Thursday, June 2, 2011

Snowed In!

To pick up from yesterday, we ran into some unexpected weather in Yellowstone. It you're familiar with the roads in the park, there is a big circle road that runs around Yellowstone and a road that cuts through the middle from east to west. Part of the circle road was closed due road construction. On Monday morning, after trying to spot wolves in the northeast corner of the park, or as far as we could get since there was a rock slide blocking that road, we drove over the middle pass to get to the Hayden Valley area. That's when the snowstorm hit. Cars were sliding off the snow packed road, but we made it across and found even less wildlife in the Hayden Valley. We did see some geysers, though.
 Lots of steam in the cold air. Here's my favorite Yellowstone sign. Look at Dad- totally clueless while his poor boy is being cooked in a hot pot.
Driving north, we stopped at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. We were the only ones there, since the roads looked like this:
Shannon made the first footprints on the trail to the overlook.
This is what the view into the canyon looked like. I know there's a river down there somewhere!
Next plan: Let's go to Old Faithful. Oh, sorry, that road is closed due to snow. Ok, let's go back over the pass to the eastern side of the park. Oh, sorry, that road is closed for snow and car slide-off removal. Ahhh!! We were trapped like rats at Canyon. So we killed some time in the visitor's center.
Eventually the road was cleared and we were on our way. Who ever thought that Memorial Day would be so snowy?

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