Day 52 – Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming -> Bozeman, Montana

Monday, November 1^st, 2010

Last night was cold. By 10am this morning the temperature was up to 24F so last night it was definitely in the mid teens. I’ll have to remember to put on a second pair of socks on nights like that, actually a second pair of everything. It had stopped snowing by 8pm the night before but the rain that fell most of the day yesterday froze on the roads once the temperature dropped below freezing so even though it was snowing hard, the roads were mostly impassable due to the ice. There were no grizzly sightings during the night and I didn’t see any tracks either. I have to say I was kind of hoping to see one.

The plows came on time and cleared the roads but only the top snow layer, leaving the ice behind. I drove a loop starting at Grant Village and worked my way counter clockwise around to Old Faithful. It was only 79 miles but it took a long time because I wasn’t driving more than 20mph until the ice cleared.

Yellowstone is a fascinating place. For starters, it’s one of the world’s largest volcanoes. The central portion of the park is an immense depression formed from an eruption 640,000 years ago. This event was estimate to be 1,000 times more forceful than Mount St. Helens and it left behind a crater, also known as a Caldera, thousands of feet deep and 40 miles wide. Magma resides just a few miles below the surface and fractures in the Earth’s crust make it easy for the super heated water to rise to the surface giving way to so many hydrothermal areas in the park. Yellowstone has the largest collection of geysers, hot springs, mud spots and steam vents.

When I first started out this morning, everything was covered in snow. It was beautiful. The sun was out but it took several hours to melt the ice. I didn’t realize that Yellowstone was as big as it was. I drove nearly 100 miles starting from the entrance and I probably only covered about half of the park. I wouldn’t have been able to do the rest anyway because many of the roads were already closed for the season. There is a lot to see in Yellowstone such as deep forests, mountains, waterfalls, rivers and streams and various types of thermal activity. The thing I was most interested in seeing though was the wildlife. I was able to come across wild elk, hundreds of buffalo, a bald eagle and several coyotes. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any bear or moose. I think the spring and summer months would be the best time to visit this park.

I finished off my visit to Yellowstone with a stop to see Old Faithful. This is probably Yellowstone’s most famous attraction. I went off like clockwork, actually about 3 minutes early. It was now almost 3pm and I had to make a decision, either continue south to finish the last leg of the loop and drive back to Jackson, or head out of Yellowstone via the west entrance and go to Montana. My time in Jackson was cut short by rushing to Yellowstone before it closed, and there was more that I wanted to see there. However, Jackson was almost 100 miles back south. I decided to head to Montana. Out of Yellowstone, I took US-191 north through the Gallatin National Forest. This drive reminded me somewhat of driving through Colorado, mountains everywhere and fast flowing streams that ran parallel with the road, fly fisherman abound. I was hoping that Montana looked like this, because this is what I was expecting. I stopped at Big Sky, a very nice ski town. Lone mountain summit was covered in snow and it’s prominent peak is visible from miles away in any direction. Next stop was Bozeman which is where I started writing, once again at a Barnes and Noble. It was already dark when I arrived but I did drive around a bit just to get a quick feel of the town. I had to finish this up over breakfast and coffee at McDonald's because B&N closed at 9pm before I was done. It 37 degrees this morning and it looks like a nice day is in store so it's time to start exploring Bozeman.

Day 50 & 51 - Victor and Driggs, ID - Jackson, WY - Yellowstone

Saturday, October 30^th, 2010

Last night I decided to head out of Idaho Falls and drive the 65 miles to Victor, ID. I had wanted to check out Victor and a town named Driggs, both just over the Teton pass from Jackson Hole, Wyoming and about 12 miles from Grand Targhee. I arrived in Victor kind of late, somewhere around 10pm. In the morning I drove around the small town. There is the main road, SR-33 that runs north-south and connects Victor and Driggs, about eight miles apart. Victor had a population of 840 according to the 2000 census. There isn’t a whole lot off of the main street, or on the main street for that matter, but it’s a beautiful area surrounded by the Big Hole Mountains in Idaho to the west and the Teton Mountain Range in Wyoming to the east. After spending about an hour in Victor, I proceeded to drive to Driggs. Driggs was a little bit bigger than Victor, but not much. It’s population according to Wiki was 1,100.

