Wednesday, November 5, 2014

EAST OUT OF YELLOWSTONE - WHAT GOES UP MUST GO DOWN

July 15, 2013

Time to move on to see what is east of Montana.  This is the first day that we are traveling to new territory for both of us.  We have visited Yellowstone before but never farther east than Fishing Bridge.  Today we are explorers.

EAST YELLOWSTONE - Our route from West Yellowstone will take us back through Madison, Norris, Canyon, and Fishing Bridge (Upper part of the Grand Loop).  Challenge for the day is Sylvan Pass, 8537 ft.   As Ray says:  "Its easy to pull the trailer up the pass but its coming down is the challenge."  Evidently brakes and transmissions get hot and we have a heavy trailer (14,000 lbs).

We left early in the morning and had a pleasant ride on the upper part of the Grand Tour road.  Look what we found along the Yellowstone River.

 Couldn't help ourselves, had to take a couple of more pics even though we know there will be plenty of bison in our future.

The little kids eyes in the tour car were huge.  They were surrounded by bison.  Does it get any better?

Passed Yellowstone Lake.  Didn't realize how large the lake was.  The wind was not blowing this morning and it was beautiful.
There are remains of the burn from 25 years ago throughout the park.  The fire went to the lake in this area.  Its interesting to see what a forest looks like without reforestation efforts that we typically see after a fire.
SYLVAN PASS -  The ride up was great.  Beautiful views and easy conversation.  Then the first sign that we might be going downhill...and it was quiet in the cab.   Ray's plan was to take it nice and easy and pull out often.  Plan worked beautifully.  Traffic was light so he went down the pass about 33 mph.  





We would have other 5th wheels and trailers pass us and then we would go a little farther and there they would be cooling down their brakes/transmissions.  I wondered if they thought Ray knew something they didn't...









Made it to East Entrance and there was a 5th wheel just like ours entering the park.

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