37 Frames : Yellowstone, on the Northern Road (USA – The Roadtrip 6)

“It is all very beautiful and magical here – a quality which cannot be described. You have to live it and breathe it, let the sun bake it into you.” ~ Ansel Adams

The road beckons again…after a most fabulous whirlwind day with the Facebook team in Tokyo yesterday. Loved it all!! A huge success…more news to come. So back to the road for our next very frosty installment on the Great American Road Trip. So 2012. From Waves and Mountains today’s chapter sees us on the road to Gardiner, Montana. It’s not icy, then it is. There’s no snow and then there’ a blizzard. There’s a giant potato driving a truck, always. And the wildlife obsession begins…in earnest. You’ve been warned. In winter the road connecting the Grand Tetons and West Yellowstone is closed due to the snow. So that meant going around the long, long, long way to get to the Mother of all National Parks, Ms Yellowstone herself. And to do this you still have to go up, over and down a mountain pass. Which we might have known about if we had a real map. And we wouldn’t havebeensooutrageouslyscaredinhindsight. It was icy and slippery. But beautiful all the same. The hint of things to come… 

And hello Idaho, again.

We saw signs ahead to Driggs. And that sparks an instant recognition in Trace. She knows something is coming up. She knows what lies ahead. And she teases me. “Just wait til you see…if I’m right and remember, there is quite an incredible Roadside America attraction not too far away”…  And then there it is. She never fails. For it is “The Spud”… Yes, a giant potato, in a flatbed truck, hauling an even more massive potato, advertising a drive-in theatre, also named, wait for it… The Spud. All very Driggs.

And here is where I get lost in all things RA and just let Trace fill me on the life-altering details. Not only does it grab your attention road side but it also serves a practical use. Every year the potato truck, dubbed “Old Murphy,” is driven during the local parade (in 2006 it was covered in tin foil like a baked potato…good one). The movie drive-in is still in operation, the latest double feature prominent on the marquee during the summer. But deserted here in winter. Old Murphy on patrol, parked out front, watching the world go by and waiting for us to visit and document this little RA gem.

We keep heading north and it’s not quite up to the standard of “The Spud” but it’s nice to find random Thai food somewhere near Lava Hot Springs. Not open though… so no sampling Idaho’s take on Thai. But a good enough photo-op all the same.

We’ve now made it across another border and we find ourselves in a very snow-less Montana much to the dismay of both us AND the locals. It’s always coffee time, so a quick cafe latte at a roadside coffee shack in Big Sky was totally on the cards. And wouldn’t be the last.

After Big Sky, we kind of bypassed West Yellowstone (we would return in a few days) to keep heading north to Gardiner. We make it late in the afternoon. It is a quaint, small and quiet little place and the starting point to explore the northern road of Yellowstone, which remains open in the winter. The drive in was through giant majestic mountains bathed in gold. We certainly knew where we were heading. It was the literal drive. There was absolutely nowhere near the amount of white we were expecting. Barely any at all, actually. It was just mountains and fields of gold. After a quick check-in to the hotel we then ventured into the park hoping for a sunset and at the very least on a scouting expedition for sunrise. And we were WOW’ed from the start. For icons welcomed us in the form of THE Roosevelt Arch. And we were in.

And then we were promptly warned not to molest the animals. Noted.

A few miles up the road and we arrive at the 45th Parallel. The sign proclaiming the important mid-point between the Equator and the North Pole was recently shifted north from Wyoming into Montana, when it was discovered that it was in the wrong spot.

From the 45th we made our way to Mammoth Hot Springs… to explore the boiling and bubbling Terraces. We started at the base and then explored the many boardwalks and view points. A hot pot of natural inspiration. The colors, shapes and forms just fascinating and a dream to photograph. Just in time for a most dramatic sunset, that seemed to last forever. Oh! And our first Bison encounter…that was super up close and personal. The first of many…

The clouds held that color for so long. It should have been an indication of what was to come. Because that cloud cover certainly hadn’t left by the next morning. And as we headed into the park for sunrise way before sun-up it was just a total whiteout. Today the clouds came with snow. For a storm was rolling in. So we decided to slowly make our way along the entire north road of Yellowstone National Park (the only open road in winter) for a scenic drive before heading out and around to West Yellowstone – another 500km drive.
It would be a long day. In the early light of day it was a white winter wonderland, that didn’t stop the wildlife from coming to say hello. And this is the magic of Yellowstone, at its heart, just incredible in any season, in any kind of weather. Surprises around every corner, surging away beneath you, at peaks and turns, magnificent vistas and landscapes wait. And here is our take on northern Yellowstone, on a wintery, white, quite fantastic day. Featuring a colorful cast of characters from deer, to bison, coyotes, more bison and then some.