I pulled out my phone and used an app named real estate droid to do a quick search for real estate in the area. To my surprise, there were a lot of nice homes that, in my opinion, were priced reasonably. I drove to one of the homes and was impressed enough to call the listing agent for more details. Within an hour, I was inside for a tour. I spent a few hours with the realtor looking at properties. Even though he knew I would be on my way with no chance of buying, he was more than willing to keep showing me houses. Apparently, Victor and Driggs have suffered substantially from the collapse of the housing bubble. There were a lot of spec houses built to take advantage of the never ending home price appreciation. Now there is a glut of new, unoccupied homes in inventory and many unemployed builders and tradesman who came and settled here to take advantage of the boom times. I didn’t want to use up the realtor’s entire day so I said that I had seen enough. When I left he said that he had a good feeling about me and told me if I ever decide on Driggs as a place to live, that he would probably have a place for me at his office if wanted to become a realtor. Wow, my first “unofficial” job offer! Who knows, I did really like the area but for a single person I think it might be too small of a place to meet people, but hermit life would be great here! This is truly a place for the outdoorsman. I set out for Jackson in the evening and drove over the Teton pass and across the border into Wyoming. It was getting dark by the time I arrived so I focused on a place to sleep.

Sunday, October 31^st, 2010

Happy Halloween. It had rained all night and pretty much all day. There was a low cloud cover and it was foggy so it was difficult to see more than a few hundred yards up into the mountains. I grabbed my rain jacket and walked around downtown, stopping in at the different tourist and ski shops. Many of the people I talked to in the ski shops have come from the east coast. I don’t think I met anyone born and raised here. Most have come out just after college with the intention of spending a ski season before getting a “real” job. Twenty years later and they’re still there. I really like the town of Jackson. It would be a great place to be a ski bum but in terms of making a true living here, it’s pretty unlikely. I drove a few miles to the Jackson Hole Ski Resort and into another ski shop. I was talking to a guy there and had mentioned what I was doing and that I was eventually going to head up through Yellowstone. He told me that he read in the paper that the Park Service was going to close Yellowstone tomorrow. I jumped in my car and got on my way. I wanted to spend more time at Jackson Hole, but I thought this was more important. It was now 3pm so I drove quickly to take advantage of the few daylight hours left. It was almost 65 miles to the south entrance of Yellowstone from Jackson Hole. It was still raining and I had really wanted to do Yellowstone in better weather to have a better chance of seeing the wild animals. I arrived at the gate to get into the park. The ranger said the park would be open for another week but a misprint in the newspapers did say the park would be closing November 1^st. Oh well, I rushed for nothing but I was here now. The ranger told me there was inclement weather ahead and that snow tires or chains were required. I told her I had neither but she let me pass as long as I knew I was on my own if I ran into any trouble. The roads were clear and it was down to a slight drizzle so I proceeded. Within the first thirty minutes, the roads were covered in white almost instantaneously. At times it was almost blizzard conditions. The snow was accumulating fast on top of icy roadways. I pulled off at the first turnout to find a general store that was closed for the season and a gas station. I parked my car under the gas pump awning to take cover from the snow. The temperatures were dropping fast and ice was already building on the windows. This was going to be my home for the night. I was outside cooking up some chicken noodle soup when a ranger came by and suggested I stay put and that most of the roads have been closed. He also mentioned to keep any food locked in my vehicle because there was a grizzly walking around here this morning, about 20 yards from where we were standing. I’ll be staying in the car tonight! The road plows should be out around 7am and it should be smooth sailing after that.

Mileage update: 6,640.7