Running Our Daily Miles in Yellowstone National Park

About to start on a run. Do you see my bison horns?

As we do at the end of each vacation, Adam and I catalogue our favorite moments from the trip- this time our 2nd winter trip to Yellowstone National Park.  Interestingly- though not entirely surprisingly- my 3^rd favorite experience of the trip was our daily one mile runs. Since I have ran at least 1 mile a day since December 2010, clearly no exceptions would be made during this journey!

However, it required no small amount of mental fortitude to drag ourselves out for our snowy, cold 1 mile runs especially after a long day of cross-country skiing. But each and every time I was smiling pretty much the whole time and honestly wished I could go a while further than a mile each time (though I never did). Here are some of the highlights for me:

Beehive Geyser

On a run at Old Faithful, Beehive Geyser went off. Beehive spouts water over 200 feet into the air with an erratic eruption “schedule”, going off every 5 to 12 hours, so if we hadn’t gone for that run exactly at that time, we wouldn’t have caught it!

On a solo morning run, I was the very first human out amongst the geysers, though I wasn’t the first animal as evidenced by this coyote footprint next to mineJ

On my last run at Old Faithful I witnessed a beautiful sunrise over the trees. The yellow poles on the right indicate the side of the road, so as you can see, no surface is left untouched by the huge amounts of snow. And this is a a low snowfall year! At one point during a ski, Adam stepped off the trail and sank up to his waist in snow! For some reason, he didn't want to stay in that pose until I got the camera out...can't imagine why not! :)

Other times, we enjoyed snowfalls, a coyote running across our path about 5 feet away, an Old Faithful eruption and always the wonderful smells of fresh Montana and Wyoming air.  Experiences like this are one of the reasons I plan to continue my Daily Mile as long as I am physically able. Sometimes you just need that nudge to get out there and experience life, even when a comfy chair in a warm lodge with an adult beverage beckonsJ

Adam and I during one of our runs.

Adam with Old Faithful to the left.