Friday, 1st of June 2012 at 03:41:30 PM

Yellowstone 2012 day 0: Munich-Philadelphia-Chicago-Salt Lake City-Malad, Idaho

US Airways had changed my 1 Stop Flight  into a 2  Stop Flight leaving me no choice. It was a long day and I hopped through four US  states. Especially annoying waiting 1h on the airfield of the Philadelphia airport, in a queue of 20 planes, due to changed wheather conditions. I risked to loose my connection in Chicago. I had 30 minutes to change planes and it worked out. In Salt Lake City another disappointment, insteaf of my desired Jeep Grand Cherookee I got only a Chevrolet Equinox. Finally I drove another 100 miles to Malad, Idaho where I picked a cheap Motel at 2am in the night. The highlight was the movie I watched on the Intercontinental flight: “Ides of march” with Ryan Goosling and George Clooney.

Here a fot of my Rental car:

my Salt Lake City rental car : Chevi Equinox

I will be only 4 days in Yellowstone N.P. Afterwards will go back to the red rocks, deserts, canyons, gulches, … But i will name this travel-log Yellowstone 2012

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Sunday, 3rd of June 2012 at 07:52:16 AM

Yellowstone 2012 day 1+2: Norris Basin, Mammoth Hot Springs and Old Faithful Geysirs

After the night in Malad, Idaho I arrived at 10.30 in the morning in West Yellowstone. Unfortunately weather was rainy and cloudy. I left my luggage at the Hotel but it was too early for Checkin, so I reserved a quite room and decided to drive into the Park, despite the bad weather. I visited the Norris Geysir Basin and the Mammoth Hot Springs area, but due to the cloudy and rainy weather fotografing was not really fun. I retourned at 8pm in West Yellowstone for checkin and buying some food. Went to bed early. Here a foto from the first day.

Norris Geysir Basin

I regretted not to be like always in Nevada where wheater was more relaible.

But the second day repaid. Summer arrived and sunny weather provided excellent conditions to enjoy the park and fotograph. I will only provide one foto of the Grand Prismatic Spring in the Midlevel Geysir Basin. It was necesarry to climb a small hill to do this foto:

Grand Prismatic Spring

day1: Norris Geysir Basin-Mammoth Hot Springs – North Entrance – Old Faithful
day2: Old Faithful area – Grand Prismatic Spring . Firehole Canyon Drive

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Tuesday, 5th of June 2012 at 08:48:31 AM

Yellowstone 2012 day 3: driving the complete figure “8”

Today I visited the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. First the South Rim Road with it’s Upper Fall at Tom’s Lookout and then the Artists Point with the amazing view of the canyon and the lower fall.

Lower falls of the YSNP from Artist point

I spent some time at artists point to catch the rainbow which is known to be visible at the Lower Fall around 9am. Afterwards I drove and visited all viewpoints of the North Rim road. Lookout Point is the one I liked most. Then I drove back to Old Faithful area to revisit Grand Prismatic Spring and then the Morning Glory Pool.
Morning glory Pool
On the way to Morning Glory Pool I was lucky to see the Laakeview Geysir erupt.
Lakeside Geysir eruption
Afterwards I went to Yellowstone Lake to visit Fisher Bridge, the Les Hardes Rapids with the jumping trouts
jumping trout in the Les Hardes Rapids
and hereafter the Mud Volcano area (I did not like that). Finally I decided to do some wildlife watching
bisons on the Gibbons Meadows
and drive again the Dunraven Pass and close the loop through Tower Junction towards Mamoth Hotsprings and then back to West Yellowstone.

Todays drive visualized through my GPS log:

Yellowstone N.P. Figure 8

 

 

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Wednesday, 6th of June 2012 at 08:36:22 AM

Y.S.N.P. 2012 trip day 4: Grand Teton N.P. and road tripping USA

West Entrance to Y.S.N.P.
Today I left Yellowstone and drove South visting the Grand Teton N.P.
driving towards Grand Teton
It was an unspectacular and sunny day, mostly sitting in the car driving along the Teton mountains landscape. A small hike at Jenny Lake to the hidden fall. Lunch in a nice restaurant at the Jenny Lake. Some gravel road side road drive on the  to sight bears. A boat tour on the Jenny Lake. And finally the 5h drive direction South to Salt Lake City.
downtown Salt Lake City
 I touched 4 states in one day: Montana-Wyoming-Idaho and finally Utah. Tommorrow I will check out downtown Salt Lake City (luckily i found a cheap room near city centre) and tomorrow night take my Plane to [???].

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Thursday, 7th of June 2012 at 04:09:08 AM

Y.S.N.P. trip 2012 day 5: Salt Lake City – Antelope Island – Park City

After a Starbucks drive through coffee breakfast I drove from my Hotel to a downton Parking Garage near Temple Square to stroll around downton Salt Lake City. I visited the Temple Square, headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There is a lot to see and all tours are free and the employees very kind and explained a lot. Very impressive was the Conferecne center auditorium with a capacity of 21.000 people. There was the possibility to finally go up to the Adminitrative Building tower for a view of the city. I postponed this to later to have better sun for the fotos. I walked up the State capitol hill

Utah State Capitol
wich has nice residiential aparment buildings and lots of gardens to see the Utah state capitol. I also went into the Utah Visitor Center opposite to Sate Capitol Building to buy a nice Utah T. Then I went back to Temple Squre where a nice lady accomponied me to the top floor for the views over Salt Lake City.
top view of Temple square area
Again she was very communicative and answered many questions. It was 11.30 am and I had still plenty of time until my departute from SLC airport. The Visitor Center had recommended me to visit Antelope Island State Park due to my interest in the Salt Lake.
Antelope Island State Park sign
Its only 20 minutes north of Downtown and I headed there for a 2 hours driving tour on the island. Lots of wildlife and amazing views to the Lake and the mountains.
causeway to Antelope Island
Than I had still time and decided to drive to Park City which I knew from the Sundnace Film festival taking place there. A lady in Temple Square had recommed it worth being a visit. Indeed it is very pittoresque small ski paradise at high elevation of 10000. feet. I had late lunch there and then took the chance to see  the Fatali Foto Gallery (met Mrs. Fatali who showed me around). It was then time to drive  to Salt Lake City  airport for my flight to ???.
main street in Park City, UT
Here I wrote the day 5 blog entry during waiting for the boarding. When I returned the Rental car the receipt showed me that  I had driven unbelievable 1588 miles in this 5 days. It was my basecamp in West Yellowstone which caused me daily long drives to touring the Y.S.N.P., as well as the long drives in the park and the drives between SLC and Yellowstone. The Chevrolet Equinox was not bad, but I liked much more my Jeep Grand Cherokee model 2012 which I had last year.

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