Wednesday - Old Faithful Snow

We stayed in West Yellowstone on Tuesday night and saw some small male elk on the way out of the park. Back into Yellostone on Wednesday morning, we headed to Old Faithful. It was pretty cloudy and it wasn't long before it was snowing quite hard. The temp was about 34*. We stopped at Old Faithful and only had to wait about 20 minutes before it erupted. The sky actually cleared and the sun came out while we were there. It was a beautiful sight and we were all excited to see it.

Our next stop was the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Holy buckets! What a sight! We hiked along some trails and saw the huge canyon and giant waterfalls. (See Trav's post.) We also watched two osprey in a nest high on a rock point. The snow and wind picked up and we were chased back to the car to warm up. 

Heading north, we saw hundreds of bison and bison calves. The landscapes were amazing! The weather cleared and we had hopes of exiting Yellowstone and then driving  Bear Tooth Pass. Unfortunately, after leaving the northeast gate of Yellowstone, we learned that Bear Tooth was closed due to snow and ice. With not many options of getting out of the Rockies, we drove Chief Joseph's Scenic Highway... WOW! The switchbacks seemed endless at times and views were spectacular. We had to stop on one narrow road to let a heard of female elk and calves cross in front of us. We also saw two moose grazing on the side of the road.

This photo doesn't really do the scene justice, but all the road you can see in this photo, we drove on!