Yellowstone National Park

Hello from Montana, Big Sky Country.
We departed the Colorado ski fields and headed north to Wyoming, stopped in Cheyenne for a look around and then meandered through the state to finally arrive at Yellowstone National Park.  We spent a night in Cody and the Beartooth Highway opened up so we were able to get up to the north east entrance outside of Cooke City.  There was a lot of snow on the way...serious amounts of snow.  We were wondering how much we'd be able to do in the park with that much snow around, but as you'll see, as we dropped back down in elevation there was less snow.

Mammoth campground, in the northeast area of the park, was the only campground open when we arrived and we stayed there.  It was a fairly central place for us and allowed us to make our daily excursions either south or east. 

The scenery here was just fantastic, you need to see it.  We were lucky to experience about 3 seasons in the 4 days we spent in the park.  Phil and Chris were wearing shorts in Cody, Wyoming, and were again in t-shirts when we left the park.  During our stay however, we had a day and night of snow, and cold temperatures down to 17 F (-8 C).  It may have even been colder at night, but we don't want to know about that.  The little furnace in the RV worked hard.

Wildlife spotting is fun here.  There are over 3000 bison in the park and we saw hundreds most days.

 As I mentioned, we experienced a few seasons.

There are hundreds or maybe thousands of elk in the park too, but they are in smaller groups and generally in the trees a bit more than the bison.  Here is a one with the antlers growing again.

There was a group of elk that spent a lot of time around the campground, they see so many people and cars that it doesn't bother them too much.

There are antelope...

Actually, this is the wrong antelope photo.  Notice the fence line?  There aren't fences in yellowstone.

In summer, over 6600 cars visit Yellowstone a day.  Yes, a day.  We can't imagine the traffic conjestion...look at the problems we had now, when only some of the roads and entrances were open!

We have more photos and stories, but need to take a little internet break.  Stay tuned for part II.