Yellowstone

Our vacation to Yellowstone was amazing and even though I have already e-mailed out my 500+ photos I felt this trip deserved a little narrative. We hiked a lot....I was shocked to learn that only 5% of the people who visit Yellowstone actually hike. I guess it's because there is so much to see on the ground level but I think the views from the mountain tops were the best.

Sepulcher Mountain
This is our first hike attempt. I call it an attempt because we weren't sure of the exact mileage starting out and before we reached the top we were already at 5 miles and we had to turn around and still go back 5 miles, so we didn't make it to the top of this one. (Day 1, we were just warming up)



This is a photo of the Grand Tetons which we were lucky enough to have time to drive down to these massive mountains. This park was just south of Yellowstone. We wished we would have allowed more time to hike the Tetons.

Bunsen Peak

This is the view from the top of Bunsen Peak. The elevation on this one was 8500ft. Can you see the itty bitty road with the parking lot.....that's where we started from.

Mt. Washburn

This hike is one of the most popular because it has an active fire tower at the top. It was 10, 200 ft.

Our tallest and most strenuous hike was Avalanche Peak which was 10,566 ft and straight up the mountain. It was very cloudy on that day and the pics weren't great enough to share but at least I can say we did it!

Yellowstone has it's own version of the Grand Canyon running through it with a huge waterfall. I could have stood here all day and watched it. This photo is used on many of the post cards for the park.

Also there are hot springs and geysers all over the place but here are just a few pics.

We saw an abundance of Bison and Elk. It was so nice to watch the animals in their natural habitat and not think of humans as their predators. I felt like we were just visiting in their world and as long as we kept our distance they didn't care. We also saw black bears, grizzlies, and a couple of wolves trying to attack the Bison.

We feel like we conquered Yellowstone and drove every square inch of it so we are glad to have this one down in our memories.