I set my alarm for 5:30 in the morning. A shower followed by a quick breakfast and then I drove down to my university campus at 6:30. As we gathered in the Outdoor Recreation Program building, our van was parked just outside. Nikki, our trip leader, called me and asked me to stow my luggage in the trailer. The rest of the participants soon arrived. There were Paul, Mark, Samantha, John, Holly, Candice, Kristin, Caitlin and Elli, the second trip leader. Finally, we had our entire luggage, our skis, boots, and snowshoes in the trailer and we all sat in the van. The van left Ames at 7 in the morning, headed southwards to Des Moines and then westwards on Interstate 80 to Wyoming. I slept until Omaha, mere 180 miles from where we started. Then we stopped at Lincoln for lunch. I must say Nebraska is wide; the journey never ends! When darkness fell we watched a movie, Finding Nemo, in the van. Our first stop was Rawlins in Wyoming. We reached there around 8 pm Mountain Time. We checked in to our hotel. All of us were tired and hungry. So, we drove to a Ranch House. Quite stunning, I must say! I had a taco salad and a beer, and dashed back to the hotel after dinner. We were instructed to assemble at the lounge before five the next day. The journey from Rawlins to the foot of the Yellowstone National Park was totally overlaid by a breath-taking beauty of pine trees near the Grand Teton National Forest. After a pancake breakfast at a small town called Dubious, we reached Flagg Ranch at the southern entrance of Yellowstone at around 11:30. There we had to wait for more than an hour to load our luggage and skis in snow coaches that would take us to our lodge. The coach left at 1 in the afternoon. Each of these can carry about 10 passengers plus the driver. They are cozy as we were nicely warmed up inside. The guide stopped at several places on way to our lodge. We stopped at a fall, near a bridge, besides a frozen lake and a few geysers. The geyser area is called West Thumb. It had hot springs as well making it a tourist attraction. The whole area was blanketed with snow except for the hot spring and geyser locations. We spent some time there as we walked around the thermal features, which were described to us by our guide. From there we started heading towards the Old Faithful Lodge.
We reached our lodge at 5 pm and immediately checked in. Our cabins were few minutes walk from the lodge. Paul, Mark and I decided to room together. After getting freshened up, we headed for dinner. That night I had salad and mushroom ravioli. We crashed in bed early. The next day we had complimentary breakfast at the lodge. We soon dressed up in our ski attire for cross-country skiing. We had maps of all the trails and decided that we will take the easiest trail. As we left the lodge, we skied around the Old Faithful Geyser followed by a plain patch of land where bison were gazing in dense snow. We took numerous pictures of the bison. Incidentally, the bison were introduced in the park a while ago after being extinct and now the herd has grown to 4000. We quickly entered the dense forest shrouded by woods and fern until we came to a little hill, which was a mere 40 feet in elevation. All we needed was to walk our way through to get to the top of the hill. From the hill we could see the entire Firehole River basin, which was our halfway mark. Once we came down to the river we were able to see another herd of bison. We saw a few geysers around that area. We skied back towards the lodge through the plain although parts of our trails were little bumpy. Often, we would get dehydrated a lot. So, occasionally, we would stop to drink water and bite a granola bar. Finally, after about 5 hours covering around 5 miles of cross-country terrain we reached back where we started. I dashed back to my cabin and took a much needed hot shower. We had an early dinner that night. After dinner, Mark and I took a night tour of the geysers and the mud pots. We had to use flash light as we walked through these thermal features. The beauty about this night tour is that you get to hear incredible natural noises. Our tour guide was narrating colorful stories; we were quite enchanted by his nightly tales. We returned to our cabin and played a game of ‘clue’ with others. That night as I slept in the bed I was incredibly sore.
The next day we decided to ski another trail. This time we skied around a hill. It was more difficult than the previous day and we had to struggle our way through. I lost my balance on a few occasions. The approximate elevation of this hill was around 250 feet. We skied through fern as we glided round the hill and up the hill. We saw some beautiful sights. There were supposed to be some falls that we could not find! Several times on our trail, we had to ascend and descend a few steps and those were fun to do. The last stage was even more fun. We had to glide down the hill back to our cabin and a few of us fell on the way down! Overall, we skied three miles that day; it took us four hours. Once, we got back, since there was still daylight remaining, we decided to walk around the Old Faithful Geyser and take some snaps of the bison. Paul is a professional wild-life photographer and he took some amazing pictures. As we were returning to our cabin, we saw a coyote on our way. It was shy and ran away as we approached. Nevertheless, Paul managed to get his lens on it. We returned to the cabin, took our showers and headed for dinner. That night I watched a few movies on my laptop while others started playing clue.
The next day we had to leave the lodge. So, after a heavy breakfast we packed our skies, boots and luggage in the snow coach. Since there were eleven of us so we had to split into two coaches. We left the lodge at 9 for Flagg Ranch. We stopped at Kepler Falls, another breathtaking sight. Took some pictures and headed towards Flagg Ranch with a few minutes stop-over at West Thumb Geyser which is halfway between Old Faithful area and Flagg Ranch. We also halted near the Yellowstone signboard for a group picture. At Flagg Ranch we did not have to wait long. It was already noon. We immediately removed the snow off our van and loaded the trailer with all the stuff. It has been snowing continuously all the time we were there. The return journey was quite splendid. We drove through Grand Teton National Park. We drove past the frozen lake and very close to the mountain range that ascended to almost 14,000 feet. We stopped at the Visitor Center and bought souvenirs. We were also able to spot some moose and elk. Our destination for that day was the old cowboy town of Jackson. By the time we reached there it was three in the afternoon. We checked into our hotel and then went around town for shopping. We were looking for a restaurant for an early dinner but most of them were not opened as yet. Finally, I found this nice Thai restaurant and Mark and I decided to eat Thai food for a change. Just to pass the time that evening, I decided to watch a movie, The Kite Runner. Gosh! The ticket was expensive then what it would normally be in Ames. But, I enjoyed the movie. That night I went back to the hotel and spent some time browsing the Internet.
The following day we left the hotel at around 7. Our destination was North Platte in Nebraska. The journey took us 10 hours and we stopped several times for meals. There wasn’t much to do in North Platte. We had dinner at Taco Bell and crashed early. The next day we had to leave at 5 in the morning and reached Ames at noon. I transferred my entire luggage to the trunk of my car and drove home. Following a much-needed shower, I thoroughly enjoyed a home-made lunch that afternoon. Overall, we had lots of fun during the excursion and I’ll cherish it in my memory for a long time.
by Satyam Bhuyan, Ames, Iowa.
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