August 13, 2020 - Yellowstone

We had a lazy start to our day and didn’t head into the park until 9:30! Our only destination was a small hike before the Fishing Bridge/Lake Village area. We asked about the Avalanche Peak hike at the entrance station and changed our minds – it has a 2000’ elevation gain in less than two miles and is rated as strenuous. We opted for an easy hike at Storm Point. About 2-1/2 miles and mostly flat. I think Tobey was disappointed, but he was a good sport!

The hike crossed a meadow and through forest before reaching the tip of Storm Point which gave us some great views of Yellowstone Lake and the mountains.The guys scrambled up the rocks to prove they could do it.After the point, we followed the trail along the shoreline. It was chilly and windy!We passed many sections of forest with downed trees along the inland side of the trail.Further along, Gary spotted something moving along the hill. We pulled out the binoculars and decided they looked a little like marmots but we weren’t quite sure. The closer we got, the more of them we could see.The trail then turned back through the trees. Many of them are dead and with the wind it was a little disconcerting to hear them creaking. I think I was more afraid a tree would fall on me than I was of encountering a bear!

After the hike we headed back to camp. We had a traffic jam on the way out of the park.This big guy was just walking down the road and had traffic stopping in both directions. We finally got close enough to pass. Tobey probably could have put his arm out the window and tapped him on the bum as we went by!We stopped at the Lake Butte Overlook for one last view of the lake and surrounding area.Our final stop was at Corkscrew Bridge overlook. What a disappointment. We can only assume that it was one of the original bridges in the park, but there was no signage explaining anything about it! The best part of the stop was when another family stopped and they told us that two guys on motorcycles came zooming up to the bison we had seen and stopped. The bison kept going toward them and they jumped off their motorcycles and ran. The bison just stopped and smelled their cycles, then kept on walking. Wish we had seen that!Back at camp, we had lunch then spent some time reading and played board games and cards. Ann and Gary are leaving early tomorrow so they will travel on their own. We will make a leisurely trip home and spend at least one more night before getting there.