2012 Trip to Yellowstone

Welcome to our 2012 Yellowstone blog. We arrived at the Old Faithful complex in YNP on May 17 after a short orientation at Xanterra offices in Gardiner, Mt. on the 16th. With over 8,000 applicants we feel fortunate to have our same positions as last summer working with bus tours and the gift shop at the Old Faithful Lodge. We even have our same spacious (10' x 12') dorm room in Obsidian dorm where we can see Old Faithful from our room and are just 2 minutes from our employee cafeteria. We'll be working 4 days a week with 3 off to explore the park and surrounding mountains and sights.
                                                                                                                      
 On our 1,650 mile trip west we took a break in North Platte, Nebraska to the largest train "switching" yard in the world where trains headed both east and west are separated and reconfigured according to their final city destinations. Over 10,000 rail cars pass through the yard each day and everything is in constant motion as far as you can see from the 8 story viewing tower.  
 One of stories we heard on our tour was that of residents of the small town of North Platte and surrounding farm communities that greeted and fed thousands of troop trains that passed through here 24 hours a day during and just after WW2. Each transport stopped for an average of just 10-15 minutes to refuel and during that time all the servicemen and women were feed by food collected and prepared by local volunteers.  The ladies even had a table of birthday cakes for the servicemen/women who may have had a birthday that day. There was a letter displayed from President FDR where he personally donated a whopping $5 to the cause...no other state or federal funds were provided. Truly a different era...

Just after our second night's stay in Cheyenne we began to spot  customary herds of  antelope. No little ones that we could see, or if they were there, they were carefully hidden away.





 Four hours from Yellowstone's East gate, just outside Cody, Wyoming, we stopped for a couple days in Thermopolis to enjoy the natural hot springs and bike around the town's parks and along the Bighorn River.  Calcite formations and natural hot springs can be found throughout the town of 5.200. As provided by a old Indian treaty, one bath house is open to the public free of charge but we chose what was a nicer facility pictured below that charged $12.50. Met an elderly (our age!) man that came out to visit Thermopolis in 1960 from Greenfield, Indiana and hasn't made it home since. 





















Ann took a walking tour of Thermopolis' suspension bridge that spans the Bighorn River and offers some interesting views of  travertine rock formations....not trusting the bridge I stayed on terra firma.























Just after we entered the Park we traveled several miles along the Shoshone River and came upon these Bighorn ewes.


We picnicked along the Shoshone River and just as we sat down two, rather rare, river otters floated by about 15 feet from us. They are the first ones we had ever seen...just too slow on the camera to get a decent picture. The only other persons in the picnic area were two brothers from Germany who spoke just a little English. They were skeptical that we eating in a "high bear occurrence" area and once we showed them the posted warning signs and pictures in our park maps they quickly got in their car and drove away......we think back to Germany.

The road then took us along the huge Yellowstone Lake.  As it was last year it is still frozen with the ice just beginning to break up. Our co-workers assigned to the Lake area won't report in until around mid-June.



Spied these Harlequin ducks resting on a boulder in the middle of the frigid Yellowstone River at Lee Hardy Rapids.  And of course there were lots of waterfowl photographers looking for that perfect picture. This rapid is a good spot to see spawning Cutthroat trout on their way back to Yellowstone Lake in late June. On on a good day one can catch a bear or two here doing some fishing of their own.










And of course the ever present American Bison which we saw every couple of miles after entering the park.  This one is using the signpost to free himself of his winter coat.  The sign read "Do not use this sign as a back rub".


Last year it took us several weeks to see our first grizzly bears and this year we caught these three, a mother and her two yearlings, on our first day near Mammoth Hot Springs.  In less than a week we have seen an incredible amount of wildlife and a total of fifteen bears compared to just 13 all last season.


We're looking forward to future postings and will try to keep them interesting.
Let us know if you have any comments or questions and we'll answer them or as
we do in our jobs, we'll make something up.

Take Care,

Jim and Ann