Back In Yellowstone

Alright, as I mentioned last Tuesday I had my annual trip to Yellowstone National Park coming up with my daughter Hattie.  Well, that trip took place last weekend, and I am writing this the day after coming home.

The trip was great.  Here is the count for this trip:

No Moose (we failed on our moose quest)

2 Grizzly bears (one that almost hit the pickup)

3 Black bears (one sow with two cubs)

5 Wolves

2 Coyotes

3 River Otters

Too many elk, buffalo, mule deer and antelope to count

We had a lot of snow this year, not that too much of it stuck.  But there was enough to make for some icy roads on different days.  It is always fun to reminisce on this trip with Hattie.  We started doing this as a father/daughter trip when she was 10.  Now she is 13, and this was the fourth annual expedition.

Looking back it is a really great way to watch her grow up.  The first two years we had my 2003 Dodge pickup.  It had a shell on it, so I made a bed in the back and that is where we camped in the 20 degree overnight temperatures.  However, in 2017 I bought a new truck and sold that one, and I no longer have a camper shell.  So, for the past two years I have rented a travel trailer and pulled that over there for the long weekend.

If you are wondering why I don't just take a tent, the answer is bears.  This could be a totally different episode, but Grizzly bears are no longer endangered, and the instances of conflict with humans has been going up.  On the east side of the park and in the national forest on the east side of the park the campgrounds do not allow camping in anything but hard sided trailers.

I have quite a few friends in the fish and game world who are very familiar with some of the ways in which grizzly bears have harmed humans in the past.  Between hearing those stories and seeing the restrictions on camping on the east side of the park, I decided to make that my policy where we camp on the west side of the park as well.  So, only hard sided camping for us in grizzly country.

Now that Hattie is 13 she cooked most of our meals and took on a lot more responsibility than she did when she was 10 - of course.  Also, her devotion to finding wildlife is impressive to me.  Our first day there was a long one, and at about 5:30 in the evening we came to a cross roads.  If we went straight it took us up to the north entrance of the park, and then we would loop back down to our campground.  This would get us home well after dark at about 7:30 pm.

Or, we could go left and be back in camp by about 6pm.  Hattie said "keep going", so we did.  And by doing so we ended up coming across a black bear with two cubs which is always fun to see.

Across The Fruited (Snake River) Plain

The drive from our farm to West Yellowstone, Montana (where we enter the park) takes about 6.5 to 7 hours depending on conditions, road construction, etc.  I've done this drive a million times, dating back to when I was a student at Montana State University and doing an internship in Boise selling agricultural chemicals.

This is a really easy drive for me, and a longer one for Hattie.  I started wondering why that was.  First, let me tell you my route.  There are basically two routes you can take from Kuna, Idaho to West Yellowstone, Montana.  They are roughly equal in the time it will take you.

The route that most people will choose will have you on interstate highways all the way to Idaho Falls.  You will go southeast on Interstate 84 past Burley, Idaho until it spits and you find yourself following Interstate 86 to its intersection with Interstate 15 just north of Pocatello, Idaho.  From here you will drive north on the interstate and exit onto U.S. 20 in Idaho Falls and follow it all the way to West Yellowstone.