Yellowstone National Park

From the Bighorn Canyon we continued our trip to Yellowstone and stayed in Red Lodge at the entrance to the Beartooth Highway. At the ranger station at Bighorn Canyon we had learned that the Beartooth Pass would be open any day... except if the sign at the bottom of the pass said 'Closed'. OK....hmmm.
Red Lodge is another nice, but sleepy small town, not really much to do there. When we reached the infamous sign post it -of course- flashed in beautiful bright yellow letters 'Pass Closed'. Yay! There was no other option than to hope for the next day and find a place for night to stay.

As we wanted an early start for the next morning we went to a small public campground some 12 miles into the highway. Boy, were we lucky! This campground was one of the most beautiful spots we have parked Shorty for the night at on  the whole trip. Clear blue skies, some white-tailed deer to pay us a visit in the evening, a little bear scat right next to our site to increase the tension a little - it was just perfect.
Next morning - even better. Still blue skies when we left the campground, the pass open for traffic, yeehaa - here we come.

But - oops - when we approached higher altitudes clouds began creeping in and finally, pretty much at the start of the most beautiful stretch of this road we were sitting in the clouds, zilch visibility, rain later that wouldn't stop all day. What a bugger! You have to know that the Beartooth Highway is one of the most highly acclaimed drives in the States, plain beautiful, spectacular, almost 11,000 feet ( 3,350 m) high and all we see is mist, rain, well, some 3 meters of snow on the roadside on the higher part. This is soooo mean!
Even the bison we encounter later that day couldn't make up for it.

Anyway, we overnight at Mammoth Hot Springs at the Northern end of that big loop that leads through Yellowstone NP and the next morning, the sky was back to blue. Did I mention that this was mean?
We continued our trip along that loop through geothermal landscapes, the usual stuff like in Rotorua, New Zealand, just smaller and by far not so impressive. Lot's of impressive scenic outlooks, however, woods in the foreground and snowy mountains in the back, the odd lake in between, nice.

After traversing another pass it went up North again on the East side of the park. This the more mountainous part of the park, hence the more spectacular. Hundreds of bison along the way - a sight you do not have every day, no fence, nothing -  a glimpse of a grizzly bear with 3 or so cubs through the scope, this is not too bad. The highlight, however, is the Yellowstone Canyon, impressive waterfall and absolutely bizarre colours for a canyon.

Overall, I have to say that Yellowstone NP is a beautiful park, a huge variety of sights in rather short distance from another, and despite the individual attractions not being the most impressive we have seen, the combination of all of them does it! Well worth visiting, this park!