Heading to Yellowstone National Park

We had a 3 hour drive out of Seeley Lake but as always the Mazda 6 was as determined to get there as we were, thanks Blair. On the way we stopped in Butte (pronounced Beaut, they didn’t want to be the Butt of all jokes). We took a short town tour in Butte which was interesting. They lay claim to having the richest hill in the World. It is a mile and high and a mile deep, and they have picked and drilled their way into most of it. They are still mining silver and molybdenum while trying to clean up the mess, 50 billion gallons of it (3.8 litres to the gallon!!!) from past mining of copper and other minerals. They won’t have that finished by Fall would be my uneducated guess!

We arrived in Bozeman in the early evening and I think they were expecting us! The main street was cordoned off, there were three bands going strong, 10,000 people and plenty of foodstalls. Perfect. We stayed at a B&B with the owners who ran a scuba diving shop downtown. I did my best not to laugh when explaining that they are a wee way from the sea, one of the main ingredients of that pastime I thought. “No, we have lakes…” wiped the smiled off my face …for a few seconds. But it turns out that practice in lakes with 2m visibility and stuff tied to the lake bottom to make it interesting. They showed us a photo of a human skeleton sitting on a chair at 15 metres deep! We were having a sort of rest day here but decided on a short walk in the canyon country to the south of town. Five hours later and after being completely ‘lost’ we were fabricating a letter to the authorities regarding the accuracy of their maps and track numbers…a total shambles, but all is forgiven, we’ve moved on.

From Bozeman our next accommodation was on the north boundary of Yellowstone National Park, in Gardiner. A great place to launch our animal ‘hunting’ expedition. We made an early start, before daylight (about 5.45am) to get ahead of the masses and catch the animals having one last bite before bedding down for the day. The drive in the Park is most enjoyable, exciting around every corner. We saw a lot of Wapiti, hundreds of bison, almost a pack of wolves and some Bighorn sheep. Scenery in Yellowstone is amazing. We spent a couple of days in the north then went east then south. 

On the way we passed through Cooke City, a real western-feeling little backwater. While we stopped at the saloon it would not have been surprising to see Wyatt Earp or Ben Cartwright walk through. I think I caught a glimpse of Clint Eastwood riding out of town as we arrived!

Back on the road south to Cody was enjoyable driving. Roads are good but doing 80mph is just too much...that’s 140kph! We must have seen well in excess of 1000 motorbikes so far, most of them have passed us and 90% would be Harley Davidsons. Interestingly they are often a guy and a girl, mostly older guys (bit of grey showing) but the guys never wear a helmet while the female passenger always does. I figure that they have worked out that if they came to grief then the lady wouldn’t want to ruin her good looks while the men are hoping it improves theirs. The guys can’t claim it messes their hair as many are balding. They sound and look great and are always friendly. Although the driving has been interesting. We seem to have the left-hand drive, right side of the road pretty well sorted but the 4-way compulsory stops are a touch confusing. We generally wait a bit until everyone seems to have stopped then make a dash across.  I think we must have it nailed as we regularly get a wave, either with two fingers or one! The one fingered wavers are particularly friendly as they will often give us a short toot on the horn as well. Lovely folks in America.

Cody is a city that was established by Buffalo Bill Cody back about 1880. Everything in the city revolves around the man. You have the Buffalo Bill Motels, Bill Cody Motels, Buffalo Bill Cody Motels, the Cody Motels and on and on, be it hotels, streets, saloons or cafes…he will never be forgotten. We visited the Buffalo Bill Centre and it was well worth the couple of hours. He was a ‘scout’ in his early days but later became legendary for taking his Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show around the world from 1883. We never bought the fridge magnet though. 

We stayed on Grizzly Ranch for two nights with some more lovely folks. They are semi-retired make a living off growing and cutting hay to sell. We spent an hour with Kim, an old-time rodeo man who has hung up his spurs. Cody is in Wyoming and is considered to be, by themselves, the cowboy state. They have a rodeo in Cody every night of the week! After visiting the Calgary Stampede we didn’t think another rodeo was going to pass muster.

From Cody and back into east Yellowstone we mounted an assault on Avalanche Peak. This is a mountain over 10,000 feet and we climbed it without oxygen! The highest I had ever previously climbed was Mount Egmont at 7000+ feet, and that was 45 years ago! (Where does the time go?) 

Later we headed into the central part of the Park, an area of geysers, sulphur and thousands of people. It was interesting though and many more colours than Rotorua. We did a couple of short climbs to get a view down on the thermal area and were quite amazed at the sights. Old Faithfull isn’t as active as she used to be (…. then, “who is?”), but she faithfully shot a good head of water 15 metres into the air. The sound of camera shutters was deafening! 

So we had more animal watching, mostly wapiti, bison, mule deer, squirrels, and we did see a black bear on our travels…. he was on his in the distance. No moose to date so hopefully in the Grand Tetons National Park where we will head at dawn tomorrow.