We started the morning with a 6am wake up call. We wanted to get an early start on what we knew would be a long day. We had breakfast at the Virginian. Rose said it had the best pancakes in town. 
She was right, again. I also got a cinnamon roll to take home and it was the size of my face. The weatherman called for rain all day so we stopped by Sports Authority to get some rain gear. We got out of town around 8:30. It took about 1 1/2 hrs just to get to the Yellowstone entrance. Then we had another 2 hrs of narrow, crowded, wildlife infested road ahead of us to get to Mammoth Springs.
We had just turned to go toward Yellowstone Lake when we saw our first wildlife of the day. 
There was a herd of Elk and a very large bull Elk with a huge rack. Hee Hee Hee. We jumped out with all the other crazy tourists to take some photos. The bull was scraping at the ground then eventually laid down. When he did he let out this extremely loud bugle that was so obnoxious I thought I was having feedback in my hearing aide. His females were crossing the road dodging traffic and gawking tourists with cameras. They were also in a geyser field.
Then we headed out and saw a heard of bison. After nearly missing the idiot tourist that decided just to stop in the middle of a busy road on a curve, we used a pullout and walked back to see them. They were laying in a grassy area. Not too exciting.
As we continued on that road, we came to a bit of a traffic jam. The park was not extremely busy so we figured it was just some idiot that didn’t know how to drive on these roads. 
As we got closer, we realized that there was a buffalo on the road. Just meandering along like he owned the road and we were interfering with his day. He would be in the northbound lanes blocking us and the southbound traffic would slow to take photos. Then he’d get over to the southbound lanes and northbound traffic would slow to take photos. It is pretty amazing when you are driving up along a huge buffalo. So we did the touristy thing and slowed for our photo op. 
The buffalo could have cared less that we were there.
Next we turned to go west on North Geyser road. As we were cruising along we came across another meandering buffalo. This one was smart enough to be walking in the ditch. It was on my side so we got to take this lovely photo as we zoomed by.
We finally came across the area that we wanted to hike. It was called Bunsen Peak. The first part was suppose to be 3 miles. Then a short 1.4 mile hike down to Osprey Falls. Then back up the Osprey Falls trail another 1.4 miles. Then a 3.6 mile hike to the peak of Bunsen. So, basically a short 9.4 mile hike. The National Geographic map said the hike was strenuous. So, off we went, bypassing a sign that I will mention later in the blog.
The first 3 miles were very easy. Justin said he could have gotten that hike at the St. John’s live Christmas tree farm. The first half ended with 100ft of steep road. We found the trailhead to Osprey Falls. We noticed the big sign at the trailhead stating it was steep and narrow and we thought “how bad could it be”? The hike was 1.4 miles and we went from 7300ft to 6600ft elevation in that distance. There were numerous switchbacks that took us right down a mountain…all downhill. 
If you had a misstep, you’d fall 600ft. It was a bit scary at times. We passed an odd fellow hiking up as we were hiking down. He said there was no one else down there. What Justin heard was “there’s no one around to hear your screams”. I was reminded of a bumper sticker I saw in town that said “hike faster, I hear banjos”. But, he went on his merry way. 
When we finally got to the bottom, we realized the hike down was worth it. It was a beautiful, high waterfall. We hung out in the river for a while. I was trying to nurse some blisters. After some more photo ops, we started our ascent. Up sucked. We’d get about 100ft and have to stop for air. We would look up and think it was going to level out, but it just turned and went up in another direction. I thought we were never going to get to the trailhead. We finally did and it took us about 1 hr to hike down and 1 hr to hike back up.
There were two routes that would take us back to our car, the long flat way we came in or the way over Bunsen Peak. I was tired from climbing Osprey Falls, but we decided that we may never be there again, so I put my big girl panties on and we were gonna summit Bunsen Peak. We drank some water and tightened up our pack and set out. After about 1 1/2 miles of not making any progress toward Bunsen Peak, we decided to check the map. We realized once again, that we were the victim of poor signage and navigational errors. So, we backtracked the 1 1/2 miles back to the trailhead for Osprey Falls. However, had we not taken the wrong trail, we would not have seen Osprey Falls from the area that we started that hike. 
We also would have missed seeing the Grouse (its a small bird). By that point we had hiked about 8 miles and it was 4pm and we still have plans to eat in Gardiner MT and see Mammoth Springs.
We decided not to take the 3.6 hike over Bunsen Peak and that we would just hike back on the flat 3 mile hike we came up. As we were walking back we passed two geeky looking dudes. One seemed to be carrying some sort of directional antenna and a holster of bear spray. We said hi and passed by thinking, what are these nerds up to up here? But we pressed on and got back to our car at about 6:30 pm. 
We had hiked 11.5 miles for 4 hrs and 15 min. We were sore, tired, and hungry. When we got back to the trailhead for Bunsen Peak, Justin noticed a sign posted. It stated that this area was frequented by bears and to beware. It also stated that just 2 days earlier, a bear had been spotted with 4 cubs. So, that’s what those geeks were up to. Tracking bear. That might have been good information for us to have seen and read before our hike.
So, we loaded up and headed to Gardiner, bypassing Mammoth Springs. The first restaurant we found was busy, but they did offer us to sit at the end of a big table with another very nice couple. We decided we would try something else. So we went down the street to the Two Bit Saloon. They were not serving dinner on Sunday night. The bartender was nice enough to direct us to the Yellowstone Lodge/Restaurant/Casino/Souvenir shop. The restaurant ended up being the best food of our vacation, but the absolute worst service. By the time we finally got out of there it was dark. 
My camera is useless in the dark. We headed back to Yellowstone. We did stop and take a quick shot of the sign that said we were at the 45th parallel. We did decide to stop at Mammoth Springs. It was about 9:30 and it was dark with a little bit of light. At this point, it finally started raining. All that time we spent shopping for rain gear and packing all the rain gear with us on the mountain, and it didn’t rain till now. I snapped some pictures of Mammoth, but my camera is a POS and doesn’t take good pictures at night.
So, we saw what we could see then headed out on the long 3hr trip back to Jackson. Note to future travelers of Yellowstone, get out of the park before dark. The roads are very narrow, hilly, and curvy. And at any moment you could round a corner and find a buffalo in the road. So, no shit, there we were, traveling eastbound on North Geyser Road, when we rounded a corner and standing there in the middle of the steamy dark road was a buffalo. We hit the breaks and it jumped into our lane and started meandering. So, we pulled up beside it and took another photo. 
Of course my camera is a POS, so the picture sucked. We were still laughing about that one, when again we came across another buffalo standing in the middle of the road. We stopped and it began to walk toward us. So we backed up and it continued to walk toward us. We were thinking at some point this thing was gonna ram the G6. We eventually drove around him and continued on our way. We didn’t have any more trouble with wildlife on the roads in Yellowstone.
About the time we were getting comfortable thinking we were free and clear, when we were in Grand Teton National Park, an Elk decided to run out in the road. Luckily, we saw him and were able to stop in time. Then, not even 1 mile down the road, another one decides to cross the road. When we saw it, it stopped and looked at us like “what am I suppose to do”. After some indecisive moves, she decided to get out of the roadway. We finally got back to the cabin around midnight.
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