We did get to see West Yellowstone at the height of the season – last time we were there it was mid-April, there was still snow everywhere, the Park had only just opened and very little in the town was open apart from the hotel we stayed at and a pizza place where we had dinner – this time we had bison burgers for lunch, but we didn’t get to the Yellowstone entrance until 4pm, by which time all the available campsites in the park were taken.

So we went to a campground in a nearby national forest and headed to Yellowstone early the next morning.  As we’d seen Old Faithful last time, we gave it a miss this time and visited other geysers, sulphur pool, hot springs and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. There were a few ‘wildlife jams’ on roads because people kept slowing down to look at bison grazing in meadows, but then we saw a whole herd a bit further south. We drove south beside Yellowstone Lake to Lewis Lake campground and were lucky enough to get one of the last sites. Not so lucky this morning at Jenny Lake campground in Grand Teton National Park – we missed out by a minute, unfortunately. All the campsites were taken by 9.30am!

The Teton Range is magnificent – tall, jagged peaks still dusted with snow here and there at the top, with a dozen glaciers spread across the 5 peaks.

And now we’re heading further east, to the Black Hills in South Dakota. Motelling it tonight in Worland, Wyoming and will spend the next few days camping.

Lower falls in Grand Canyon Yellowstone. It was a 200 metre descent which is a bit harder when you are already at 2,500 metres altitude

A fumarole in Yellowstone

Boiling sulphur pool in Yellowstone National Park

Camped at Lewis Lake in Yellowstone. We got there at 1pm just in time to get a campsite at one of the most remote campsites in Yellowstone

The Grand Tetons 12,000 ft high mountain range. In the foreground is the dry sagebrush that grows in the dry rainshadow of the Tetons.

2 weekends ago, on the 4th July long weekend, parts of the road were still closed because of snow, but it’s all clear now, although it still feels like spring there from the wildflowers in bloom, even though it’s mid-July.

We bought an annual National Parks pass as we’re planning on visiting Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons and a few more in South Dakota and Utah. As we drove through the park’s entrance gates, we noted that quite a few campgrounds were already full, but hoped we’d get a site at the Avalanche Creek campground, at the southern end of the park. And we did –  the very last one! We’ve got a system for reserving a site in a popular campground, to make sure we don’t lose it. Once we have found a site, one of us ‘minds’ it while the other goes to register and pay for it ASAP. Nice campground near a cedar forest, and beside a fast-flowing creek. As we were driving to it, I noticed a tract of newly-fallen trees on either side of the road – a recent avalanche, perhaps.

The border post between Canada and USA. It was an hour wait in the car queue to cross the border, with only one staff member manning the border post. The USA is the slowest most difficult country to enter that we have ever experienced.

Tunnel on the Going to the Sun road near Logans Pass

The Going to the Sun road cut into the steep mountain descending from Logans Pass