Saturday, July 9, 2011

Springtime in Yellowstone?

Springtime Yellowstone --Arrowleaf bitteroot along the Blacktail Deer Creek Trail
Winter Yellowstone -- Paula navigating the snowbanks along the Howard Eaton Trail.
That's the question we were asking ourselves for the first week we were in the park. According to a park ranger we spoke with, the park normally receives 120 inches of snow per year. This year, more than 300 inches fell in Yellowstone. And temperatures remained low enough to delay spring melt by 3 to 4 weeks. So, for the first week in the park, we were confined to hiking trails in the lower elevations where most of the snow had melted. Our attempts to hike trails in the Lake and Canyon areas met premature ends because of the impassable banks of  the white stuff still at the higher elevations.

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