We had planned to check out Yellowstone just before the park closed for winter this year. I made a reservation at Flagg Ranch which is in between Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park for the night of 9/25 and at Madison Campground the next night. The rest we were playing by ear.
We headed out on 9/24 for Yampa State Park just past Steamboat Springs. There was quite a bit of smoke from a fire in the Gore Range on the way up. We have found that this is a good stop to break up the drive so that we might arrive and Jackson earlier in the day and enjoy some time in the Tetons.
We passed more fires on the Colorado-Wyoming border and made it to Pinedale where we stopped at the visitor center to find that the Roosevelt Fire had closed the road to Jackson. The nice lady in the visitor center showed us an alternate route on National Forrest roads which could get us west to Alpine and around the fires. Well, so much for spending the afternoon in the Tetons…
North of Pinedale we turned left and down to the Cottonwood Creek road, over McDougal Gap and down the Sheep Creek drainage and the Grey’s River to Alpine, near the Idaho border. Then, east along the Snake River to Jackson.
That area of Bridger-Teton National Forest was gorgeous and the only people we saw were fire crews who warned us not to stop for the night as they were also mopping up a fire to the south of us.
The Roosevelt Fire burned over 60,000 acres with 55 structures lost.
We arrived in the dark at Flagg Ranch Campground for a very cold night. June found that the camp dishwashing station was frozen when we were cleaning up in the morning. We spent the day touring Yellowstone along the Old Faithful road and north to the Norris Geyser area. We camped at Madison Campground where we were serenaded by the elk bugling and wolves howling along the Madison and Firehole Rivers.
We left the park through the west entrance and stopped for breakfast in West Yellowstone. We traveled north toward the Big Sky Ski Area on our way to Bozeman. There were more fires along the highway on this edge of YNP. The NPS policy was to let it burn, with just a few crews right along the highway. We had lunch at Lone Peak Brewery in Big Sky and made it to the Bozeman Hot Springs Campgound, our destination.
We spent the next day exploring the area including a stop at the Schnee’s Store and a hike on the Drinking Horse Hill trail up the Bridger Canyon Road.
The next day we traveled through the north part of Yellowstone. We went through Livingston and in the Mammoth entrance then the Blacktail Plateau Dr off the Grand Loop Rd, coming out near Tower. Then, to Canyon, the Yellowstone River, by the lake and out the east entrance. We stayed at the KOA campground in Cody.
It snowed in Cody and much of the next day. We traveled through Thermopolis, Shoshoni and over to Casper and down I25 back to civilization.
