Sunday, Monday – Growing Gills

I left the Hotel Sunday morning, gassed up and picked up some grub from the Albertsons supermarket in Jackson Hole. I was able reserve a campsite for two nights inside Yellowstone so I needed some camp food. There was a drizzling rain as I headed North to the Tetons.

I had to grab some pics of downtown Jackson Hole…

By the time I entered Grand Tetons NP it was a steady rain and clouds hung low.

As I passed Jackson Lake more clouds rolled in…

The rest of the pics from the Tetons look like this…

Perhaps Yellowstone would bring better visibility.

Yellowstone Lake, still showing some ice.

Yellowstone’s year-round residents are probably enjoying the weather more than I am.

You begin to smell the rotting egg smell of the sulfur pots long before you can see them.

My campground was central to the park, on the east side.  Canyon Village sits at the top of the “Grand Canyon of Yellowstone”.  When I reached the giants falls that welcome you to the area the camera had begin to freeze up.  I was having a difficult time keeping the lens clear and the closing mechanism was hanging.  I had to squeeze the camera body in just the right locations to get the cover to close over the lens.

These were the best I could get…

I reached the campground and ended up going to the wrong registration area.  I was standing at the reception desk for the cottages, not the campground.  Just for the hell of it I asked if they had any available for that night.  “Negative”, said the clerk.  “We do have some available tomorrow night”, he added.  Knowing that the forecast had predicted more of the same for Monday I opted to reserve the cabin.  This would give me a place to dry everything out.

I then made my way over the the actual campground check-in and gathered my site and instructions.

I setup and immediately made dinner.  It’s amazing how such a simple meal can taste so freakin good when you have been riding in crappy weather all day long.  Some Knorr “Sides” packages of noodles and coffee tasted like a 5-star meal.

Bears had been seen in the area lately and because I was in a tent and had nowhere to store the stuff that attracts bears (unless I wanted them doing a Samsonite commercial with the side cases) I needed to store all my food, cooking utensils and shower items (soap, toothpaste, deodorant) inside one of the campgrounds steel “bear boxes”.

I crawled into the tent early, around 6 p.m., and read until I fell asleep.  I only woke a couple times during the night to heavy rain on the fly.

Monday started the same way, wet.  I packed everthing up knowing that tonight I’d have a cottage to lay it all back out to dry.

One the the campers next to me, hauling a fifth wheel 25 footer started to tell me about their ride into the park from the Northeast.  They had come across Beartooth Pass where temps were below freezing and the road was iced in places.  So much for that route.  I would have to leave out the East entrance and head toward Cody instead.

Today I would make the northern loop up to Mammoth Hot Springs and back down to Canyon Village, cutting across the center of the park from Norris.  The weather was identical to yesterday, cold and wet.  The main difference was the depth of the snow.  The northern mountain pass still had a few feet at the sides of the road.

Mammoth Hot Springs sits at the top of Yellowstone.  The animals roam freely in the town center.

The pic below shows the self seeding ability of the forest after a fire destroys it.  The pine cones of the lodge pole pines are held together with a strong glue that comes apart only during a fire.  Fire is actually part of the regeneration process.  Without it, there would not be any new trees.

Every stream I passed was at capacity.  A week of rain will do that, I guess.

Once back to Canyon Village I checked into the HEATED cottage and setup camp.

I cranked the heat and went to get some dinner at the cafeteria.  Upon my return everthing was dry so I re-packed it all and went to bed.  Tomorrrow I was going in search of the Sun.

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