Grand Teton National Park

The last day and a half of our vacation we spent visiting Grand Teton National Park. We camped in the Colter Bay Campground for one night.

The Family by Jenny Lake

Jenny Lake was April's grandmother's favorite place. We have a 4-generation photo with her from 8 years ago when Megan was 2 (but we lack a scanner to include it here on this post). So family tradition says we have to visit Jenny Lake if we are ever in this national park. We went to the Visitor's Center (where Kevin picked up a new track and scat field guide) and then took a relaxing walk along a shoreline trail with the children. Family tradition also dictates that we must take a nice photo by the lake, and here are the results. We hope that Great-Grandma Brown took a break from her angelic duties and watched her cute great-grandchildren for a bit that day.

Horseback Riding

Since we were on a fun family vacation, and since we have an avid horse lover in the family, somehow Megan and April ended up on an early-morning horseback ride by Colter Bay. Due to safety and liability issues, we were only able to walk a very slow walk along the trail, but it was still fun and the guide told us some interesting things about the area. Megan was already in shape due to her summer riding lessons, but April's behind was pretty sore by the end of the ride. She thinks saddles should be made with padding.

Motor Boat Ride on Jackson Lake

Since we were on a fun family vacation, and since Ian was too young to go on the horse ride, Kevin thought he should rent a motor boat and take the others out on Jackson Lake. The minimum rental time was 2 hours, however, so Megan and April met up with them after the horse ride and joined in the fun. April was not too pleased with Erin's position at the front of the boat as shown in the photo below. In her view it goes along with the Hansen's collection of babies in dangerous places. Kevin's rationalization was that she was wearing a life jacket and was perfectly fine. Needless to say, once April was in the boat, Erin was sitting on a lap.

After we turned in the boat and Kevin got his driver's license back (part of the security deposit), we were walking back to the parking lot and this scruffy, but cute, red fox came jogging down to the water's edge to get a drink.

Moose

The previous night we had watched some moose from the lookout over Willow Flats by the Jackson Lake Lodge. They were all pretty far away. The next day on the drive out, we were able to get a closer view of this nice bull as he was foraging next to the water. Also, for general interest and our readers' biological education, we include this lovely photo of moose scat. It was fairly old--we didn't see anything too fresh where we walked.

And thus we conclude our family vacation to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. Here is proof that people can still find entertainment for several days without computers and the internet (but we are glad we have them to share our adventures with you).

Scenic Photos of Yellowstone

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone





















Upper Falls of the Yellowstone River


















Yellowstone Lake before sunrise

















Another sunrise picture
















The Circle of Life, Norris Geyser Basin









And yet another contest!!! Please submit entries in the comment section to this post.

A. What is this? (the yellow stuff, not the mayflies on it)
















B. What is this?

Fishing, Swimming, & License Plates

~Written by Ian, Megan, & April

Fishing!

We went fishing many times in Yellowstone. It was fun. We saw fish but didn't catch any for the first night we fished. The second time we fished we didn't catch any fish either. Actually, we didn't catch any fish at all. But we had a pretty good time.

Megan by Fishing Bridge

One place that we did see fish was at Fishing Bridge. Fishing is not allowed there anymore, though, because people fished it so much that the population dropped. It was a wonderful place to fish before that, though. April and Megan walked across it (the others were asleep in the car), and, yes, we saw a few big fish down there.

Swimming

We first waded in Yellowstone Lake which had leeches. The leeches were cool. We fished a little bit there, but we couldn't get our lines out far enough. Dad waded deep down into the lake trying to retrieve a lost lure. He was unsuccessful, and he got all wet. The lure was a lure that Ian had found, and he was pretty upset that it had gotten lost. The next day we swam in a shallow river, which you couldn't really swim in. It was pretty fun though.

Next time we swam in the Firehole River swimming area. It was more fun than the shallow river. We had a lot of fun. We each got to float down the current with Dad. We saw some elk while we were there, too.

The License Plate Game

Whenever April's family went on a vacation, they would always play the License Plate Game, where your goal is to try and find as many state license plates as you can during the time you are traveling. Kevin does not share the same fondness for this game because it gives him a headache. However, he helped us check off our list. Can you guess which license plate was April's favorite and which one was Kevin's?

By the next to last day of our trip, we were down to one final elusive plate: Connecticut. We drove slowly through many parking lots looking specifically for this one. We eventually found it in a parking lot of Colter Bay in Grand Teton National Park!!! There is a little bit of a dispute over who actually saw it first... Nonetheless, we were able to check off all 50 states on our list.

The Wildlife of Yellowstone National Park

~written by Megan, Kevin, and April

As much fun as we had exploring the geothermal wonders of the park, we had even more fun viewing the magnificent wildlife. One of the advantages to Yellowstone is that most of the animals along the roads are habituated to humans gawking at them, which makes photographing them rather easy--just roll down the window, point the camera, and shoot a picture!

Bison

Our first view of a bison was the one we almost hit on the drive in late at night. We also had a resident bison who hung out near the campground. We saw very large herds of them through the Hayden Valley as well in the Lamar Valley. We also saw bison calves which were very cute. Most of the time we simply saw bison just standing by the road and eventually they became less interesting to us, so we didn't stop as often for them. We bought a book about bison while we were there, and it said that a long time ago you could see millions of bison just stretched out across the prairie.

There were signs all over warning people to not go near the bison because they might charge at you. One of the movies that was playing in a museum in Yellowstone showed some people who got too close to a bison and were charged. Luckily, no one was hurt.

