that we anticipated.

First up was Gibbon Falls. The falls here run over the edge of the caldera. The parking and trails are excellent and handicap accessible. It just aesthetically pleasing giving how long Donna & I have set in stopped traffic as one lane of traffic made it by the area as the area and road was rebuilt. Seems all that sitting there going nowhere was worth it. We did manage to come across a coupled of bison traveling south along this section of highway (south of Madison Junction). Guess they like traveling by roads, too. We didn't stop for pictures. It's tourist tipping season, so as soon as it was safe to drive by, we went! Grand Prismatic parking lot jammed as were the sides of the road.

Norris basin was closed. We turned east here and headed over to Canyon. This was our heaviest snow area we traveled through. The road is open, but picnic areas and side loops still had significant snow on them. We decided to try to drive the south rim of the canyon. That road is open as is north rim drive. Only the brink of the upper falls was closed (due to snow). Artist Point was open, so I got my traditional pictures of Lower Falls.

2+ hours later and we're back in Jackson - our day trip complete. Pictures and a video below. Thanks for dropping by and checking on us, David