Day 9: Snow in Yellowstone

This morning we had the pleasure of waking up to snow on the ground. A lot of it melted off the ground by mid morning, but the kids sure thought it was great. It was a strange sight to us seeing snow in June. After having a couple of very busy days, we all needed a relaxing morning today. Eating pancakes and playing games till lunch time was time well spent. After lunch we headed back to Yellowstone. The temperature began to drop and we spent the rest of the day in sleet, hail, or snow as we made our way around more of the park. We have been on the hunt to see more wildlife so we made our way to the Hayden Valley which is about 1 1/2 hours from the entrance. On our drive we stopped to see a raging waterfall on the Yellowstone river, the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, several hot springs and many other thermal wonders. It was snowing most of the time in the Hayden Valley. That didn’t deter the Buffalo from grazing in the fields. We saw some elk and several type of birds. We still haven’t see the bears yet, maybe tomorrow.

By the time we started back it was already 6:30pm so we stopped at the canyon visitor center for dinner. As we left, the snow really started coming down. The Canyon Visitor Center sits at about 8900 ft. As we came down in elevation over the next hour the snow stopped. The sun doesn’t set until just after 9pm, so we had sunlight all the way home.

Tomorrow we will have a long day in the park as we plan to see Mammoth Hot Springs and drive to Lamar Valley. It will be about 5 hours of driving round trip. Yellowstone is such a big park!