Yellowstone NP – West Thumb Geyser Basin and Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone 6/4/19

Tuesday, June 4, 2019

Yellowstone NP – West Thumb Geyser Basin and Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

We drove from Teton Village to the south entrance of Yellowstone National Park via the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Parkway and had to wait in line about 45 minutes to get into the park, but after that it was smooth sailing. There was still a lot of snow on the ground in many places, which was unexpected. We also drove through a large burn zone from the 1988 Yellowstone fires.

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We headed on to West Thumb Geyser Basin and saw our first of many geothermal features that Yellowstone is known for.

Afterward we headed up through Hayden Valley, some more geothermal activity, and then to the lodge at Canyon Village.

The views of the canyon were spectacular. When we stopped at the first viewpoint on the way to Canyon Village I rounded the corner and the view of the falls and the multi-colored canyon walls took my breath away. It felt like someone had hit me in the chest and now I know how Rudyard Kipling felt when he wrote these words:

“All that I can say is that without warning or preparation I looked into a gulf seventeen hundred feet deep, with eagles and fish-hawks circling far below. And the sides of that gulf were one wild welter of color — crimson, emerald, cobalt, ochre, amber, honey splashed with port wine, snow white, vermilion, lemon, and silver gray in wide washes. The sides did not fall sheer, but were graven by time, and water, and air into monstrous heads of kings, dead chiefs — men and women of the old time. So far below that no sound of its strife could reach us, the Yellowstone River ran a finger-wide strip of jade green.”

We drove on to the lodge and prepared for an early morning drive to the Lamar River Valley in hopes of seeing a lot of wildlife. It would not disappoint.