2006 Pacific Northwest, Part 6
July 23 to August 12
Grand Teton National Park, Day 3 (continued) - August 5
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| 2006 Pacific Northwest Vacation - 21 days, 6700 miles. Days 14 to 16, Grand Teton National Park to Chief Joseph Scenic Highway. |
On the way out, we stopped someplace I hadn't been to since our 1998 trip, Cunningham Cabin. Established between 1888 and 1890, J. Pierce Cunningham and his wife Margaret staked a homestead, known as the Flying U Ranch. It's one of the best remaining homestead cabins in Jackson Hole. And it's a two roomer. How extravagant. The ranch was finally closed in 1928 when the Cunningham's sold out to the Snake River Land Company, a company formed by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. which eventually formed Grand Teton National Park. But it had a hell of a view.
We ate dinner in the Mural Dining Room in the Lodge. Expensive, but the food was good, and we were seated next to the window, with a magnificent view of the Tetons at Sunset...
After dinner we hung around the back of the lodge and watched the moose off in the distance, enjoying a Jamesons (in a plastic cup) as the sun set...
Grand Teton National Park, Day 3 - The Rest of the Day
Grand Teton National Park, Day 4 - August 6
The next morning, we said goodbye to Grant Teton National Park, said hello to a Coyote, travelled the John D. Rockefeller Memorial Highway, and one again entered Yellowstone National Park.
Grand Teton National Park, Day 4
Yellowstone National Park - August 6 & 7
This would be my third time in Yellowstone, having visited in 1998 and 2001. Unlike my other visits, I was really only passing through the park, to drive the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway. (See below.)But "Passing Through" Yellowstone is a relative thing. I had reservations for a cabin in Canyon, so we had a little time to dawdle...
Yellowstone National Park, Day 1 - August 6
We entered the park the only way you can from the Rockefeller Memorial Highway, and that's through the South Entrance. We stopped again at Lewis Falls, and took some pictures of the valley the Lewis River inhabits.The first place we (okay, I) wanted to dawdle was Old Faithful. Why? To take some better pictures. I last visited Ol' Faithful in 1998, when unfortunately, grey, cloudy skies blended in with steam geysers, so Ol' Faithful blended in with the sky and disappeared. This year would be different! Oh, wait. No it wouldn't. Oh well, no worries, it's not like Old Faithful is the only thing to see in the park!
We travelled North up the West side of the Grand Loop Road, and revisited Firehole Drive and the Fountain Paint Pots. This time when we were there, the Paint Pots where more like fumaroles than paint pots, but then, that's Yellowstone. We continued up to Mammoth Hot Springs to find the Dining Room closed, so a quick burger at the snack shop had to suffice.
Yellowstone National Park, Day 1 - Part 1
Yellowstone National Park, Day 1 - Part 2
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| Calcite Springs, Yellowstone National Park. |
We started off for Canyon, and stopped at Calcite Springs, a simply amazing view of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Bumpus Butte where the basalt hex columns stand on both sides of the river.
We check in at Canyon and find that a real cheap cabin in Yellowstone is... a real cheap cabin. But it's in the park, and you don't have to drive the length of the entrance road to find a room. There are clusters of four or eight "cabins", and each room shares one or two common walls. The walls are paper thin, the shower primitive but the beds were comfortable. We grab dinner at the (table service) dining room, which provided yet another not terrible, but not memorable meal, typical of the National Park venues.
After dinner, we drive over to Artist's Point for the sunset over Lower Fall. We decide we should get morning pictures as well, and will return in the morning.
While getting some ice at the local gas station, there were two bikers there getting directions to the nearest lodging outside of the park, since all the lodging in the park was taken. They were going to have to ride all the was to Silver Gate or Cooke City, a distance of some 50 miles, in the dark, in light rain, through some pretty crappy, mountainous road. I wished them luck.
During the night, we're visited by wee creatures that visit our cashew nuts. They don't take any (no accounting for taste) but they did sample them.
Yellowstone National Park, Day 1 - Part 2
Yellowstone National Park, Day 2 - August 7
In the morning, a herd of Buffalo had wandered into the Canyon area, grunting and drooling like...a herd of Buffalo. A quick visit to Artists point, the Upper Fall, and we're out the door to the Northeast Entrance Road, toward the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway.
Yellowstone National Park, Day 2
Chief Joseph Scenic Highway - August 7
In 2001, we left the Northeast Entrance, and drove the Beartooth Highway, an absolutely magnificent drive through the Beartooth Mountains. Chief Joseph Scenic Highway (aka the Sunlight Basin Road) was supposed to be just as scenic, and it is. Perhaps not as impressive as the Beartooth Highway, but scenic none-the-less. It offers views of Heart Mountain and Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone, which is a misnomer, since Clark was never on this portion of the river.We stopped at the apolitically correct Dead Indian Hill, where legend has it that a wounded Nez Pierce warrior was left behind and killed by Army scouts as the Nez Pierce fled the area. This essentially the same trail I was on in Washington through the Bitterroots.
End 2006 Pacific Northwest - Part 6.
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