The Big Trip 9.7.20 - 9.23.20, Part 7 of 9: Cody to Yellowstone

Throughout the trip I had been monitoring the fire situation in the west and particularly the areas along the route we planned to use to get home. It seemed like the entire western United States was on fire and so I was not surprised to wake up on our departure day from Custer State Park to a little haze in the air. I was a little apprehensive about the day's drive through northern Wyoming across the Bighorn Mountains to Cody, Wyoming where we planned to spend two nights. One route would take us over Alt 14. I’d been told it was very scenic. I’d also been told to avoid it due to the long, steep grade and mountain curves with no guardrails. The day before I had spoken with a couple who had been over it in their RV and he said it was totally doable but that his wife hated it. They had also gone down regular 14 and said the drive was extremely beautiful, going past a very scenic waterfall called Shell Falls and then a sculpted red rock Shell Canyon before reaching Cody. It seemed to me that knowing Dana and Bridgit would not like the road one bit and that no matter how well we handled it, the grade would be taxing on the RVs, I decided last minute to opt for 14 through Shell Canyon. The first leg was just taking I-90 back to Sheridan and then getting off and taking 14. The haze got thicker and thicker the further west we drove. Driving down Shell Canyon was beautiful but so hazy it wasn’t worth taking any photos.

Dana’s family name is Cody and she is related in some fashion to Buffalo Bill Cody of whom the town, the state park and just about everything else in the area was named after. She was really excited to be in her family namesake city. There is an incredible center of five museums that cover not only Buffalo Bill but also the worlds largest firearms museum, a wildlife museum (I loved this part), a Native American museum and just about every other aspect of the area and it’s history all encompassed into one big center.

**Dana and Bill catching up on old times**

We got in around 2PM so we just dropped Dana and Bridgit off in town and drove the eight miles west along Buffalo Bill Reservoir to Buffalo Bill State Park. Our site was right next to the lake with a great view right at the picnic table except the great view was totally smoked out. I’ve seen photos of looking into Shoshone Canyon from the state park and it is beautiful but we couldn’t even see the walls of the canyon.

Once set up we hopped in the Corolla and drove back into Cody to retrieve our wives. We arranged to meet at 5:30 at the big flag by the center and as is typical, we heard them before we saw them. Both a tad more than slightly inebriated, the stories began to flow like cheap whiskey. From what I could gather, Queen Victoria had a thing for Buffalo Bill and shipped him a custom made bar. It’s been residing in Buffalo Bill’s wife Irma’s bar ever since so Dana and Bridgit had to go sit at the bar to get a drink. Well Bridgit being well, you know, Bridgit, decided she had to sidle on up to Cowboy Bob, frontier veterinarian to see what his gig was all about. Well Bridgit came damn close to becoming Cowboy Bob’s fourth wife as he took a real shining to her. And in the “If I only had a video of this” moment, in the middle of her conversation with Cowboy Bob, frontier veterinarian, she realized she did not have her drink. So she hollers down the bar to Dana and in the spirit of Buffalo Bill himself, Dana proceeds to sling the glass all the way down Queen Victoria’s bar which Bridgit calmly catches just before it slides off the end of the bar like they do this every day. And Cowboy Bob? Well he said, “Don’t worry honey, I had your back”.

**Smoky sunset on Buffalo Bill Reservoir**

I was checking hourly forecasts for everywhere I wanted to be for the next few days and it looked as though we would be stuck with smoke for three days and then possibly rain for a day before clearing up. It was all very iffy but out of our control. We woke up to a smoky morning but with nothing better to do we went ahead with plans to drive up the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway to where it intersects with the Beartooth Highway. From there we would drive the Beartooth to the Montana state line and back again.

As previously planned, we left Dana to spend the day in Cody while Bridgit, Bob and I did the drive. Even though it was smoky, things closer to us still had definition and it was totally worth it to do the drive.

