Yellowstone 2011
Our trip to Yellowstone began with two marathon days of travel. The fam met me in the Orlando following a 3 day trip which finished just after noon. They were pretty rushed to get to the airport, as Reb was finishing up swimming lessons, and they motored into Orlando to begin our Pladventcher. (Pletch+adventure).
As we would find out, travelling on this weekend would be a challenge. We broke a couple of our usual rules of non-revenue travel including travelling on Fridays, trying for flights in the afternoon, and booking on flights which are projected at maximum capacity. As we sat waiting for the first flight opportunity, it became clear that we would be in for a long day. The ops agents were “buying” people off of that flight since it was oversold. We found some comfortable chairs, and settled in for the wait. Dylan and Ryan were oblivious to any wait, since their hours of sitting consisted of iPod touch activities, which couldn’t make them any happier.
We were luckier on the next flight. It appeared as though we would be required to split up our family to get to Salt Lake City on a couple of different flights. However, after both boys had been issued boarding passes, and I was heading for the cockpit, Rebecca and Rachel came running for the door at the very last minute . This also happened on our next flight in Phoenix, and we experienced anoher magical moment as a Southwest employee when the operations agents can seemingly pull the last 4 seats out of thin air. We were all relieved to get on the flight, and be travelling together. It was a long one to Phoenix, especially since I was required to sit in the cockpit. Total cockpit time for this marathon travel day would be in excess of 12 hours. About 6 hours for me as a working member of a revenue flight, and 6 hours jump seating.
Once we made the long flight to Phoenix, we had to try for a couple of flights again, but gladly got on our second try. Again, we barely squeezed on, again blessedly receiving the last 4 seats for my family, and me in the cockpit. Luckily the Phoenix to Salt Lake flight was much shorter, and I have never been happier to see the lights of Salt Lake City, as I was almost too tired to speak. By the time I got to SLC, I had been awake for 21 hours. I guess the trials of non revenue travel are worth it to offset the cost of a family vacation for 5 and the associated cost of air travel.
In Salt Lake, we hopped on the crew van and stayed at the crew hotel at a great rate. It was a relief for everyone to finally hit the rack for some much deserved sleep time.
Day 2
I got up early as everyone slept to take the shuttle back to the airport to get our rental car. I was happily surprised to get a sweet ride for our journey. We scored a brand new Toyota Sienna with all the bells and whistles, ensuring the comfort of our travelers on our long journey. The car came with 23 total miles, and new car smell. We would be travelling in style and comfort, and as we would soon find out, would need all of the comfort the vehicle would afford. The kids were very happy to take their usual mini van stations, and felt right at home for the ride.
We went down to the hotel café for a breakfast buffet to fill up our tanks for the long ride ahead. This place had a very cool contraption which the kids loved. It was an automatic pancake maker. Just push the button, and hold your plate on the end, and a pancake was poured, cooked, and spit out the rollers on the end of the device. A new breakfast favorite for the Pletch kids.
Coming from Florida, we knew we would need some cooler temperature apparel than we were used to this time of year, so we stopped by a local thrift shop to load up on some gear.
We finally got on the road, but very briefly, since passing through Park City, we just had to stop and say hello to our dear friend, Mark Sidlow.
Now the marathon began. An airline friend had recommended a more scenic route to West Yellowstone, and he was right, however, it tacked on some hours to the drive. He recommended a route up I-89 through Evanston, and up through the Salt River Pass (elev. 7616) The views were remarkable, and we were all thrilled to see the beautiful peaks still completely capped with snow. Most of our drive was through agricultural valley lands bordered by the strikingly beautiful mountain range. Rebecca was enjoying a slightly annoying little time passing event, as she would occasionally bust out a few stanzas of “Home on the Range” Rachel started a wildlife sighting log, and before the day was done we had spotted roadside porcupine, prong horn antelope, deer and once in West Yellowstone, bison.
The route traversed through Utah, Wyoming briefly and back and forth across the Idaho border of Wyoming. A long, but very scenic drive, especially as we skirted the shores of Pallisades Resevoir in Idaho.
In Afton, we had to stop at the Red Baron drive in, truly a little slice of Americana, getting hamburgers and milk shakes. All that was missing was our server rolling up on skates. A bit of a vintage feel here in mid America.
