Hello again and welcome back! With today’s post, we’re going to venture into West Yellowstone and Henry’s Fork, Idaho. When I began planning this trip, I initially sought out a campsite inside Yellowstone with full hookups. After searching for quite some time, the only site I came across that offered the luxury of electricity and potable water was Fishing Bridge RV Park. Unfortunately, this site is closed for all of 2021. So, I expanded my search outside of the park and landed on the Yellowstone RV Park at Mack’s Inn. Located in Island Park, Idaho, this pine tree covered campground turned out to be the perfect location for us. Our site came equipped with full hookups, a fire ring and a picnic table. The grounds itself offered shower and laundry facilities, ping pong table and horseshoe pit, and close access to Henry’s Fork of the Snake River.
Henry’s Fork is a 150 mile tributary off the Snake River. We took a rafting trip down the portion of the Fork that meets water from Big Springs. The water here is around crystal clear and around 52 degrees year round. I couldn’t resist cupping some of the ice cold water and taking a sip- it was the purest water I’ve ever tasted. Brian even suggested I dump out the water that was in my Aquafina bottle and fill it with the spring water we were floating on. He was convinced it was probably cleaner and more pure. He was probably right. The rafting trip was not a white water, thrill ride. Think of it more as lazy river tubing, just in an 8 person raft. We brought along a cooler and settled in for what was one of our favorite adventures of the whole trip.
Henry’s Fork is beautiful. I mean, stunningly beautiful. The epitome of the word serenity. See for your yourself:
The rafting trip took about 4 hours but we could have stayed out there all day. It was truly a memorable experience.
Let’s move on to Yellowstone, shall we?
Ahhh, Yellowstone. America’s first national park and one of the most beautiful and other-worldly places on the planet. Yellowstone covers 2.2 million acres- certainly more ground to cover than we were going to be capable of in 4 days. We focused this trip on the sites in the western portion of the park to include, Norris Geyser Basin, Mammoth Hot Springs, Mid Geyser Basin, Old Faithful, West Thumb and Yellowstone Lake.
Our first trip into the park, we came in through the west entrance. We were in the park for all of about 10 minutes before Brian found the perfect spot to get his fly reel out. No fish were caught but the scenery was too beautiful to resist.
After our stop here, we headed north toward the Norris Geyser Basin. This was our introduction to the geothermal activity and it was mind-blowing. The basin was a fairly barren landscape, with the exception of the hot springs and geysers. It looked like something from another planet. The roaring of steam escaping from the depths of the Earth broke the otherwise silent reverie of the other-worldly landscape.
After our stop at the Norris Basin, we continued north toward Mammoth Hot Springs where we stopped to walk along the boardwalk to check out the terraces.
At this point we had been exploring for several hours and the sun was on it’s way down, so we decided to call it a day. We headed back toward the west entrance, stopping to take some pictures of a herd of elk and some landscapes shots set with a gorgeous dusk backdrop.
Our introduction to Yellowstone was truly breathtaking and we still had so much more to see.
Check back for the next post where we head south and visit Old Faithful and Yellowstone lake!
RV Tripsters 