Day 28 - Yellowstone National Park and Grizzly Bears

Finally we headed into Yellowstone - entering at the East Gate. The road had only been cleared the week before and there was a lot of snow as we climbed up into the Park.

We had to drive through this sort of snow.

We were wondering whether we'd actually see much wildlife - Yellowstone is famous for its Buffalo, Bears, Elk, Moose etc.

Well, within minutes I screamed "Bear" as we came round a corner. A Grizzly was wandering along the side of Yellowstone Lake (which is still frozen over). We stopped the car and watched the bear - she was about 400 yards away and walking towards us (and 20 other people and a Ranger).

She wandered ever closer and disapeared behind a bush. The Ranger said what we all thought "In a momemnt she will appear just in front of us and you all need to get in your cars quickly." Well, about 10 seconds later the call rang out "Everyone in your cars NOW!". The Grizzly wandered behind our car as we marvelled at this amazing beast.......which is kinda scarey and you are supposed to stay 100 yards away from them.

What an exciting start to Yellowstone!

Onwards, another few corners and "Bears!".

This time another 200 people had also found this Grizzly and her cub. They were walking through the scrub with a hundred camera lenses following them. It was manic - but the bear cub looked really cute (according to Emma and Olivia).

Onwards, our first Geysers. We got out the car as the snow started - it was heavy and very, very cold. The Geysers were good though.

On to Yellowstone falls. We wanted to do a walk but had been told the walks were closed as there was too much snow. Rules have never been that important to us, so on we went through the snow in search of the walk we wanted to do. We waded through snow that was 3-4 feet deep and found the patch. We climbed over the "Do not enter - Danger" sign and headed down 350 steps to see the falls. We were rewarded with a stunning view of the falls - and a very hot and tiring climb back up!

A great walk.

We meandered through the Park seeing lots of Elk and Buffalo. On route we were slowed down by two avalanche/land slides and had to stop every few miles for yet another stunning view/waterfall/geyser/animal. We eventually got to Mammoth Hot Springs - our stop for the night around 4:30pm.

We had a great walk around the Geysers and Hot Springs here - lots of colourful rock formations. Hard to do justice to in a blog or a photo.

Another long day but a great first day in Yellowstone.