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Posted by GA Tim (66.168.208.179) on 16:16:50 06/29/12
Day 7 June 14, 2012 Thursday:
We had an awful night s sleep at Mammoth. There was constantly noise in the hallway all during the night. People slamming doors, rolling suitcases, and the room was still freakin hot! I was up at 3AM and couldn t wait to get out of that hotel. We hit the road at 5AM for sunrise photos. I had seen some great photos online from New Blue Spring but that was dried up. Actually most of Mammoth Hot Springs was dried up. We moved over to Canary Spring and captured some great photos as the sky lit up with color prior to sunrise. We drove down to Swan Lake Flats and waited a while but saw nothing of the grizzly that frequented this area. We moved on towards Tower, stopping at Undine Falls for a few photos. Not impressive and not a good time of day for photos. After passing by Phantom Lake we spotted a black bear down the hill from the road. It was never in a great position for photos and eventually moved on further away from us. As we drove on we encountered another black bear at Elk Creek. This one seemed to make a daily appearance as we later learned. He was pretty far away and our photos didn t turn out that great.
We kept on driving past Tower Junction and out to Lamar Valley. We stopped and talked to the wolf watchers to see what was going on. What a nice group and they let us look through their spotting scopes at the wolves and a grizzly way off in the distance. To our naked eye, and even with 400mm focal length they were all nothing more than dots in the distance. Next time we should rent a good spotting scope. Further down the road, we watched an interesting situation where a bison had been killed and the rest of the bison were gathered around it holding a little funeral (just like elephants). A wolf kept circling the bison looking for a way in but gave up and headed in our direction. The wolf eventually got about 100-150 yards away from us before turning and disappearing into the sagebrush. We moved on and stopped at Soda Butte Creek picnic area where a black bear was spotted across the creek. Again, too far away for decent photos. We watched for a while before heading on out the park to drive the Beartooth Highway. In the Silver Gate area we got some good photos of a fox and three kits that live under a garage next to the road. They are beautiful and it was fun watching their antics.
We continued out on the Beartooth Highway and once we got near 10,000 feet I was not feeling well and my wife took over the driving. It was worth it as all the views were breathtaking. We drove out to Rock Creek Vista before turning back. Once we got back down near Beartooth Butte I felt much better and took over driving from there. I guess I can t handle the altitude above 10,000 feet. On the way back through the park we did some more wolf watching in Lamar Valley. Again, it was a lot of dot-watching and not very interesting. There was another black bear near Tower Junction but he had decided to take a nap almost totally out of view.
We arrived at Roosevelt and got our name on the list for dinner. After a wait of 45 minutes we finally got a table. We had the pork sliders for an appetizer and both got the bison burger for our entrees. The pork sliders were served very quickly and were very good. They came with chipotle mayo very tasty! We were hopeful that our main course would be just as good, but unfortunately it was not. The bison burgers were terribly overcooked and bone dry. I think they were precooked and then grilled again. One side was black. It took a lot of water to wash them down. We filled out the Xanterra survey card and were brutally honest. I doubt I will ever go back there again.
We drove south over Dunraven Pass. I was nervous most of the time due to my fear of heights and also pretty tired at the time. We made it safely to the Canyon area and went to check in to our Canyon Lodge frontier cabin. Check in was frustrating as the young guy assisting us seemed to struggle with everything. He said our cabin had already been assigned and it took a lot of help from other workers there to get us into a cabin. I was so tired at this point I just wanted to get to my cabin and this was making me very impatient. Eventually things were sorted out and we were into our cabin by 8PM.
The cabin at Canyon was larger than the Old Faithful lodge cabins but a bit more run-down looking. Actually the entire Canyon area was run-down and in my opinion, an embarrassment to America s first national park. Every day tour buses dumped out throngs of foreign tourists in the cabin area and I often wondered about their impression. The roads and parking lots were full of holes, dirt, and gravel. Dust was constantly kicked up everywhere. Construction was going on around the restaurants so hopefully this area will improve when the work is done.
Just like Mammoth, our Canyon cabin was very hot when we first arrived. We opened up all the windows and left them open all night. The shower was good but the hot water took a while to warm up. My biggest gripe about the Canyon cabins is the idiotic door latch that requires two hands to get out. Most of the time we are leaving the cabin with our hands full and it s a pain to drop everything by the door just to get it open.
On the bright side, I was getting a full strength AT&T cell signal (not roaming) with good data speed all around the Canyon area. My wife s phone with Sprint service never had a signal during our entire trip.
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