I edited my URL and the key part of the story gets erased…grumble…it was hot!
Heh. We were in Yellowstone during a mid-July snow event. My friend and I had very different ideas on how to deal with it. We drove the camping loops looking for a spot, and people were huddled underneath tarps and trying to stay warm by their sputtering campfires. When my friend asked me which spot I thought was the best, I replied,
“I have this plastic card in my wallet–that means I’m going to be warm and dry tonight–YOU can pick any campsite YOU want.”
Oh, and next time you hit the Beartooth Highway, don’t miss the best onion rings in the world at The Red Box Car in Red Lodge, MT.
I was in Yellowstone for a couple of days last August on a pass through a bunch of the western US. I have some pictures up here. Absolutely beautiful country, but I did get to see a lot of that on the trip. Wish I could go back soon, but that is not too likely. 
When I was four, going on five, our family took it’s first big road trip. We hit Yosemite, Yellowstone, some other places too. But it’s Yellowstone that I remember best, for the bears. Back in 1959 they got a lot closer than now. I still recall we counted nineteen bears, and for a little kid it was impressive to see one look in the window at you!
I’ve been there since but nothing hits you more than the first time.
The first time I went there was the summer of '89. The fire of '88 was so bad that a year afterwards the places it hit still looked like they had just burned the day before. No little blades of grass, no isolated flowers or hints of green. Just dirt and charcoal. That fire was so intense that it sterilized the soil and destroyed the normal recovery process. I was there again in '94 or '95 and undergrowth had started to return but the fires effects still looked pretty fresh.
My pics are in a scrapbook and maybe I’ll scan them.
And yes it snowed on us in June.
So that I don’t hijack this thread, come and discuss other national parks here. I’d love to hear about your experiences with the US NPS and others around the world.
Some pics from someone I am very familiar with, reputation-wise, who took a photo trip there last fall: http://www.extremeinstability.com/08-10-8.htm
Caution: Some occasional mild language in spots.
We often rode through multiple national parks on what was our annual trip from New Mexico to Sturgis, South Dakota. We usually camped for a couple of days in Yellowstone and Glacier alternating parks every year. My now wife (girlfriend at the time) went with me to Yellowstone for her first time in 1989 (after the fire) and she was amazed at how beautiful it was and all I could focus on was the devastation and difference from two years before. I miss those trips.
We got the honor of seeing an excellent example of Darwinism when we watched a guy set up a camera on a tripod and then walk towards a small herd of bison. A huge one ran him over at least three times before getting bored of it and wandering away. The park rangers showed up and carted the guy away in the back of a jeep. Every time I went to Yellowstone after that trip I wondered about that guy and whatever happened to his camera and the pictures he took. I bet he had some great shots.
I was there during the fires. I’d love to back now, 20+ years later, and take a look.
I didn’t see anything that extreme. Closest was a guy that was trying to get through and was crowding a bull and cow walking on the road with his SUV. The bull stopped, turned, lowered his head, and pawed the ground a couple of times. The guy in the SUV backed up and waited.
2 bulls did kill each other headbutting, which several people used as an opportunity to get pictures of wolves and bears over a couple of days, but I didn’t hear of it in time. 
I have been twice: 1988, year of the fires, and last year. I didn’t see a bear on either occasion. We saw wolves last year, and relatively close up on one occasion - about 200 yards.
When I was there in October of 2008 for two weeks, the only bear I saw was a youngish grizzly in the parking lots around Grand Village as I was packing my car to leave. :smack:
The last programme also showed male longhorn sheep.
Those buggers apparently relish a fight and they fight dirty.
Kicks to the nads being just one of the gambits, another being to team up, 2 onto 1 and beat the shit out of number 1, then have a go at each other to determine who exactly is the head honcho
The thing I will always remember the most is Lower Yellowstone falls.
Back in the old days they let you walk up really close to the base of it. The sheer awesome thundering power and sound that is beyond sound becuase you feel the sounds before you hear it, of water pounding rocks in a 300 ft free fall.
No pics online but we plan on going back this summer when we do a camping trip in Wyoming. This will be my second time there (this is where we were when 9/11 happened) but my husband grew up in the area and knows the park pretty well.
It was an amazing experience. We saw a wolf pack up close and personal while it split up and passed around us on their way to a lower meadow. We hiked into a small lake for some flyfishing and were warned by a ranger to not go beyond the lake as there was a grizzly on a dead elk just behind a little hill. An hour or so later, an angry bellow helped us decide that we had fished enough and should head back to the car. (You could hear coyotes and ravens the whole time and assumed that he had had enough of other critters around his kill.)
Also had a bull elk bugle into the open window of my car. Thanks, buddy!
Seconded. I read from this while we drove around the park.
I hope one day to do a winter stay at the park. Has anyone here done that?
(We’ll be driving by Glacier National Park next month and I’m hoping we can take a little peek in there but I know that such a small taste won’t do that park justice.)
I suspect you mean bighorn sheep.
This guy should forget about writing and stick to photography.
I couldn’t agree more and yes I did mean Bighorn Sheep :smack: