Yellowstone 2011
Lots of pictures below - please be patient loading
Our Flying “road trip”
So our son Drew was finishing his first year of college at Indiana University and he decided to spend the summer with my brother Chris in Seattle Washington, rather than coming home.
Since I was getting ready to change jobs, it seemed like a good time for a father/son adventure. We thought about hiking in the mountains for a couple days before he left - then we thought about driving him to Seattle together - then I was talking to my good friend Rick about renting a plane and flying Drew to Seattle. Well, this was a good idea, but the plane rental for anything nice was going to be prohibitively expensive. Now Rick owns a Cessna 172, which is a great small plane, but not exactly the kind of plane you fly cross country into the mountains with three guys onboard.
Anyway, Rick was game for some kind of trip, and said he didn’t think he wanted to fly the 172 all the way to Seattle, but he came up with the idea of flying it only halfway to Seattle and then putting Drew on a commercial flight for the rest of the way. It was a good compromise, and when we looked at the map even better - just about 2/3 of the way to Seattle is Yellowstone Park, and none of us had been there before. So, with just a couple days preparation, we took off on a 5 day Yellowstone adventure.
We, of course live in the midwest where it is flat, but Yellowstone is anything but flat - it was going to take at least 9,000 feet of elevation out of the Cessna to get us there. Considering the maximum a 172 can fly is generally 11,000 to 12,000, this might be a challenge - especially when you consider the plane, with full fuel will only carry about 500-600 lbs of stuff. Well, I’m not exactly as light as I’d like, and Rick is pretty tall, and Drew - well he’s been on a weightlifting binge and he’s pretty heavy now too. The first task was to empty everything but the bare miniumum out of our bags - still I think we were near the limit - Rick had me sit in the front seat to keep the center of gravity forward.
So we took off and saw the country from 8,000 feet at 110 mph. We flew the Cessna all the way to Cody, Wyoming in about 10 hours - which is pretty good, considering it would take at least 24 hours straight in a car. The first day there was a lot of weather, and we stopped overnight in Rapid City South Dakota. The mountains rise up just west of Rapid City, so the plan was to leave early the next morning and get over the mountains before the winds kicked up too much. We got up the next day and flew over Mt. Rushmore and then up to Devils Tower, Wyoming - then the big mountains started and we climbed to 11,000 feet and flew through the Big Horn Canyon into the Cody basin and landed and Yellowstone Airport in Cody.
We rented a car, found a nice hotel and decided to check out the area. It’s really mountainous, and we quickly figured out that the original plan of doing some hiking was going to be difficult. There was still 5-6 feet of snow on everything at any elevation, and the entrance to Yellowstone was blocked from and avalanche, so we had to drive about 125 miles north to get into the park. Yellowstone was incredible, and not too crowded. At every turn we saw sights that were astonishing - big mountains, big canyons, big waterfalls, and of course, big Geysers, and boiling mud pots, and blue pools of water and lakes and rivers and trees. We saw buffalo, and elk and deer and eagles and about every other kind of wildlife, but never saw any bears - which apparently can be aggressive that time of year. Rick picked up a can of “bear spray” at the outfitter shop just in case.
We stayed overnight in Yellowstone at the Old Faithful inn, and the old geyser was faithful for sure. The next morning we climbed the hill behind the geyser basin and hiked around a bit. We were going to hike some trails, but most were covered in several feet of snow. They still hadn’t cleared the road back to Cody, so we opted to go south through Grand Teton Park and take the long way back to Cody - about 360 miles of driving around huge mountain ranges. The Tetons were amazing in their own right - then we just kept driving through interesting terrain. At one point we drove through the Wind River Canyon - a stunning mountain pass that is about 15 miles long - we had no idea it was there.
We got back to Cody and stayed overnight - the next morning we put Drew on a plane bound for Seattle and Rick and I took off in the Cessna back home. The first hour of the trip was a bit harrowing as we had to fly over the 7,500 foot pass and the weather was calling for very high winds. It turned out to be an easy flight, but you wouldn’t want anyone who wasn’t an experienced pilot flying it.
The return trip was pretty uneventful. We couldn’t figure out if it was because gas was so high or not, but there were hardly any other small planes out flying. At one town we asked for the airport “courtesy car” to go into town and get a bite to eat. The guy gave us a Ford “police interceptor” still decked out in black and white paint and even the town police logo on the side. Secretly Rick wanted to steal the interceptor and drive it home, but he didn’t trust me flying his plane - partially because I’m not legal and mostly because the one time he gave it over to me for takeoff I almost completely fumbled - I think I need to go back to pilot school.
It was a great trip - thanks to Rick for providing the ride and thanks America for the Park - it’s a great one…
Some pictures - I’ll add more and some captions over time
Rick at the controls of the mighty Cessna 172
Drew got to ride in front a couple times. At one point a really nice guy in a Cirrus let me ride with him across South Dakota and gave Drew a break from the back seat.
Flying into Rapid City South Dakota as the sun is dropping low
Mt. Rushmore - probably more impressive from the ground - but this is a great view
Black Hills of South Dakota have some neat formations
Devils Tower, Wyoming - it was really strange, the sun would go behind the clouds and the whole thing was hard to see.
We had to make pretty often gas stops. This one is in Eastern Wyoming just before we fly into the big mountains.
Terrain rises pretty high - those are 9-10K mountain tops - we’re up at 11,000, the highest we get on the trip, and we flew into Montana to get around them.
We flew through a pass called the Big Horn Canyon into the Cody Basin
This would be a great place to explore
You can see the size of the canyon from the size of the parking lot
We’ve arrived at Yellowstone airport in Cody Wyoming.
Even though the park entrance near Cody was closed, we decided to drive there anyway, because they said the road was beautiful - it was.. The first thing we came to was the Buffalo Bill reservoir and Dam - it’s huge
The rock formations were fantastic, and here’s the canyon just down from the dam.
All along the road to the park was incredible rock formations
Here we caught our first glimpse of wildlife - deer, buffalo and elk
After 53 miles we got to the Yellowstone gate - which we knew was closed from an avalanche - so we turned around and drove back to Cody, which was fine - just to see the view again. By this time the sun was going away fast, and we nearly hit a deer on the highway - over the course of the next couple days we saw several vehicles which had hit deer.
The next morning we drove 125 miles north to the entrance to the park - we got mixed reports as to whether this road was open or not - apparently it just opened the day before we got there. The views and the history were great - they call this “dead indian pass”. Apparently the US Cavalry was chasing a band of Indians through here after Custer’s massacre with the intent on wiping them out - they had to leave behind anyone who couldn’t keep up, which is what happened to the pass’s namesake.
As the snow got higher and higher, we were worried the road was still closed - it would have been a 350 mile detour north if this road wasn’t open.
Finally we made it to Cook City, Montana - just outside the Yellowstone entrance. The main mode of transportation here was snowmobile. We had lunch in a little cafe run by a Frenchman and a young woman who had just arrived from Eastern Europe to work for the summer.
Shortly afte we entered the park we came across the first wildlife roadblock, a bunch of mother and baby buffalos which didn’t seem to be phased by the people at all and certainly weren’t in a hurry to get off the road.
Mammoth Hot Springs. At this point I’m starting to realize what terrible shape I’m in, and what good shape Drew is in - it’s 7,000 feet elevation here, and I’m huffing and puffing going up the hills.
Artist’s Point - Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and the Lower falls. This is one of the incredible things I never really knew existed in Yellowstone. The canyon is 10 miles long and really deep. That waterfall is a couple miles away and over twice the height of Niagra Falls. Rick commented that he’d been all around the world but, “this has got to be in my top 5”.
The upper falls of the Yellowstone - also impressive - this thing is also huge and powerful.
After these and many other mountains and valleys and waterfalls, we finally arrive to the geiser basin, which is what I thought all of Yellowstone looked like.
For some reason, some of the pools are brightly colored and others are full of mud.
Toward the end of a long day of driving and hiking and seeing incredible sights, we finally arrived at Old Faithful, and after waiting a short time it gave us a show.
We stayed the night at Old Faithful Inn - a famous landmark that was constructed in 1904 of unusual trees.
The continental divide practically surrounds the geiser basin - we actually drove back and forth over it three times on the way to the south end of the park. We had planned to do some hiking here, but there was too much snow to even get off the road, and all the tourist amenities were still closed, so we just kept driving out the south Entrance into the Grand Teton National Park.
Exiting the south entrance of Yellowstone, you enter Grand Teton Park. It’s a much smaller park than Yellowstone, but the mountains here are no less stunning. The lake was still frozen on this end, which gave a great view.
The Interceptor - who needs an airplane when you can ride like this?