We explored the whole scenic road, had a ball and finally made it out to the other side after passing those rather impressive icicles at the rangers station. And that’s when the snow really started coming down.

On the other side the secluded Cooke City is waiting. Which was barely a village let alone a city. It seemed to be just one street long – with everything named after grizzly bears. Oh, good. Let’s start again on our bear obsession. Luckily they were deep in hibernation mode…  And even luckier for us the Loving Cup Cafe was open. And the coffee alone was worth the trip. For it was good. And good coffee requires leaping.

After we almost got ourselves completely trapped in a hidden ditch of snow (hard to explain, but we drove into what we thought was a parking lot, but it was actually an inconspicuous  slope down, all covered in very powdery snow, so we instantly sunk into the snow and almost hit a snow wall as we tried not to spin out…) Some very snazzy driving moves by Trace got us out before we had to call a tow-truck…  A little bit shaky it was then time to head back into the park and back along the road to leave Montana, enter Wyoming, exit Wyoming and enter Montana again to get on the road to West Yellowstone and the Stagecoach Inn… This time in full blizzard mode. Bring it on. Yellowstone, here we come again.

Mid-way back through the park we had a brief chat with Em & Erin who were driving behind us. They decided to do a u-turn and head back up the road to get some more shots of some rather majestic mountain goats we had just passed. We decided to keep on trucking. We’d meet up again at the entrance to the park. So off we went. We rounded a corner. And that’s when we came to a full stop in the road as a bison was blocking our way. It was a stand-off. Of bison proportions. Which is equal to an endless, infinite amount of time. Because they simply do not move. We can’t make him run or move fast because of winter energy storage – so we waited. And waited. And wished in life we could just do that. Have a bison moment. Often. It’s certainly something we will take away with us. His friend joined him and together they got spooked and kind of galloped off just as we were trying to work out what we were going to do. We didn’t molest them at all. We promise. It was a complete whitewash at this point in terms of  the snow – much more than the photos suggest. Honestly we could barely see them in the blizzard. And it was hard to focus with all those beautiful flakes. But this is how it kind of played out. Bison…the stand-off Series (part 1).

We fare-welled this little herd of bison, their heads now firmly in the snow, foraging for food and continued with our drive to the exit. Just a little way along we interrupted a group of wildlife photographers. What was going on? There were a lot of cameras with some very big lenses on show.  As we got a little closer to their subjects – we saw that it was a most regal duo of bighorn sheep. And so here’s another series of  our classic drive-bys.

It was so hard to leave. Yellowstone is truly a muse, the stuff of photographic dreams. We finally made it out to the Gardiner entrance again… our only solace that we would be heading into the park again via West Yellowstone for a 3 day stay, actually in the park. So with the winter weather not really on our side it was time to head south, straight into it. Goodbye Yellowstone. See you in a bit.

Our golden mountains of the day before now looking like this. It was icy, icy, icy most of the road south-west.

Will we even make it to West Yellowstone? Will the coffee shack in Big Sky be open? Will the chains come out? How many bison will we see and what do flashing lights mean? And what, if we make it, will welcome us is the lobby of The Stagecoach Inn? All will be revealed in Part 7…coming soon…thanks for taking the trip with us…

Catch up here:

Part 1 – USA the Roadtrip : On the same Page

Part 2 – USA the Roadtrip : The Wave and All things Epic

Part 3 – USA the Roadtrip : Moab & Canyonlands… magic & more milestones

Part 4 – USA the Roadtrip : On the Salt Road

Part 5 – USA the Roadtrip : Life, ain’t it Grand