Leavenworth is a charming little town in Chelan County, Washington. What makes this city special you wonder? Well, the entire town center is modelled on a Bavarian village. They even have a nutcracker Museum. While we were visiting, the town was celebrating Oktoberfest. The funny thing is that it’s actually claimed to be one of the most attended in the world outside Munich, Germany. Not sure if that’s true though so don’t quote me on it.

I know it sounds cheesy, but we actually quite liked it. We’ll definitely be back, we really need to try some schnitzel:). That specific evening we enjoyed pretzels and cheese fondue at Uncle Uli’s Pub (a cozy pub, and dog friendly on-their deck).

Uncle Uli’s Cheese Fondue

Pretzel

A little over a 1000 kilometers later we arrived in Yellowstone. Our goal was to get there as soon as possible so we could spend the maximum amount of time in the park.

This blog post will show some scenery pictures, the following post (in the next few days) will be about the wildlife we encountered.

In the previous post we mentioned we stayed in the Mammoth Hot Springs area of the park: below a picture of the cabins we stayed at.

Mammoth Hot Springs Cabin (photo credit stpaulsgirl’s)

Grizzly, thinking the shower is the most appropriate place to sleep

Bull Elk outside the restaurant

It was the first time we entered the park through the North Entrance, the Roosevelt Arch (Gardiner).

Try reading the inscription on the top of the arch: “For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People”. This is a quote from the Organic Act. The act is the legislation which created Yellowstone. For those who didn’t know, Yellowstone was the first national park in the world.

Roosevelt Arch

Yellowstone River

On our way to Cody

Soda Butte in the Lamar Valley

One of the things we did was an off road drive on the Blacktail Deer Plateau. Not ideal with a regular compact car, but it was gorgeous!

Blacktail Deer Plateau

Blacktail Deer Plateau Drive

Along the road we noticed a lot of signs mentioning that trails were closed. Remember the story about the Grizzly bear attack in August? This is the trail where it happened. (Just so you know the rate of dangerous encounters in the park is extremely low).

Mary Mountain Trail

Halfway between Equator and North Pole, who would have thought?

45t Parallel

These are taken in one of our favorite places in the park: West Thumb

Sunrise in Hayden Valley

We just came back from a road trip. We managed to drive 7550 kilometers in 3 weeks, so we covered quite a bit of ground.

Just like last year, we decided to include Yellowstone. I know, it’s the 3rd time in four years we’ve been to Yellowstone, but it’s still my favorite place to go. The abundance of wildlife in combination with the scenery makes it so special.

Unlike other years, we stayed overnight in the park. We were able to book a cabin in the Mammoth Hot Springs area. Something that was really neat, was the fact that we didn’t have cell phone reception, internet, radio, television, A/C. We were “obligated” to go for an evening walk, read a book and listen to the bugling elk. Very enjoyable:)

We will be posting some pictures in the next few weeks, but I just wanted to give you guys a little something to start with.

We met this handsome fellow on our way to Canyon Village, just past Dunraven Pass. Make sure to turn on your sound when watching the video:)

One of the big problems is that their food source is threatened. The bears feed on whitebark pine nuts and the tree is expected to continue to decline in the next few years. But there’s another huge problem: The grizzly population in Yellowstone has been isolated for a long time and declining genetic diversity could make them vulnerable in the future. For example grizzly bears in Glacier National Park can go up north and breed with different Canadian grizzly bears, there’s a wildlife corridor for them, unlike in Yellowstone.

Anyway, that’s it for now, more to come soon!

Geothermal activity in Midway Geyser Basin – Yellowstone

Geothermal activity in West Thumb Geyser Basin – Yellowstone

We spent 2 days and a half in the park, lodging in West Yellowstone. We saw lots of wildlife, but no bears this time… not even a black bear. What we did see was lots of coyotes, bison, pronghorn, elk, deer and a bunch of wolves.

Bison in Yellowstone

The wolves were probably the most amazing animals we’ve seen since we’ve never seen them this close and we saw them on two separate occasions. The first one we saw was feeding on a carcass of an elk, killed by his wolf pack earlier that day. He was feeding on the carcass all alone and he was being watched by a coyote. After a while a second coyote appeared and together, they chased away the lone wolf and started claiming the carcass for themselves.
We had a good view on the spectacle through our scope which is probably comparable with a 300-400mm zoom lens. Ine was able to take some pictures of the spectacle with her zoom camera.
The second time we saw wolves they were playing with each other, but that was way too far to be able to take a picture.

When driving back from Lamar Valley where we spotted the wolf and the coyotes we passed by a forest fire in the distance which was caused by controlled burnings to prevent destructive forest fires like the ones in 1988, which destroyed 36% of the park (3200 square km).

Forest fire in Lamar Valley – Yellowstone

And to conclude the post here are some more pictures:

Midway Geyser Basin overview – Yellowstone

Small branch in thermal water

Ine in wildlife spotting mode.

Waiting for wildlife to come to the carcass.

The first stop on our trip was our all time favorite National Park, Yellowstone, Wyoming. We spent 2 days in Yellowstone, but still have the feeling we need to go back for a longer stretch, it’s just so marvelous… I’m sure Ine will tell you all about it when she starts writing up our experiences/encounters, but for now I will leave you with some first batch of pictures from the trip.

9. Swiftcurrent lake, Glacier N.P.

8. Berkeley Pit, Butte

7. Venice, Las Vegas

6. Vancouver Panorama

5. Hot spring, Yellowstone N.P.

4. Peyto Lake Panorama

3. Victoria Government Parliament building

2. Dead Tree in Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone N.P.

1. The Wave, Arizona

Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, Jackson,WY | Location on Map

The bar in the picture, called the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, was founded in the late 1890′s and tries to keep the cowboy history of Jackson alive with live western music and it’s authentic looks.

PS: Apparently, Jackson is home to the world’s largest ball of barbed wire… What famous game does this remind you of?

The first picture shows a dead tree in Mammoth Hot Springs, killed by the calcium carbonate dissolved in the hot spring water. Mammoth is a large hill of travertine that has been created over thousands of years as hot water from the spring cooled and deposited calcium carbonate. Each day over 2 tons of calcium carbonate flows into Mammoth.

Dead Tree in Mammoth Hot Springs | Location on map

The second picture is taken at Grand Prismatic Spring, which is the largest hot spring in the United States. The vivid colors in the spring are the result of pigmented bacteria that grow around the edges of the mineral-rich water. The bacteria produce colors ranging from green to red.

Grand Prismatic Spring Sunset, Yellowstone N.P. | Location on map