We got to Yellowstone late on the afternoon of Thursday 18^th September. We needn’t have worried about getting there before the snow hit. The whole time we were there the temperature didn’t drop below 25 degrees. Well apart from the day we arrived.

Just outside of Yellowstone we’d driven through Madison Canyon Earthquake area where a huge earthquake in 1959 had totally changed the landscape, creating a huge lake. We couldn’t work out why the road and landscape around there looked weird, then realised it was covered in a blanket of hailstones! Just after that a huge thunderstorm broke out. So we arrived in Yellowstone with the rain pouring down and lightning filling the skies. All very dramatic. We were screaming in delight at a herd of bison crossing the road. (Little did we know how many of them we were to see in the next few days).  We also spotted steam rushing out of the ground along the roadside. Again we were snapping away on our cameras unaware of how much steam we were about to experience.

We spent 4 nights in the park and managed to see and experience something different every day. I think we chose the right time of year as I can imagine in the summer it must be completely packed out with visitors – I’m sure I read something like 3 million of them each year come here. I can well believe it and understand why this place would be on most peoples bucket list. It is absolutely mind blowing, awe inspiring and generally pretty damn cool.

So as the first of the USA’s National Park Yellowstone is probably the most famous. It is 2.2 million acres of volcanic activity all set in amongst alpine forests, crystal lakes, mountain peaks, canyons and waterfalls.  The park has over 150 geysers and bubbling mud pools, hissing fumaroles and hot springs which act as pressure valves, releasing the heat and steam that build up below the ground. It’s the world’s largest geothermal system (75 per cent of the earth’s geysers are found in Yellowstone).  Each area seems completely different and so each day we were there offered something completely different.

On Friday we joined a Park Ranger led tour of Mud Volcano. We were really glad we did. We learnt all about the make up of Yellowstone in that couple of hours and the kids got started on their Yellowstone Junior Ranger programmes. All the National Parks have these great programs for kids apparently. We will certainly be taking advantage of these fantastic resources. The kids loved doing them and were especially delighted with the fabric badges they got at the end of completing them. (Not sure who they think will be sewing those on for them – although actually as John successfully mended the seats in Frankie recently he appears to be the family tailor!).

So anyway, Mud Volcano. Got our first sniff of that famous Yellowstone smell – yummy sulphur. Cue the first of literally hundreds of fart jokes, which we were to endure over the next few days. Our first proper glimpse at some of the incredible pools we were to see. Especially Sour Lake which although beautiful would melt your skin off were you to decide to take a swim in it – much like battery acid. Again, kids delighted at this idea and spent hours discussing what would have happened to us had we been in Frankie if / when our battery would have exploded.

We drove up the same day to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, 24 miles long and up to 1,200 feet deep. We were absolutely speechless at this stunning sight – I can only guess at how impressive the real Grand Canyon is going to be!! We took Uncle Tom’s Trail down to the viewing point of the 308-foot Lower Falls. This involved 368 steps down and then inevitably back up again!! Turns out William and I are not very good at altitude. I confess I am not exactly at my fittest right now but still… I thought I was going to have a cardiac arrest. It continued for the next few days. What ever we were doing, walking, biking or even the gentlest of slopes I was gasping for breath and having to have a sit down. John kept trying to make me feel better by telling me we were at almost 9000’ in some parts of the park but still I felt truly pathetic.

Day 2 we spent down at the West Thumb Geyser Basin. The pools were getting more and more colourful and beautiful. Seems like we chose the right order to visit the various different areas of the park as each place seemed even more beautiful than the last. These geysers and pools are all set on the side of Yellowstone Lake. Our favourite was the ‘fishing pot’ on the side of the lake. When they first brought tourists to the park nearly 100 years ago people could stand on the side of the geyser with a fishing rod, catch a fish in the lake and with the fish still on the hook drop it into the pot to cook. Classic.

We spent the afternoon on the volcanic beach on the lake. You felt you could be on a tropical island – Hawaii maybe? I was really impressed when Charlie identified the shiny back rocks that make up the beach as obsidian. Turns out he knew about it from Minecraft. Brilliant. We are very pleased to report the kids actually do already have quite an extensive knowledge about American history – most of it gleaned from The Simpsons.

We headed to Hayden Valley on our way back to the campground and stood with the dozens of other nature spotters, complete with binoculars and spotting scopes trying to see some of the wildlife. We were in luck. A huge herd of elk wandering across the valley were suddenly scattered by the arrival of a grizzly bear. Our first grizzly bear. In truth it was a very long way away so I’m afraid I have no pictures. I tried desperately to get a photo down the scope with my iPhone but I just couldn’t capture it – so you’ll have to take my word for it!

