Montana road trip: Yellowstone

I'm from California where Yosemite is our go-to national park, and Half Dome and the valley surrounding it are beautiful. But it's really just a drop in the bucket compared to Yellowstone. The park is massive, covering over 2 million square acres, and stretching into Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. It could actually be its own state and is larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined. And it's beauty is overwhelming. I knew that it would be spectacular but I wasn't prepared for it to take my breath away.

Here are a few highlights from our day in Yellowstone:


Fly-fishing
As we drove into the park from Bozeman, we followed the Gallatin river. My husband loves to fly-fish and he brought his rod so we stopped several times along the way. The river is higher than usual this year so the fishing wasn't good but this wasn't about catching a fish. It was about getting out on the river.

Elk
A lone Elk grazing in a meadow was our first wildlife spotting in the park. We were so excited we started screaming. My husband pulled the car to the side of the road, and the kids and I got out and watched in wonderment. The animal was so peaceful--completely oblivious to us. She gave us quite a show as she walked across the river.

Elk are the most abundant large mammal found in Yellowstone; paleontological evidence confirms their continuous presence for at least 1,000 years. More than 30,000 elk from 7-8 different herds summer in Yellowstone and you're guaranteed to see one on a visit.

Later, we saw a coyote, an osprey, and lots of bison.

Old Faithful
It's the most most famous attraction in the park. We had to see it and so we followed the traffic that was inching down the road into a giant parking lot, a sea of RVs. We lucked out because we arrived at 2 p.m., and the sign in the visitor center said Old Faithful was tentatively scheduled to blow at 2:28 p.m.
Hundreds, no thousands of people, were gathered around Old Faithful's steamy hole. Everyone had their cameras and iPhones ready to get the shot. A few splashes of boiling water gurgled out. There were gasps all around. "Is she going to erupt?" And one of the splashes grew into a tall spray that got taller and taller.

It only lasted about two minutes. Reports from people around us who had seen the eruption before told us that this was a shorter show than usual and the spray wasn't quite as tall as it usually gets. But we didn't mind. We had seen Old Faithful.




Mammoth Hot Springs
As you walk through these steamy limestone terraces, you feel as if you're on the moon—or some other planet. The springs are different from the other thermal areas in the park. These travertine formations grow faster than sinter formations because limestone is soft. As the hot water bubbles to the surface, the limestone dissolves, covering the area in white chalky stuff.

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