We are back in touch with the world, and I have backdated several blog entries from our trip to Yellowstone. Scroll down to see all the new entries (since September 27).

Last night’s gentle rain turned into freezing rain and then snow, so that this morning when I opened the curtains I found the world outside completely changed from fall to winter with about a half-inch of snow. The balmy sunny weather of just a few days ago seems far off now, with the nearby mountains shrouded in fog and a definite Christmas-y feel to the air.

Our entry step was completely coated in ice when I went out, and I found Bert standing at his awning looking at a heap of snow and ice that had coated it and distorted the fabric. He had put his awning out the day before to protect his generator from the rain, but hadn’t anticipated that the rain would become ice.

Like us, Bert and Janie were planning to leave Madison campground today. They were headed off to Grand Teton’s last open campground (Signal Mountain) to find some moose. But first, they had to figure out how to remove inches of snow and ice from their awning and their slide-out. We ended up beating on the ice and sweeping repeatedly, while waiting for the temperature to rise above freezing. Eventually enough was removed for him to roll up the awning and go, but it was far from clean and dry.

I had the same problem with the folding bicycle I’d left cabled to the hitch overnight, but it was easier to de-ice. I hauled it into the Airstream and let it melt on a towel for an hour.

Yellowstone is just as beautiful in the snow as it was last week in the sun. The meadows glow gold when struck by the light, and the broad flat rivers still glisten and burble and sprout fly-fishermen in hip waders. The mountains are draped with cloud and the bison are coated with frost on their dark woolly manes.

It all works so well that I almost began to despair at the excess of photographic opportunities. There simply wasn’t enough time, even in six days and nights, to begin to capture this place. I shot over eight hundred photographs (culled to about 400 hundred at this point, and still going). It wasn’t enough.

Steaming hot water pours down from Grand Prismatic Geyser into the Firehole River  

We came out of the six-night “no-hookup” camping experience in Yellowstone surprisingly well. Despite trees shading our solar panels, freezing temperatures every night, and a few cloudy days, we emerged with this final status:

28 degrees at 8:00 a.m. Snow on panels. -133 amp-hours cumulative (50 amp-hours used overnight)

That’s not bad at all. As I noted when we left Cody, our safe useful battery power is 150 amp-hours (out of 300 total in the bank), and even after six nights we didn’t hit our limit. The key was serious conservation, primarily by keeping the furnace set low at night. We settled on 50 degrees as our overnight setting, which wasn’t bad at all with a lot of blankets on the beds. Bert and Janie set theirs at 40 degrees and sleep in sleeping bags. This morning we met a fellow in a fifth wheel who says his insulation is virtually non-existent and so they just turn off the furnace at night. Compared to them, we are total weenies.

Water-wise we did even better. Our 39-gallon fresh water tank was still about 1/3 full when we left. We took a total of six showers between us (with minor sponge baths from the sink between showers), used the bathroom at night, and did a few dishes when we didn’t feel like going out to the campground sink. It was really great to test our ability to camp on minimal resources, like the old days when we were tenting, and know what our Airstream can do.

Some of you may be reading this and thinking, “How horrible — sponge baths, a cold trailer, no TV,” but really it’s fun. It’s a game to see how long we can stretch a gallon of water, how long we can make a battery last, and how well we can keep ourselves entertained in a place with relatively few of the modern distractions.

After six nights it was time to go find a place to replenish our supplies. We’re now in a commercial campground in the little town of West Yellowstone MT, just a half mile from the park gate. This place has what we need for the next few days: electrical power, stores, cell phone service, Internet, propane. I’m going to sit down before my computer and get some progress on the layouts for the upcoming Winter 2007 magazine, and we’ll also re-stock for a few more days of boondocking in Montana next week.

Bert & Janie got skunked on their plan to head down to Grand Teton. The snow last night caused road closures heading south, and they were forced back north. They also heard from Eric and Sue that the moose were being elusive. So now they’re here, parked right next to us for the next two days, doing the same things we are. Well, except for one thing: Bert had to open his awning up again to melt the last of the ice that got rolled up in it this morning. Now it looks normal again.

Once we’re all caught up, the plan is to head up to some ghost towns in Montana, but I’ll tell you about that later.