Unfortunatly the person who controls the weather up top did not follow instructions as per Weather.Com and so we did not get our bright and sunny start but a grey, cold one and at the top of the 8500 foot Teton Pass, snow and ice.
Not to be detered again we continued but the weather until very late afternoon remained grey and cloudy. After a pleasant journey thro' a small part of Idaho, (didn't see any potatoes though') we finally arrived at Yellowstone National Park. At the check-in point they advised us that at least 50% of the access roads were closed due to the past inclement weather. I suppose that when you get 500 inches of snow in a winter season it's not surprising that things are a little slow getting going. The winter season has only just finished and the summer season is not yet started.
Actually, we decided we are too early in the season for this part of the USA, perhaps June would be better when everything is open and the foliage looks green instead of that 'snowed out' look. However we did our tour and took only a few photos as the weather was not great with occasional snow flurries. We just missed the 'Old Faithfull' geyser and as we did not want to wait another approx 90 minutes or so, in 35 degrees fahrenhite, we went on our way back to Yellowstone West (an aptly named winter shanty town) and went to the IMAX film of Yellowstone.
The Imax films are always very good and they show you the places where you cannot reach by car etc, so it was a very different park that we saw at the cinema compared to the real world.
As mentioned earlier, this area is still getting over the winter season and has not yet starting the summer season. So many shops, hotels and restaurants are currently closed. Also with the poor weather it was difficult to enjoy the park as much as we had hoped for.
A large part of the park is Volcanic Caldera and the largest of its type in the world. The crater is massive (35x45 miles) and you can only try to imagine the power when this thing went BANG!!!
A very pleasant drive back and in reasonable timefor me to prepare the pork chops a'la salsa, which were very good indeed I must say. ( As a man he would say that!!) Over dinner we discussed what to do for the next couple of weeks and we both felt that as the conditions were not right that perhaps we would see if we could get an earlier flight home rather then waste money visiting places which were not really open for business. We would sleep on it and re discuss in the cold light of day.
