The Great Western Loop: Wildlife and Waterfalls

It turns out no rain fall that night and everything was dry the next morning. However, had we not moved back up the trail, we would not have awoken just before sunrise to find a mom and two grizzly bear cubs not more than 100 paces from our camp. They were foraging in the meadow next to us and were not too concerned with our camp being there. I was able to wake Kiefer up just enough for him to look out of the trailer and see them before he crashed again.

With grizzlies outside our trailer, there was no way I was going back to sleep. I quickly and quietly got dressed and grabbed my camera to try and get a few shots of them. It was still too dark to get any good photos when they are close, but as the light picked up some my dad and I made our way in the direction that they had scampered off in. We were able to spot them again moving up the hill on the far side of the trial from us.

There might not have been any rain overnight, but when the sun finally broke over the distant mountains, there was a lot of cloud activity that made for a very beautiful and interesting sky. Both the lighting and the clouds were changing by the second!

While the new campsite was not on the banks of the Clarks Fork Yellowstone River, it was still a very choice spot to spend some time at.

The grizzlies were not the only visitors we had that morning, this cow elk came around to check us out as well and ended up staying around for quite a while.

With me taking so many photos that morning, the camera gear was the last thing to be packed up before we headed out.

Not much further down the road we discovered why we did not get any rain overnight. It all fall in the form of snow in the mountains to the north and west of us. The roads must have been warm enough from the day before to keep them clear, which meant smooth sailing for us as we made our way into and out of Montana on the way to the Northeast Entrance of Yellowstone NP.

Like most trips to Yellowstone, it was not long before we started seeing wildlife. First up was a fox that looked like it had had a rough night and wanted to take it out on the humans as it blocked the road for a decent amount of time. So much time in fact, that a ranger had to come shoo it way.

Next up was the ever present Tatanka. No matter how many times you see these guys, you always have to stop for a better look your first day in the park.

By mid morning the rains had started in earnest over Yellowstone and stayed with us for most of our trip.

The off and on rain through out the morning made everything very green, except the roads. It made those muddy.

And the truck and trailer even muddier.

Well, we thought this was muddy, but we’d find out later just how wrong we were.

The next stop on our trip was the Natural Bridge Falls. This is a pretty unique water fall in the fact that as the water level of the river drops, the river disappears into an underground network of caves.

And then reappears gushing out of the side of a near by cliff. When the water level is higher, the river pours out of the two holes just above and to the right of where it is coming out in the photo below. When the river is really running high, it also cascades from the top, again just a little above and to the right of the two holes.

There is a short hike that takes you all the way down to the bottom where the falls meet the river below. The last part of the hike is kind of steep and everything is very slippery from all the moisture trapped down there.

Things were not much drier back up top, but nothing stops Kiefer and Pep-paw from having fun together.

With the falls and lunch out of the way, it was time to put down some decent dirt miles to get to our next camping spot. Which, just happened to be in the mountains behind this cool little church that was out in the middle of know where.

Soon after the little church, Melville Road turned into “Mudville” Road. I’m talking about mud so bad that you have to slow down to 5mph just to maintain control of your vehicle. Mud so bad you have to work your trailer’s breaks manually just to help anchor it behind the truck so it does not push you off the road going down hill on a curve. Mud so bad you have to keep going as stopping to try and turn around is a sure fire way of getting stuck.

After spending way too much time driving in the mud and consuming way more gas than expected, we decide to bail at the first paved road we came to, leaving the abandoned campsite some 17 miles down a remote road in the new state of Mudtana. Even back on pavement the mud was not done with us. We had to stop and clean off as much as we could from the trailer to lighten the load back there.

With the second night’s campsite scratched off the books, we decided to see if we could push on to where we had planned to camp the third night. After all, if you have to divert from your plans, you might as well try and get ahead of the game. Alas, that was not to be either. The extra time and gas spent in the mud meant we did not have enough of either to make it there. Instead, we made camp in a spot we found along the way. It might have been a decent campsite in better weather, but with snow melting on the ground and rain falling on our heads, we ate a quick dinner and went to bed cold and defeated.