In another town we passed through, Woodruff, WY we got a dose of some true Western atmosphere. It is a cattle town, and in one roadside ranch pen we observed all bulls. That was surprising until we saw a sign advertising this month’s “Testicle Festival.” We would sadly miss this grand event replete with kids rodeo: barrels, steer riding, sheep riding, pig chase, rabbits, stick horse, and ranch calf roping. Rocky Mt. Oyster Fry all evening!!
We finally arrived in West Yellowstone, and went to meet our host, Dave. His house is a 4 bedroom cabin in Yellowstone Village, just outside of town, and the Western entrance to the park. Yellowstone Village is a small lakeside community which backs up to a field hosting a herd of buffalo, that also frequently meander through the yards of the neighborhood. Driving up the access road, we also stopped to watch a red fox stalking his quarry, slowly advancing on some scrub bush and finally bounding in the air to pounce on a small rodent. An authentic National Geographic moment. As we all became unraveled due to road fatigue, it was time to retire to our mountain genre beds made of knotty pine with big comfy mattresses.
June 12, 2011
Today was our first day in Yellowstone Park. Although we didn’t get too early of a start, we sure packed in a full day of activities. We traversed one of the complete loops in the park, starting at the West Yellowstone entrance and continued in a counter clockwise route, passing the Geyser basins, Old Faithful and Yellowstone Lake. Within minutes of entering the park, we had our first nature sighting, it was a big herd of buffalo. That set the tone for the entire day, as we continually saw bison, and one of the herds had about 6 or 7 babies playfully bounding through the meadow. We hit most of the geyser viewing areas in the Lower, Midway, and Biscuit geyser basins. Of course, Old Faithful was spectacular, and we were able to view two eruptions since Ryan and Rachel were working on their Junior Ranger qualification, and needed to time the length of one eruption in order to predict the time of the next geyser eruption. Their prediction coincided with the official Ranger prediction to the minute. Junior Rangers in the making!
Rachel loved the Sapphire Pool which was a beautiful deep blue hue. I am amazed at the geothermal features of the park, which may have 6 or 7 features on each hiking loop, being fumaroles, mudpots, hot springs, vents, and geysers. They are scenic and spectacular, yet true curiosities. Interestingly, each one being starkly different from the other, although they coexist within short distances from one another. Some are brewing, some are spitting, some are steaming, and some are bubbling, but all provide a visual festival to behold.
For our Florida departure, we luckily packed accordingly, and reaped the benefits of our cold weather gear today. It was mostly cloudy all day, with brief periods of drizzle, the temps hovering in the mid 40s to mid 50s. The crew acclaimated to the weather surprisingly well, especially since we have been having hot 90+ degree weather in Florida. The kids were very excited to find ample snow patches on the higher elevations to traverse through, make snow balls and play in. This time of year seems optimal to visit the Park, since there is still snow on the ground in some areas although it is not too cold, and the crowds have not truly arrived for the summer. Additionally, the animals seem to be out and about as the cooler spring temperatures are slowly giving in to warmer summer temperatures.
As our travels continued, the quality of our nature sightings also ramped up. At the Fisherman’s Bridge on the Yellowstone River, we viewed a ranger presentation on cutthroat trout. After the presentation, the ranger told us to look for some muskrats across the river, and we spotted a beaver, and then the muskrat. The bison sightings continued, and were frequent and exciting, sometimes they stopped traffic as they crossed the road. At the West Thumb pull off, we saw our first elk, as a herd was grazing right alongside the parking area. Our highlight was in the Hayden Valley where we observed two black bear cubs frolicking on a distant snow bank, and within a short time, their mother lumbered out to supervise the cubs’ antics.
Realizing we had spent about 9 hours of sightseeing in the park, we decided to head back to town, still about an hour away. After arriving in West Yellowstone, we had a great dinner at the Wild West Pizzeria, then made a quick retreat back to our cabin for a well deserved night of sleep.
June 13, 2011
Our well deserved night’s sleep was a short one. We rousted the troops this morning very early to get to the park for the best wildlife viewing. Since that takes place early, we were driving past the “Welcome to Yellowstone” sign at 7:00 am. It was a foggy morning, with very limited visibility. However, we felt optimistic that as we proceeded to our destination in the park that the heat of the morning sun would burn off the fog.
