Yellowstone Grand Finale

It was exactly 6 AM when we headed out for our last trip to Yellowstone yesterday. The sun still hadn't come up yet and we drove for probably a half hour before it started to get light. There was a spectacular full moon that was visible the whole drive to the Park, and we tried to get some shots of this moon just as it was sitting over the top of the mountains. The one below was probably the clearest of the shots we took:

It was still mostly dark and when we arrived at the East Entrance gate at around 7 AM, the guard told us about 2 moose that were grazing on the side of the road, just inside the entrance. We saw them and took some pictures, but we couldn't get close enough in the low light to get great pictures. It was still a great start to our day. The whole purpose for going so early was to catch wildlife in their early morning feeding periods.

It didn't take much longer before we spotted this huge bull elk, just standing in the middle of the river:

As soon as he saw the crowd starting to build on the roadside, he headed to the shoreline and out of the river:

As we traveled north along the Yellowstone River from the Fishing Bridge junction to the Canyon Village junction, we saw lots of buffalo along the river in fairly large groups. It was interesting to see so many of these animals so close to the thermals in the Park, so we took several pictures of them, including this one:

The buffalo were again just about everywhere in this area, and we stopped - for quite a while - to watch this herd cross the road in front of us:

As we approached the Canyon Village junction, we decided to take the northern road to see the other side of the Yellowstone Grand Canyon and the lower and upper falls that are visible. The last time we viewed these falls, we were on the southern road and had a totally different viewpoint. They were as beautiful as we remembered the last time:

And also, the Canyon itself:

The section of road between the Canyon Village junction and the Tower- Roosevelt junction to the north was closed - due to a fire - so we took the turnoff (west) toward Norris junction to complete the upper loop road and end up at the Tower-Roosevelt junction. Click on this link to see a map of the loop roads , which shows these junctions to eliminate the confusion- (MAP).

Just as we arrived at the Norris junction, we took a lunch break at a nice picnic area/turnout that was adjacent to a creek. While looking for a spot to stop and make our sandwiches, we saw this lone buffalo, sleeping in the woods near the picnic area:

Just before arriving at the Roosevelt-Tower junction, we took a side road - dirt road - called the Blacktail Plateau Drive hoping to see some deer. Although we didn't spot any wildlife, the drive was beautiful as a result of all the fall colors:

We continued our drive through the Lamar Valley toward the Northeast Entrance where we left the Park. The drive home from there was mostly uneventful, but beautiful, driving for the last time on the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway to get home. The only other wildlife we saw, with the exception of a ton more buffalo, was this doe that was grazing on the roadside as we left Yellowstone:

She got alarmed from our picture taking and calmly scampered across the highway:

We eventually arrived back home at around 5:30 PM.

So ends our summer of Yellowstone trips that we will forever remember as one of our all-time favorite places in the USA. We will be back again.

It's back to work today - beginning our final week...