Day 27: Day off in Yellowstone National Park

Being a day off, everybody took their time getting up. But, even though it was a day off, we had to travel about 45 miles to get to the next campsite. Originally, we were going to stay at the same site for two days, but JJ (who made the reservations months in advance) wasn't able to get the same campsite for such a large group for two consecutive days. If you look at a map of Yellowstone, there is one large road circle that everything branches off of. The first night we stayed at the east side of the circle and we needed to be on the west side by the end of the day.

Surprisingly, (to me anyway) there were quite a few people who were upset about having to bike on their day off, even if it was through Yellowstone. I guess I had been so looking forward to biking through the park on my day off that it never occurred to me that it would be an issue. Some people chose to drive to the next campsite and some people were sick so couldn't bike even if they wanted to. In the end JJ, Leah, Mallory, Mercedes and myself chose to take off as a group to follow the north side of the main road circle. We chose this route since were told that was where some of the most spectacular sites were and we had the best chance of seeing wildlife as well.

Being a little chilly, and a day off, we went at a fairly slow pace, which was fine by me. Not too much into our trek we came across a lone bison, eating not too far from the road. Being the first one we'd seen, we all got off and took pictures. Cars stopped, families crowded around and soon we were ready to take off.

We passed another bison, then another and another and we started keeping count. We had gone about 10 or so miles into the trek and we had seen 12 buffalo. Leah was keeping count and would laugh like "The Count" from Sesame Street. We came up on a thermal site and pulled over to check out the site.

Or the smells as the case may be. The sulfur was pretty strong and, from all the bubbling and brewing going on, it seemed justified. It was the first time I'd ever seen thermal activity and I was pretty blown away by how cool (or hot) it was.

We left and started counting up the buffalo again. We crested a hill and found the eighteenth and nineteenth buffalo and thought we were doing pretty well as far as spotting wildlife goes. But then we climbed another hill and looked down into a large valley.

At first it looked like the plains were covered with hundreds of black bushes, but then they moved. We started biking further along, down the hill, and suddenly it felt like we were in "Dancing With Wolves" there were so many bison. Some of them started running toward the road and we biked closer to get a look.

When we got to the crossing, there were already several cars watching the show. We kind of hid behind one of the closest cars and watched as hundreds of buffalo crossed the road at a pretty good clip. We started getting nervous when the bison kept coming and they kept getting closer to us. Some of them were easily within sand throwing distance. Then we turned around and there were more crossing directly behind us. We had become somewhat surrounded and it was pretty exciting to be so close to the action. Some of the young bulls were locking horns and bucking around close by as well. We could feel the sound waves from their collisions in our chest.

The show lasted for a good five minutes and since nobody got hurt the experience definitely has a place among my favorite wildlife encounters. We biked on and shortly came to a river and there were another hundred or so bison that were crossing it. We watched as young and old ran into the river, swam across, pulled themselves up the muddy bank and then shook themselves off like a dog. Good times.

The next stop was the upper falls. We saw them from both sides of the river, from far away and at the very edge. Spectacular. Gorgeous.

We headed next to the lower falls, which were supposed to be three times higher, but the turn in said one-way only so we biked on thinking the turn-in would be just around the bend. Instead we climbed a long hill and found a huge shopping and camping center. Turns out that they designed the road so that you would have to drive through the tourist trap complex before you could go to the lower falls. Pretty devious. However, since we were on a bike it would mean that we would need to follow the off shoot road and then climb the long hill again.

We decided to eat lunch and think about it. Over lunch, the majority decision was that the hill was pretty intimidating to have to do again, especially on a day off. Channing and Chris showed up as well and they also decided to skip it. But I wanted to do it and I felt like I'd already climbed hundreds of hills and would probably climb many more so one more wasn't going to stop me from seeing everything.

So I told the others I would catch up and I took off by myself down the road. The first mile or so was nothing much, but it was downhill and that was pleasant. Then suddenly, through the trees on my left, I saw a massive, yellow canyon. It was so deep and so big and so breathtaking that I did a triple take and almost yelled out "Woah!".

Very much invigorated by the sight, I pulled up to the canyon overlook. The trail was a little hike, but no real problem. It was amazing. It had been advertised as the grand canyon of Yellowstone and suddenly it made perfect sense. I continued on to the next trail, which was an overlook of the lower falls. Spectacular. Gorgeous.

Made my way down to the trailhead to get to the edge of the lower falls. It was a much longer hike, but well worth it. I have a general rule about pictures I take: they should always have at least one person I know in them. I don't think landscape pictures really mean anything in a couple of years so I don't take pictures of them. But this was so amazing, so beautiful that I wouldn't have put people in the picture, even if they had been there. There was water, there were rainbows, there were eagles, there was a big yellow canyon. Awesome. It was one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful, landscapes I've ever seen.

I eventually got back on the bike and started making my way back up the roads. I had taken over an hour walking all the trails so I knew I wasn't going to catch anybody and so I decided to stop at every single thing I could and spend the rest of the day taking my time to enjoy the park.

I saw just about everything on the loop to the campsite. And so I'd recommend that any one who goes to the park take the north loop, take the bike instead of a car, and stop at everything. I saw geysers, mud pots, boiling springs, cascading waterfalls and on and on. It was amazing. I had a wonderful, very fun filled day and it was worth spending the time by myself in order to see it all.

I pulled into camp near 7 PM, but I wasn't there for very long since there was a group going to Old Faithful. We piled into the van and drove south, past the steaming valleys and finally into the main attraction. We were only there about 30 minutes before it went off, and the event was every bit as incredible as it's been described to me. It took a while before all the wanderers finally showed up, but once in the van we made a quick return back to camp for dinner.

Dinner was great, but the more important event was celebrating Brett's birthday. He turned the somewhat ancient age of 24 and more than a few people went out of their way to make sure he had a good time. We had fireworks, twinkies, and a little wine for those who wanted it. There were supposed to be candles, but they couldn't be found so instead they shoved 24 matches into two twinkies. It was pretty funny. Brett claimed it was the best birthday ever, but it may have been the wine talking. But it was good.

We all went to bed shortly thereafter, ready to head out of the park after our brief visit and ready to travel the short 18 mile trek the next day.