Wyoming: National Zoos and Road Construction

Wyoming's two major industries, as far as I can tell, are tourism and road construction. We saw a lot of oil derricks too, but based on the price of oil in Wyoming, I suspect most of this gets consumed getting the construction workers to their jobs. I imagine commutes are generally fairly long, since we drove through the entire state and passed through only two towns whose populations are greater than their elevations.

The terrain of Wyoming is like Colorado in reverse. Colorado has a flat and somewhat barren Eastern section, followed by a whole lot of awesome. Wyoming has a flattish and really barren Eastern section, with a large Northwest corner of really awesome. Eastern Wyoming was a lot of fun to drive through - we managed to stay away from I-90, so we got to drive on some more interesting and deserted roads through the barren wasteland. I actually found this to be a welcome break from South Dakota, with its long flat straightaways filled with heavy truck traffic - despite being barren, the land was characterized by rolling hills, which I enjoy.

We stayed for our first night in Jackson with one of Hal's high school friends. We went to a good microbrewery (Snake River) for dinner and got to see some of Jackson's bars. The next day we embarked on a 4-day backpacking trip in Grand Teton National Park, to be described in detail in a future post. We went from there to Yellowstone, a huge park to which we unfairly gave only a day. As a backpacking and mountain enthusiast, I think this was probably the right allocation of time. I'd like to spend more time in Yellowstone some day, but Grand Teton is possibly the coolest place I've ever been.

Both Yellowstone and to a lesser degree Grand Teton are like giant zoos without fences. Our Tetons guidebook told us it is hard to go a day without seeing a moose. We were almost disappointed on day 3, when we saw our first moose. Not only did we see a moose, but it chased us the wrong way down our trail for about a mile or so. We also saw a black bear on day two, across Lake Solitude. Apparently it had gone about 100 feet from us while we were eating our lunch, but decided to wander up the trail without incident. This was reported to us by a couple hiking down from Paintbrush Divide with a view of the whole scene.

The other aspect that these parks are like zoos is in the vernacular sense. When you're within 5 miles of a trailhead, you don't go more than 5 minutes without seeing other hikers. This is why backpacking is nice, because the backcountry is well regulated by the National Park Service to limit overuse. Yellowstone is swarming with people, and parts of it feel like a big tourist trap. On the other hand, you get even more of the benefits of being in a zoo - it's pretty much impossible to avoid really awesome wildlife. There are bison everywhere (really frustrating waiting for them to cross the road) and we saw a grizzly feeding on a bison carcass across the Yellowstone River from us in Hayden Valley. Unfortunately we didn't manage to see any bighorn sheep or wolves; that will have to wait until next trip.