YELLOW STONE (3rd Jun to 5th Jun)We planned our visit to this park a month back and booked Madison Hotel - This is a historic hotel built with wood. On the night of reaching yellow stone, we reached the hotel around 2 a.m since we had earlier missed our flight from Phoenix to Salt Lake City. They had kept the back door open just for us and informed us of the secret place where they had placed our room keys. The hotel folks were very helpful and friendly and I loved our stay here. The hotel is very close to West YellowStone entrance and is in a beautiful small village. We throughly enjoyed our stay here as much as we enjoyed our visit to Yellow Stone.
The next morning, we visited Yellow stone national park. It is one of the most beautiful national park I have ever visited. It is rich in diverse beauty - It had extraordinary Geysers, Hot Springs, Scenic mountains, lakes and good extent of wild life with Grizzly bears, Wolves, Elks, Bison. It also has a Grand Canyon, which we couldn't see since the roads were closed for reconstruction.
NATURE & WILDLIFE
At the first sight of Yellow Stone, I was thrilled at the beauty I saw. A beautiful flowing river in the middle of a lush green forest next to snow capped mountains. I have always imagined this scene & it was right in front of me. I thought it was a great beginning for my 3 day visit to this park. Immediately, I got lucky! At far sight, I spotted couple of wolves running into the forest.
This place has hugeee valleys - Lamar & Hayden. We visited Lamar valley which is the northern most part of this national park. Lamar valley is very rich in wildlife and in the hope of spotting them, we went there close to sunset. It was a long drive to the valley and along the way, we spotted lots of Bison & Elk. All the way, I was hoping for a Bear or a Wolf to cross the road! :) We also saw many wildlife enthusiasts, waiting for hours to spot Bears & Wolves. Most of them carried best in world class binoculars for wildlife spotting. We just believed our naked eyes. I know this is not the best practice. But, I don't own any of those. Anyway, coming back to what exactly I want to say, we were struck by luck. Next to the road, we saw an Elk & a Wolf fighting. A lone wolf tried to attack an Elk. The Elk knowing that only a pack of wolf can be of threat to it, started to charge the wolf. It was an enthralling experience to me. Check out the short video on this (Quality is not good!)
By now, the night had fallen and we started our way back to our hotel. We crossed a high altitude pass which was covered with snow only a week back. The road had been cleared and both the sides were covered with decently high snow walls. Suddenly, the weather got worse and it started snowing. Driving through the snow became difficult and were not sure if our Murano could handle it well. Jomy drove very cautiously at 10 Mph and managed to get out of the pass safely. If only the snowfall had been heavier, we would have got stuck in the pass with no help!
From that night, for the next 2 days, the weather was cloudy. Now & then, sun rays peeked between the clouds and it brought some smile on our face. But, the place was gorgeous and never missed to allure me with its charm. There were several beautiful lakes inside the park and unarguably, Yellowstone Lake was the best. It measures about 135 Sq miles! As the end of winter season brought out sun, we also saw a lake which finally gave up its frozen state.
GEYSERS & HOTSPRINGS
An irresistible attraction of this place is its Stunningly coloured Geysers, Bubbling Mudpots, Hissing Fumaroles & Hot Springs. I have never seen this kind of beauty and it was glorious. This place comprises of more than 10,000 thermal features and in fact, it is about two-third of what is found in the world. The Geyser basins were spread through out the park and offered a great exploration of geothermal features.
The thermal features are at such high temperature that only thermophilic bacterial & algae growth are possible. There were large hot pools which radiated brilliant colors of deep blue & emerald green. The fine particles of silica settled in the water and the intensity of sun rays produced baby blue to deep blue colors. Some of them have orange or yellow colored outline formed by sulphur settlement. I could see other colors like black, dark green which were primarily formed by the algae & bacteria growth.
Many of the geysers here were small, just sputtering & splashing hot water to a height of 10 to 15 feet. It was said that their erupting times are unpredictable. Some of the geysers even have stopped erupting or dead due to human vandalism. Earlier, visitors used to throw coins onto geysers like wishing wells and this had blocked vents of the geysers. Some of the geysers, still managed to find new vents and they are still alive!
There are few Grand geysers which are huge and erupts really high. One of them erupts at regular intervals of 45 to 90mins and is accordingly named as "Old faithful". This can erupt upto a height of 100 feet or so. I watched this erupting continuously for more than 4 minutes. I have edited 4 mins video to 40 sec video. Check it out.
Geothermal features here were splendid, eye-catching and radiant. I was mesmerized by this overwhelming beauty. You can see some of their pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/rshanthi/YellowStoneGrandTeton
GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK (6th Jun)
After spending 3 full days at Yellow Stone, we visited Grand Teton national park for a day. In winter, the mountains of Grand Teton is very popular for Skiing. We were here at the end of winter, but the mountains were still full of snow. Large population of Moose is found here and we were informed that it is relatively easy to spot them in this park. I think we had ran out of all our luck - We did not find any. We spent most of the day driving the entire stretch of this amazingly beautiful park.
The same evening, from Grand Teton we drove back to Salt Lake City, to catch our flight to Buffalo, to see the famous Niagara Falls. Check my next posting for rest of my trip update...
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