Day 11-14 - Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Day 11-14 (6-9 July) - We made it through the cold nights and beautiful days of the world's first national park, Yellowstone, in very good order. A trip to the local Cabela's store (all things hunting, fishing and camping) and we had an excellent Base Camp Heater (runs for about 6-7 hours on a one pound propane bottle) to keep the chills in the tent away - problem solved.

We decided to take the highest elevation highway in the Northern Rockies, the Beartooth All-American Pass (10,974 ft), to access Yellowstone through the north-eastern entrance. It is rated one of the 10 most scenic drives in the Northern Rockies and we missed it. As we approached its start, near the town of Red Lodge, lights flashed advising that the route was closed. The nearby park rangers said they had had snow on the snow that was already there and it was considered too dangerous with roadworks. A tad disappointed we detoured via Cody and gained access through the east entrance - still a lovely drive, but somewhat tamer than we had hoped with Beartooth.

Last year an article in Woodall's Camping Life magazine titled "An Insider's Guide to Yellowstone" gave some planning tips and they were right on the mark. We camped at the central Bridge Bay Campground and had plenty of time to drive most of this large and spectacular park and see plenty of bison, elks and even a bear. Deer strolled through the camp site and we enjoyed the hot springs and Tower Falls that fell into Yellowstone River. We particularly loved the areas around Lake Yellowstone (the world's largest mountain lake), hiked the Pelican Valley Trail and saw the Old Faithful geyser erupt, albeit 15 minutes later than the predicted time. Yellowstone really is a magnificent park.

Whilst the scenes and the wildlife are captivating, some of the human visitors take it too far. Time after time drivers would just stop on the road, get out and take photos seemingly oblivious to the increasing line of waiting cars behind them. It was a frustrating aspect of driving around the expansive park.

The only real hiccup was a flat battery. Due to the bear threat, campers need to keep all food, water containers, toiletries etc locked away in your car (not tent) unless they were in immediate use. That meant continually going in and out of the car and along the way a light must have stayed on. We got a jump-start from our neighbors and whilst Andrea and the girls did the laundry and had showers (closest facilities were about 4 miles away) Matthew and I had the battery tested and ultimately replaced.

We had originally planned for five nights, however had seen most everything within four nights so decided to cut Yellowstone short by one day and add another day to Las Vegas.

Yellowstone was great! Highly recommended.