Today’s itinerary was brought to you by Ryan and Rebecca. They laid out our full day’s plan, and Rebecca provided both navigation and narration throughout our journey of Yellowstone. Our first destination was to be the Lamar Valley. The guide books do not mention this area as a significant point of interest, however, we heard from a few locals that it is a great wildlife viewing area. Our access to the park is through the West entrance from our home base of West Yellowstone, and the Lamar Valley is in the upper Northeast quadrant of the park. It was a couple hour drive to the valley, and it was ample time for the visibility to clear and the fog to lift. Having arrived so early in the park, we had little traffic congestion except for the occasional “buffalo jam” where the very abundant bison occasionally block the road on their continual journey, foraging the spring grasses of the park.
Our route took us East through Madison, then Northeast through Canyon Village and over the Dunraven Pass (elev. 8859’). On the ascent up to the Pass, the snow pack oftentimes was higher than our vehicle, and the views from the overlooks were spectacular. The peak of our climb was Mount Washburn, and we began our descent down to the Tower Falls.
We stopped to check out the view of Tower Falls, and hiked to the brink, however, the end of the trail had been washed out, but this did not preclude a great hike with majestic views of a beautiful waterfall.
As we got back on the road, we passed Roosevelt Lodge, and then took the Easbound turn into the Lamar Valley area.
We have figured out the best method to capture views of the abundant wildlife is to “view poach.” That means when there is a couple of cars alongside the road with binocular and camera toting tourists, immediately pull over to see what the commotion is all about. Our first poach this morning gave us a surprise: badgers. It was an opportunity to employ the binoculars which we purchased at the Tower Falls area. Here we observed a couple of badgers playing before a boulder in the middle of a field. Their playful games drew quite a crowd of observers and photographers with bazooka length telephoto lenses.
We pressed on to the Lamar Valley, continuing our descent down, down, down into the dell. At the next poached view, we observed a couple of herds of elk in the grassland in the valley below.
Finally arriving at our destination, we pulled off behind a truck of wildlife spectators, and before we had a chance to ask what the subject was, the passenger got out to silently mouth, “black bear!” This was a very exciting moment for us all, as up the hill a black bear was carrying some carcass of a large rodent it had killed. We watched the bear for a short while as it trudged up the ridge and passed over the top out of view.
The bison views have become so abundant that they almost feel commonplace, however, our next sight was of elk and antelope. We had almost gotten to the end of Lamar Valley when we decided to pull off the side of the road in the Slough Creek area for a side hike. We had seen some antelope alongside the road, and decided to head to the South over a sagebrush hill that ended at the Lamar river. It was a nice little hike, and we liked it so much, we decided to cross the road in order to hike up the peak on the other side. That was a spectacular climb, and at the top we enjoyed a 360 degree panorama of the Lamar Valley, Slough Creek, and the snow filled mountains bordering our horizon. Over the Slough Creek, we saw a bald eagle circling. God Bless America!
Being time for lunch, we hiked back down the hill and took the access road northbound bordering Slough Creek. As we ate our sandwiches, a family told us they had seen a black bear in the area that Dylan and Ryan had just hiked into. We hurriedly got them back to the car as a spooked antelope snorted by us. All of a sudden, on the opposite side of the road, while watching the very fidgety antelope, Ryan called out, “black bear!” Sure enough, we were able to watch another black bear this morning as he transited right by us and over an adjoining ridge.
We were feeling pretty fortunate as wildlife viewers, and decided to get back on to the aggressive itinerary which Reb and Ry had planned so well. That meant we would be going back up over the Dunraven Pass road, on the way back to Canyon. We took in another fortunate viewing of a female big horn sheep, and the kids also spotted a deer laying in the shade of a big pine tree.
On the way up the hill, we got stuck in a serious wildlife jam with cars pulling off the side of the road left and right. Since it was on a guardrail protected hill, there were minimal shoulders, meaning the cars basically were stopping on the road. As we got out, to ask, we were told a grizzly was on the creek below. We quickly observed the great beast in all his glory, reclining beneath a log, in his robe of brown hair, lazily lounging the afternoon away.
At the Canyon area, we observed the pristine views of the Lower and Upper Falls, and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. All of these views were breathtaking, clearly illustrating why this area of marvel is truly a national treasure.
With such an early start, at this point, we had been touring the park for a good 9+ hours, and that is about the time that we all become somewhat unraveled. However, not a family to stray from such a well crafted schedule, we had one more stop on the list, the Artist’s Paint Pots. In order to make the 45 minute drive to this site, and then onto dinner, the bribe of the day was for $10.00 in souvenir credits to be granted if the rest of the afternoon was complaint free, and met with enthusiasm. This is not an officially sanctioned parenting technique, however, in this case it proved effective, and got us through the Paint Pot hikes, another geo thermal area and into the souvenir shops, and to dinner in the Old Town Café for some steaks and buffalo burgers.
