Learning the area, the North Fork and the South Fork.
I would go to a restaurant or listen to the news or at different times in conversations. I would hear someone say the North Fork or the South Fork. So I wanted to find out what they were all about.
During a week to 10 days of good weather, sometimes good weather, I traveled the roads making up the North Fork and the South Fork. The different directions both head mostly west. The North Fork heads west out of Cody, Wyoming and takes you to the East entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The South Fork goes south at first out of Cody and then turns mostly southwest.
When heading west on the North Fork you will pass the dam, which has a visitor center with a lot of good information, and the Buffalo Bill Reservoir both on your left or south in this case. On the other side of the reservoir you can see houses and some cars moving on the roads. That is a glimpse of the South Fork.
Near the Yellowstone Valley Inn and RV Park is a road heading north, Jim Mountain is north of you and you can hike up there. The view from the upper portions of the road and trail are incredible. This website will give you a good idea about the trail: https://naturalatlas.com/trailheads/jim-mountain-1936305. It is such a beautiful place to hike, of course be careful of wildlife in the area.
I mostly drove on the North Fork to get to the East entrance of Yellowstone. There are Inns, B&B’s, Campgrounds and ranches all along the road. Once you get to the National Forest the speed limit drops and the road starts getting a bit curvy. The East entrance is about 52 miles from Cody.
On other days I went out on the South Fork. I would love to have a house out there. The South Fork has a lot of places to hike, and they are all fantastic. Bobcat trailhead off of South Fork will be one of them and it has a large loop and a couple smaller trails. Looks like I will be able to hike anywhere from 1 mile to 8 miles. There are a couple other trailheads off of South Fork that I will explore later.
I of course took my camera with me it is a Canon 77D. I have a couple different lenses and I like taking all of them with me. I don’t know how many times I have hiked someplace with just 2 lenses and found something to photograph that would have been better with a different lens. If you are curious some of the stuff I take with me, take a look at the My Gear section. I will be adding bear spray to this very soon.
Winter is coming, we had about an inch of snow last night. Once they close Yellowstone access down for the winter, I will have to find other places to photograph and places to get outside. I have started taking my spotting scope with me. I am able to get a better understanding of the land and which animals are out there roaming around. I am using a spotting scope like this one. But like a lot of my gear, my spotting scope is older and not made anymore, but it still works great. The link shows one close to what I have.
There was construction out on South Fork, I hope that is done soon, you can wait for the flagger to let you pass, but I went down to Bobcat trailhead to see what was there before heading back.
I just re-worked the website. I will be adding more images to the galleries soon.