Day 3 we set the alarm for 6am so we could be back up at Hayden Valley with the sunrise to try to spot some more wildlife. As we were hooking up the trailer we heard dozens of wolves howling very near by. Exciting and somewhat scary. William was beside himself (Charlie was still snoring in the back of the van – we left him sleeping till the last possible minute). Even though I was holding open my eyes with matchsticks and guzzling coffee I must confess it was very special driving through Yellowstone as the mist rolled across and herds of bison wandered slowly across the road in front of us.

We got to see the sunrise and it felt like one of those ‘moments’ in the trip. (We have seen endless incredible things so far and know we have many more ahead of us.   But just a few times we have insisted the kids ‘take a photo’ of where we are in their mind and it turns out they can recite them back to us which shows it might just have worked. That morning was certainly one for the mental photo album). The wildlife didn’t really play along with our plans and 2 hours in we were beginning to get a bit despondent when someone wonderful spotted a coyote – situation saved!!

Once we were done there we finally headed towards Old Faithful and the other active geysers in that area. We pulled into the car park just as Old Faithful did its thing (it’s thing being spraying boiling hot water 90-180’ into the air every 90 minutes for 5 minutes or so while being observed by hundreds of tourists sat around it on the strategically placed benches). Gutted we hadn’t been there to actually witness the moment of it’s ‘eruption’ we walked the boardwalks and took in other incredible pools and geysers in this area before heading back and watching it one more time. Castle Geyser we actually preferred. The 12’ cone resembles a castle (hence the name) and although it only sprays 60-90’ into the air, you can walk within a few metres of it and in fact take a rather refreshing shower in the spray as the boys discovered!!

I preferred the pools myself and the stunning colours and crystal clear water, which seems so seductive and inviting and totally belied their dangerous nature. Each pool seems more beautiful than the next. Our favourites being Sapphire pool which looked magical almost & Morning Glory although it was much smaller than we had anticipated. The one we were most looking forward to was the Grand Prismatic Springs which looked vast and by far the most colourful and impressive in the photos and postcards. Sadly the photos are taken from a birds eye view and the boardwalks that take you to the pool itself basically don’t allow you to see much more than steam!!

I mentioned the bison we were so excited to see on our arrival at the park. We had made a special trip in Canada to see bison and yet here were 100’s of them. I don’t think we made a single journey across the park withuot having to stop for a few dozen bison to meander across the road. But everyone loved them and stopped to take photos and get as close to them as possible. Despite endless warnings about how they are ‘wild animals’. We spotted so many people getting far closer than the recommended 100’. Sometimes it was impossible to be that far away from them as they wandered everywhere – in and out of the mud pools, at the edges of the hot springs (the rangers didn’t seem to be able to explain why they would chose to go so close). But at one stage when a group were being particularly annoying to one poor bison quietly minding his own business grazing at the edge of a carpark we saw him charge. Hmmm I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of an animal that weighs over a tonne and can run 30 mph!!

We spent our 4^th night at a different campground (the first one we were in was closing for the season) and were jumped upon by a lovely English lady who spotted our registration plates and wanted to know how we were in the USA in an English vehicle. Turns out she was part of a 6 week tour organised by the Camping and Caravanning Club and there were 22 of them in hired RV’s, all English, all touring around from Vegas and back again.

Great campsite. Much less packed in like sardines than the last one and with far more open space. We had a lovely evening, with Charlie cooking dinner and all sat outside with a campfire again and a game or two of Uno – finally felt we were back into our groove.

On our last day it was elk who were wandering around without any interest in the recommended wildlife spotting distance guidelines. Up at Mammoth Hot Springs (our last stop in the park) they were everywhere. Mammoth was another totally contrasting area. Bright white calcium deposits that have created ledges and pools that look like the design of a rather posh spa or the set of Frozen as Charlie observed!!

We stopped on our way out of the park at Lamar Valley where we had been reliably informed we were in with the best chance of spotting some wolves.  Grey wolves were reintroduced to the park in 1995 after being almost eradicated in the 1930s and it is a fairly contentious subject with lots of locals unhappy about it. We didn’t sadly spot any wolves but we did get to see huge numbers of pronghorns and we spent ages watching a huge grizzly bear wandering across the valley. Very cool end to our time here. And so we sadly bade farewell to Yellowstone Park. We absolutely loved our time here and know we will be back!!