The Chief Joseph took us over Dead Indian Pass before dropping down and connecting to the Beartooth Highway. I tried very hard to stay positive, knowing that the smoke was out of my control so I tried to appreciate whatever we were able to see and that helped. And there were a lot of great things to see. Turning right on the Beartooth we followed it up higher and higher until we reached a high plateau at Beartooth Lake. We stopped there and at Island Lake for lunch. This area is known as grizzly country so it felt kinda daring just to go a hundred yards from the parking lot of the campground to some rocks overlooking the lake for a quick lunch. From there we drove on up even higher above timberline to Beartooth Pass at 10,948’. It looked a bit like high on Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park but of course our views were extremely limited. We saw enough to know we absolutely have to come back when it’s clearer.

The next day was Friday and we planned to drive through Yellowstone National Park to a campground near Jackson, Wyoming right by Grand Teton National Park. It was certainly a bit clearer than the previous day but much too smoky for good photography. Still, I was incredibly excited to be finally driving into the crown jewel of the national park system, the first national park ever, Yellowstone. I knew we did not have time to explore all Yellowstone has to offer and had just assumed that we would come back to Yellowstone for an extended trip to really see the place proper. Driving through was mainly supposed to be just a means to get to the Tetons on this trip. That being said, I saw that the West Thumb Geyser Basin was right along our route so we planned a stop there before heading to the Tetons.

Driving out of Cody we tried to ignore the smoke and saw some pretty nice scenery between Cody and Yellowstone. Entering the park, we drove past a huge burn area before climbing over 8,530’ Sylvan Pass which was a really beautiful stretch. We stopped at Sylvan Lake because how many people can say they have been to two Sylvan Lakes in one week?

**Wildlife sighting at Sylvan Lake, Yellowstone Natl. Park**

Before going there, I was intimidated by the popular national parks. Stories of crowds and traffic have likely contributed to why I had never been. But like maybe all parks, if you pick your times of year and times of day I believe the Yellowstones and maybe even the Yosemites can be intelligently navigated. Our drive to West Thumb Geyser Basin parking area was super easy and so was parking. We got out at Geyser Basin and hiked the boardwalks in and through a series of hot springs pools. It was even cooler than I expected. The water so crystal clear and the color so vivid. I really enjoyed this stop.

By the time we completed our walk around West Thumb Geyser Basin it was still only around eleven and we didn’t have to be in the Tetons until that night so we decided to unhook the Corolla and we all piled in and drove up to the Grand Prismatic Spring. Now just because that’s how it panned out, we were driving around in Yellowstone in the middle of the day on a Saturday of all days. A fire near West Yellowstone was making the sky over here even more smoky. Road construction around Old Faithful didn’t help our cause. Still, we made decent time getting to the Grand Prismatic parking area which was completely full. It was getting crowded enough that it was a little bit of a distraction. Since we hadn’t planned to come here I had done little research on the area. I knew that there was a spot where you could look down into the spring and that’s where I wanted to go. Unfortunately that is the Fairy Falls Trail which started from a different parking lot. One to come back for. We hiked a trail that led up to the rim of the Grand Prismatic Spring and followed the edge of it for a bit before dropping back down. You couldn’t really see the spring from this angle with all the steam but the ground and water around the edges were fantastic colors.

Once we left the Grand Prismatic we had to drive right by Old Faithful to get back to our RVs. So on a Saturday afternoon with road construction right by the entrance we bravely made our way to the parking area and walked over to the famous geyser. There were hundreds of people there and we all stood around until Old Faithful blew. Maybe it was the crowds or the haze or thinking about the Tetons but it didn’t do that much for me. I guess I’m glad I can say I’ve seen it and next time I’d go earlier in the morning to avoid the crowds and see the rest of that basin of geysers.

Yellowstone National Park is so big and there is so much to see that Bridgit and I are already talking about returning there. But now my thoughts turned to Grand Teton National Park. Here is a mountain lover’s park if there ever was one and I had never been there. I had done a ton of research on the area from a photography standpoint having seen so many iconic photographs over the years in magazines. I knew where I wanted to be for every sunrise of which I would have three to work with. I knew all the best spots for the amount of time we had. Juggling a family vacation with photography can sometimes be conflicting but sunrises were early enough that it seemed to work out well.

Part 8 will take us to the Tetons.

The Big Trip 9.7.20 - 9.23.20, Part 7 of 9: Cody to Yellowstone

The Big Trip 9.7.20 - 9.23.20, Part 6 of 9: More Custer State Park

The Big Trip 9.7.20 - 9.23.20, Part 8 of 9: The Tetons