Yellowstone Winter: Yellowstone River in the Canyon

Gardiner MT and Heading Home

Lunch in Bozeman yesterday.

Alas, our trip into Yellowstone is not to be. Every day we make the best, which is not too shabby. The wildlife isn't limited by the park boundaries. The great loss for us is not being able to see the geothermal wonders, thousands of them, that exist only inside the park.

So today, Wednesday, we decide to head east from Gardiner where we spent our last night in Montana. Ed was originally scheduled on a flight from Jackson next Monday. We abandon that plan and make the drive home together. We see more cool stuff, as you will see.

Dinner last night in Gardiner.

This elk fellow hangs out with his gals at Gardiner. Rut is nearly over, though apparently not for him. He spots a nearby female. He trumpets, quite thrilling for us to hear, and chases her. She neatly avoids him. My bet: she is already pregnant. He goes on trumpeting and acting unsettled. The gals are not interested.

 Yellowstone River

 Pronghorns

Gardiner MT

Gardiner MT, elevation 5224' 

This is my first day with no goal or destination. I am tired. The increased elevation isn't helping.

Today I come to believe this postcard will be my only view of Old Faithful, and I laugh.

It snowed overnight, an inch in town but a foot or more at the point up a back road where I decided to turn around before I got into trouble, Suburu Forester notwithstanding.

I saw a thousand blue birds, gathering for a long trek 

somewhere milder than this will be in a few weeks.

 The Yellowstone River exits the Park here at Gardiner as a big and fast flowing a river. 

It rises near the eastern side of the Park and flows past here, north and then east for a total of 692 miles, until it meets the Missouri in North Dakota. 

In 1806 half the group, led by William Clark, 

journeyed east along the Yellowstone from the Bitterroots 

to the Confluence, where they rejoined Meriwether Lewis's group 

and completed the homeward journey to St. Louis. 

The Corps never came up here, north of present-day Livingston. 

One of the party, John Colter, returned the next year. That is another interesting story.

Historic trainbed supported the train that brought earlier tourists up to Gardiner.