GALLATIN NATIONAL FOREST (MT)

FRIDAY - Today we are leaving Yellowstone National Park with no plans in the foreseeable future to return.

Yellowstone National Park has five Entrance Stations. We have either entered or exited through the North, South, East and West Entrance Stations, but we've been saving the best for last.

The Northeast Entrance Station is by far our favorite, just for the scenery alone, as you'll see in today's photos and videos. This entrance places you in the Lamar Valley, which is one of the two best locations in the park to spot wildlife, the other being the Hayden Valley to the south.

Tricia took full advantage of using our large sunroof to stand up in the passenger seat and pop out like a prairie dog to take all of today's photos and videos. The sunroof, along with the oversized 6.5' truck bed (5.5' standard) is the reason we had to "Special Order" our F-150 back in 2018.

EXITING YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK
THROUGH THE NORTHEAST ENTRANCE STATION

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On previous sightseeing trips of the Lamar Valley we've always turned around at the
Slough Creek Campground. Now we know that's only about halfway through the Lamar Valley, and it's not even the best half!
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We've seen small herds of bison like this in Lamar Valley before.
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No visit to Yellowstone would be complete without experiencing at least one "bison jam".
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This "bison jam" would be considered mild by some of the stories we've heard.
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Typically the larger males will block traffic while the moms and kids cross the road.
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Here are all the smaller males, along with the moms and kids waiting to cross.
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This big bull definitely has traffic stopped but no one else is moving.
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If nobody is moving, I guess it's our turn to pass.
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A few miles passed the bison jam there was a large prairie filled with countless bison.
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Bison could be found as far as you could see.
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When bison "want" to cross the road they generally just "go for it",
knowing everyone will stop for them, but collisions do occur yearly.
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These two made up their mind to "go for it" and ran right in front of us!
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You have to pay close attention when towing in this area, there are NO road shoulders.
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Just 5-miles outside of the park is the Gallatin National Forest's Soda Butte Campground.
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We scored a FCFS spacious pull-through site near the vault toilet, but not too near.
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We've got plenty of solar collection and Starlink connection for our 2-day visit.

SATURDAY - Yesterday on our drive though Cooke City, MT we noticed there were several interesting looking places to eat.

Today we're going to head back down the road 2-miles to the city limits of Cooke City and check out a taco shop called Wooka's Wild Eats, but before we do that we're going to check out Colter Campground, another National Forest campground located right across the street.

Like the sign says "Welcome to Cooke City, Montana", what it doesn't say is population 77.

This is the east end of the 7-block long "downtown district".

The Trading Post was in the busy downtown area. Check out the bear on the roof.

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