The glorious feature of a early start is an early end, and we were happy for a night of relaxation at Uncle Dave’s Cabin.
June 14, 2011
Having functioned in a semi-dehydrated state of sleep depravation for the last 3 days, we took a more leisurely start to the day today. We started the day at a local Pancake house called 3 Bears, where Ryan fully enjoyed the newfound taste of boysenberry syrup. Rebecca and I can also attest to the very pleasing taste of the blueberry buckwheat pancakes. Having spent a significant portion of yesterday viewing wildlife, the only major attraction on our itinerary today was Mammoth Hot Springs. Even though we did not intend to target the wildlife sightings, they were served up to us in spectacular Yellowstone style. Upon first entering the park, there was a significant “wildlife jam”, and on our way past the spectators, we got a great view of 2 bald eagles across the river and up the ridge. Of course, there were ample views of bison, and at one point, the bison stopped traffic as a small herd ambled down the double yellow line of the road impeding flow in both directions. However, our greatest view, possibly of the entire week came in a valley about 7 miles before our destination of Mammoth Hot Springs. In a meadow, we stopped to poach a view, and when we inquired, were told a grizzly was in the field. We quickly pulled over, broke out the binoculars, and caught the view. Adjacent to a snow field, a mother grizzly and her two cubs were quickly making their way across the field. We suspected that she was heading towards a kill which was being encircled by multiple ravens, and another bald eagle. We observed her trek for as long as we could before she and her cubs disappeared below a ridge. Our whole family was awed by the wonderful view of a great mountain predator.
Around the next curve, we found a great area strewn with giant boulders, suitable for climbing. Rachel was very excited to do some bouldering, as she had wanted to climb Purple Mountain all week. She showed some great balance, courage, and skill as she deftly maneuvered to the peaks of the stacked boulders. At the top, we all took in the scenic views of the surrounding snow capped peaks.
Shortly, we reached our destination for the day which was Mammoth Hot Springs. Specifically, we came to view the terraces formed by the geothermal feature there. Again, it was most spectacular, showing what artwork nature can provide in this glorious place.
Also in town, we visited Natalie, who is a Yawl Drive neighbor who is working at the Mammoth Restaurant for the summer.
Our day was still not over, as we had planned another grand activity. At the Diamond “P” ranch, we had booked an evening trail ride on horseback. Ryan was very excited for this trail ride. Rachel was a bit tentative, however, as we arrived, the very kind cowboys introduced her to Doc. Doc is a very gentle horse, which Rachel quickly bonded to. As we got set up for the ride, Dylan and Ryan learned how to lasso steers with a practice lasso and steer and lessons from a true Wild West cowboy. By this time, both of the boys were fully clad in cowboy hats, and were happily feeling the moment.
The horses we got to ride were handpicked for each rider based on the mount’s temperament. Rachel was on Doc, Rebecca was on Blue Duck, Dylan was on Ross, Ryan was on King Arthur, and I was on Red. All of the matchups were perfect as we trotted into the forests surrounding the Diamond “P” ranch. Our guide was a very friendly cowboy from Idaho Falls, ID named Craig. As we exchanged conversation, I couldn’t help being reminded of the book Cowboy Ethics, which talks about the practices that cowboys still hold reverent. Things like “my word is my bond,” “a handshake seals a deal” and concepts of truth and honesty that our American cowboys embrace and still practice which have become a rarity in our society.
It was agreed by all that the ride was a glorious activity, and it reaffirmed to me how important such a quality vacation deepens the bonds of our family. This trip has been truly amazing.
Jun 15, 2011
Our final travel day began at 4 am, and even as we zipped out of West Yellowstone, we were awed by the natural beauty this area holds. On our southbound journey, we observed an oversized, haze shrouded full moon setting behind the peak of Lion’s Head Mountain, while the Eastern sky had begun to light up in dazzling colors of blue as the sun began to rise, even before 5 am. Another marathon day awaited us as we drove 5 hours to Salt Lake City, flew to Denver, sat for 6 hours in Denver, flew from Denver to Orlando for 4 hours, and drove home for an hour to arrive in Cocoa Beach at 1:30 a.m.
