Yellowstone National Park - Bridge Bay Campground-Yellowstone 9/1 - 9/7

From: casarollnotes.blogspot.com 

Tim and Linda Bunyan

We have departed Canyon Campground and now over to Bridge Bay Campground in Yellowstone.  We are camping within the Park and traveling in a counter-clockwise direction to ensure we explore much of the dimension to Yellowstone National Park.

Ranger Program at the Amphitheatre at 9:00p.m. and we make sure we are there every night.  One night, an Elk showed up the for Ranger Program!

 Ranger Station and Marina at Yellowstone Lake.

 Fuel stations are located throughout the park as the attractions are gained by driving throughout the highways within the Park.  
Stats:
 4 million visitors in 2019.
The country's oldest National Park
Tour Web Page states it takes longer than two days to really experience the Yellowstone area.  We stayed: 22 days in Yellowstone Park.  
2020: Closed.
3,472 total square miles.
63 air miles north to south
54 air miles east to west
96% in Wyoming
3% in Montana
1% in Idaho.
Highest Point 11,358' (Eagle Peak)
About 5% covered by water

 Our tour guides on the Lake Queen II boat,  We depart the marina into Yellowstone Lake.  Heading East, behind the overpass is a fire reported and monitored every day.  Fire is a 'good thing' here in the park.  It is managed and this fire is actually outside the National Park boundary.

Boat Rental available........this is a sign indicating price owed
to the marina should the prop on the boat be damaged.

As we depart the National Park Marina, we pass by on-lookers at the shore of Yellowstone Lake.

On our Yellowstone Lake boat cruise, we discover the infamous Wreck of the E.C. Waters.  A story from the early days of Yellowstone.  One of the first entrepreneurs to make a buck off of the natural resources available in Yellowstone National Park.  This shipwreck is what remains of the Zillah, an 1891 passenger steamship.  Quite the tourist attraction, this Dot Island, filled with wild game, was the attraction to nearly 4000 visitors in 1904!  

2019 nearly 4 million visitors to Yellowstone.

 The Lake Yellowstone Hotel built in the late 1800s along Lake Yellowstone is the oldest hotel in operation in Yellowstone National Park.  This portion of the old hotel is used for storage to the remodeled Lake Yellowstone Hotel.    Now painted yellow, the Lake Yellowstone Hotel and Cabins are pleasant and designed with a rounded frontage lobby room where Tim and I spent a couple of hours watching out the window along the lakeshore.

Yellowstone Lake: Elevation 7,739'  131 Square miles.  141 miles of shoreline.  20 miles north to south.  Average depth 138' From inside the hotel, 

a view of the Lake where we were 

on the tour boat yesterday.

 We watch the sun go down on Lake Yellowstone from the Lake Yellowstone Hotel

 The entire lobby includes a cocktail bar and comfortable seating.  A place inside to enjoy the outside!  A place to gain a sense of ourselves of the natural world we are a part as manifest destiny.

The remodeled Lake Yellowstone Hotel & Cabins.

 We drove around the hotel and found the cabins behind the main Hotel.  A sweet little 'neighborhood' with lounge chairs on the front yard.

Nest day drive around:

Fire burning east of the National Park.  Monitored daily reports posted throughout the Park.

The fire of 1988 remains evident.  36% (793,000 acres) of the park was affected.  The lightening-caused fired were allowed to burn after Park Managers evaluated them.  

We have come to the Continental Divide on our driving tour.

  This is amazing.  The Divide spans the USA north to south and it divides the watershed of two great oceans.  Isa Lake is located exactly on the continental divide.  This Lilly-pad watershed from the Isa Lake drains onto both sides of the divide into the Atlantic ocean as well as to the Pacific ocean! 

Another special place:  On the Grand Loop Road: Fishing Bridge is undergoing road construction...is a big way!

We come to this 'enchanted' restroom at the Fishing Bridge Visitor Center

 and Trailside Museum

The museum is a good point of reference for Ranger Walking Programs.

 The Fishing Bridge Museum is located one mile off the Grand Loop Road on the East Entrance Road.  The premier historic rustic architecture, known as 'parkitecture' became a prototype for park buildings all around the country.

 Next-Day:  Another walkabout look at Old Faithful and our dining evening out at Old Faithful Inn.

Castle Geyer located on the grounds of Old Faithful Inn.

It rains, but we are prepared to view the eruption at Castle Geyser

This is the timetable posted 24/7 at the Old Faithful Lodge for visitors to witness the eruptions in the area of the Inn.

Here is Old Faithful we saw during our walkabout.  It must be 2:29pm  9/6/2019

We toured and dined at the Old Faithful Inn to experience the

 beauty and historic value as from its opening: 1904

Using local materials (lodgepole pine and rhyolite stone) construction was carried out over the winter of 1903-1904.  It opened in Spring boasting electric lights and steam heat!  

The structure is the largest log hotel in the world!  It stands in the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Multi-story log lobby.  An example of the "Golden Age" of rustic resort architecture.  The first of the great park lodges of the American West.

Our final day at Bridge Bay, we discover another park marina and kayak launch.  There is a restaurant for those daily boaters and hikers.  There are nearby cabins too.  It is a wonderful feature, within the National Park, the marina and water activities offered for those who venture to come.

This is a kayak class and tour.

The restaurant at the boat dock.

We move on to Grant Village Campground with amenities for showers and laundry.  We planned our stays where every other campground had showers and laundry facilities.