Elk

We saw quite a few elk as we were driving down the road. We saw one with a radio collar, some very cute elk calves, and a huge bull elk came out right across the river from us when we stopped at a picnic area to eat one day. We had a great view of the bull, and Megan got some good pictures (see below right). Unlike the bison, the elk weren't in large herds.

Coyotes

We saw several coyotes during our stay. One of them (we are really embarrassed to admit this) we thought was a wolf at first because it was radio-collared. One of the coyotes we saw was pretty nice looking--it had longer fur than the others and wasn't as skinny. We also saw some coyote pups from a distance.

Grizzly Bears

The entire family had to accommodate April's wishes to try to see a grizzly (ah, the sacrifices we make for each other). As a result, the children were dragged out of their sleeping bags at the early hour of 5:00 a.m. in order for us to drive to Dunraven Pass by 6:00 a.m. where there were frequent sightings of these ursids. The full story is too long and detailed to recount here, but the highlight was, as April (with Erin in backpack) was hiking up the road to the area where all the people with spotting scopes had just moved, a big momma grizzly and her two cubs came walking about 50 feet away from her! It was incredible! April was kicking herself for leaving the camera back in the Suburban with Kevin, but she anticipated the view to be of a small dot walking too far away to photograph. She called Kevin and the other children on the walkie-talkie and told them to hurry up the road and see wild grizzlies--and to bring the camera. (The rangers were rather picky about parking only in designated areas along the pass, so that is why we were walking on the road rather than driving.) We watched the mother and her babies forage for about 45 minutes, after which time they were little dots too far away to photograph, plus everyone thought it was time to eat some breakfast by then.

Wolves

The wolves were one of the most exciting things about our trip. We learned that one pack made daily appearances across the river from the Otter Creek Picnic Area. One night we arrived too late to see them, so we went back early the next morning. We were about ten minutes too late! We waited patiently for another hour before they made their second appearance. The wolves had five pups that stayed out for a long time playing. One was black, and the others were sandy. One adult wolf (subadult female) was there for most of the time because she was watching the pups. She stood up occasionally, and we got some good pictures of her. The pups were very cute. The black one was easy to spot, so that was good, because the others were a bit hard to see. The pups went down to the river for a while, and while they were there, their mother, who had been hunting, came back. She gave them food, and the black pup ran off with a big chunk of it. We spent about 5 hours viewing them off and on that morning.

Columbian Spotted Frog (Kevin thinks)

Mammals, mammals, mammals. Sadly, the amphibians of Yellowstone go largely ignored, so we end with this frog. Kevin was quite excited to catch a species of frog that was new for him. (Don't report him for catching wildlife in a national park--he did release it after taking photos.) He heard it croaking while we were playing on the shore of Yellowstone Lake and followed the sound to its source.

Step Back in Time to Yellowstone National Park Trip

~Written by Megan and her mom

At the beginning of July, Kevin had one week off from teaching classes, and he wanted to spend it on a family vacation. We chose to visit Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons because it had been about 8 years since we were last there, and Ian and Erin have never gone. We left after church on a Sunday afternoon and drove for several long hours. When at last we arrived at the West Entrance, we then had to find our campground which meant we had to drive for another hour. By then it was dark and we could hardly see anything. The dozing children were awakened when a large male bison suddenly appeared on the road and Kevin had to slam hard on the brakes to avoid hitting it.

Our Campground

Since we were visiting a national park, we had to camp in an established campground (Kevin generally prefers to find his own campsites away from other people). We ended up with a nice spot in the Bridge Bay Campground by Yellowstone Lake. It was a bit of a challenge setting up the tent quietly in the dark (we arrived at the early hour of 11:00 pm), but no one complained to us the next morning.

The Geysers

West Thumb Geyser Basin

This was the first geyser basin that we visited. There were a lot of colorful hot springs that we saw. There were many signs telling you not to go off the trail, and so we had to restrain Ian from walking on the edges of the wooden walkways. We saw bison tracks in the soft ground close to the hot springs.

Old Faithful Geyser Basin

We had to visit the most famous geyser in the park. It may not be the tallest, but it was pretty cool to see. We arrived a while before it was scheduled to go off, so April took Megan to the little bookstore nearby. Kevin and the kids got front-row seats for the eruption. It was quite amazing! We stayed for a second eruption. This one was better than the first, and we were a bit disappointed that we had not bothered to go up front to see this one. After we ate lunch there, Dad bought us some ice cream.

Norris Geyser Basin

A different day, we went to another geyser basin. As you can see, it was a bit wet, so the kids wore their rain ponchos. Here there were a lot of small hot springs and a few little geysers that spurted out water. The smell of sulphur was not pleasant. There was one hot spring that we thought smelled like tuna. There was an area where there were many of the little geysers that looked like the Little Prince's planet in the book "The Little Prince."

Mud Pots

Something that we all enjoyed were the Mud Pots. They were made of clay that wasn't really hot, but had gases pushing up and making the bubbles. We thought that they were very amazing. We watched one big one for a long time.

Our Campground After Summer Storm

We only had rain while hiking around the Norris Geyser Basin, but when we returned to camp, we found that the Yellowstone Lake area had received a few inches of hail! Fortunately our tent wasn't flooded like some of the others. We had a couple small areas where the hail had piled up, and the children scooped it up with spoons and put it in a milk jug to keep our cooler cool. Only a few spots in our tent were wet, but we still slept all right. We had to eat our dinner standing up though, because our picnic table was soaked.



Stay tuned for the next installment. . .