Blowing Off Some Steam in Yellowstone

Day 10 Yellowstone

Mileage  0* miles  States – Wyoming, Montana

We awoke to freezing fog. I can’t remember the last time I saw such a cold morning, but we were snug in our little cabin. Later, we were also happy to be tucked up in our little Prius when we came across these guys. They must have been frozen solid!

Yellowstone Park’s roads make a figure 8 – two loops, a north and a south loop.  We decided to begin with the south loop. This is where you’ll find the highest concentration of geothermal activity in the park, including the world famous Old Faithful. The park was packed with people. We’d hoped that by coming in September we’d beat the rush. I’d hate to imagine what this place was like at the height of the season if it was this bad in late September.

Geysers and hot springs are created when water seeps down into rocks that are super heated by magma chambers close to the earth’s surface. The steam rises and causes the super heated water to squirt out of cracks and pipes in the rocks. Yellowstone is the site of a super volcano. Its next explosion, due sometime in the next 200, 000 years, will pretty much wipe out life as we know it in North America and drastically affect the climate in the rest of the world for a long time afterwards. But not to worry, we probably won’t be around for that!

Before we got to Old Faithful we stopped at the various geyser areas on the road south from Madison as we came upon them. Parking was challenging at most of them. One we gave up on, the Prismatic Spring - third biggest in the world and biggest in Yellowstone... We'll survive not seeing it - perhaps we'll just go see the biggest one in the world, though an internet search as to where that is pulls up a few different answers - maybe just safer to visit them all! Still, we saw plenty of geysers and hot springs that day.

 

White dome geyser gave us a private performance! Once from a distance and also again when we were right up close and personal. Four of us attended this viewing. We felt very privileged.

But that was far from the case when we got to Old Faithful. The visitor’s center lets you know when the next eruption will take place. As we waited with about 500 others, kids ran around screaming, parents halfheartedly yelled at them to behave (of course, they were on vacation too, only fair they get a break from disciplining their off spring too, right?) Beside us, a curmudgeonly old man grumbled at some young woman he’d never met before, for setting up her tripod stand in front of his seat, even though his wife kept telling him he’d be standing once the darn thing blew. The tripod stand was only two feet high. I felt like saying to him, “Calm yer jets!” But I was afraid I’d be the only one finding that funny!

Further down a ranger shouted at people to stay on the board walk. Good job he hadn’t seen last night’s Bison, though he’d have been more biddable than some of these frantic tourists.

Thank goodness Old Faithful’s time keeping was spot on. Even the screaming kids beside us (yes, right next to us – I’m a magnet for it!) shut up to watch the spectacle. It was good, but in fairness, White Dome had been every bit as flamboyant. All the guide books had instructed that Old Faithful was a must see. I personally, would say if you catch an eruption at any one of the other geysers consider that box ticked. Or go see Old Faithful at night perhaps? There are plenty of geothermal features to see.

Biology is amazing – today I was glad I was a biologist as I took in the wonderful colors of the thermophile bacteria that turn the hot springs a rainbow of colors. 

 

The bacteria are adapted to live in the hot waters of the spring.

Other bacteria - thermoacidophiles - have also adapted to withstand the low pH of other springs, typically adapted to utilize the sulfur spewing out in some springs. Every niche is occupied here. We saw so many springs and gurgling, burbling, gushing, spewing geysers that after a few hours we had to say, “No more!”

 

 

  

But then we’d see just one more…

 

By this stage we’d traveled around the southern-most road of the southern loop as it curled along the north shore of Yellowstone lake.

From here we headed north, through the Hayden Valley with my nose pressed to the window hoping to catch a glimpse of the Hayden Wolf pack. Alas, the only thing we saw here was some tourists cockerpoo or labrodoo or one of those designer mongrels you get these days. It most certainly was not equipped to bring down an elk, cute though he was.

We didn't stop much along here. It looked like a nice area to hike, though it is recommended that you hike in groups no smaller than three and bring bear spray because of  the possibility of bear attacks. Seeing as we were a person and a can of bear spray short, we decided not to bother.  

We pushed on up to Canyon Village, on the east side of the "waist" of the figure eight loop. The Yellowstone Grand Canyon is really quite pretty. 

 

Of course, nothing close to what we saw in Utah, but gorgeous all the same (I always wonder if that is the origin of the word gorgeous - from gorge?)

 

We drove along both north and south rims and chanced a couple of short, well populated hikes to good vantage points.

All that water was balm to our drought stricken souls. We tried to soak up as much as we could with our eyes.

The best view was from Artists Point.

Since we were this far over, so near prime grizzly country with the sun setting, we decided to scoot on up to Tower-Roosevelt and eat while watching for grizzly bears along the way.

The grizzlies love the transition areas between the trees and the grassland. We didn't see any. We tried not to be disappointed, but we were really bummed when we arrived at the place in Tower-Roosevelt that the map told us served food, only to discover it was closed for the season! We were 2 hrs from West Yellowstone. We wouldn't starve in two hours, but we were getting hungry and grouchy, we 'd be a good match for any grizzly! However, all we saw along the way home were these long horned sheep...

and these mule deer..

As the setting sun turned the clouds pink...

...and the moon hoisted itself over the snow capped peaks surrounding the Dunraven Pass,

 

we threaded our way through the waist of the figure-8 and chatting about the highlights of the day, looking forward to our dinner.


Byddi Lee

* Technically we didn't cover any addition miles on our forward journey as we just did loops of Yellowstone Park - approximately about 100miles per day.

Bison Jam

Day 9 Teton Village - West Yellowstone

Mileage  128 miles  States – Wyoming, Montana

Breakfast in the room was lovely - and well it should it - it cost $50! Oh the joys of going posh. Outside, the sun shone bright, and we were itching to hit the road. Today we'd arrive in Yellowstone - the purpose of this trip, which had morphed from being a Yellowstone Park trip to a National Parks trip!

The first road we took turned nasty quickly - muddy and full of potholes. Poor Prius! 

 

But she made it through and soon we were admiring the scenery...again. 

It was so nice to see such an abundance of water, and it made the yukky weather the day before well worth it.

The Tetons were still shrouded in shards of mist, as if like cotton wool balls, the clouds had become stuck on the peaks and then shredded as some celestial hand had tugged them off too hard.

The changing seasons were evident. The temperatures had plummeted below zero over night and the air stung crisp with autumn. We could only imagine how refreshing a hike here would be, but imagining was all we had time for, we had to be at our accommodation and checked in before 9.30pm. The plan was to shoot through straight to West Yellowstone and check in well in advance of sunset, then start exploring Yellowstone Park secure in the knowledge that we had somewhere to sleep (even if it were cruddy!)

Not that Grand Teton did not tempt us to stop and admire it's many attributes - such as Teton Glacier. 

Onwards and northwards - we entered Yellowstone's South Entrance and didn't bother stopping for the photo of the park sign since there was a line of people waiting to get their pictures taken with it! This was indeed a taste of things to come.

But no-one seemed too interested in this sign - one that for geeks like us was of great curiosity. 

The water on one side would ultimately drain into the Pacific Ocean and the water on the other into the Atlantic - facts that boggled my mind, since we were so far from either ocean.

There were two main draws that had attracted me to Yellowstone - the hydro-thermals and the wildlife - especially the wildlife. I'd heard that Yellowstone was like being on safari in North America, with herds of Bison roaming the plains. That we wanted to see, and that we saw pretty much as soon as we entered the park!

In fact, the bison were everywhere on this south western side of Yellowstone. Bison are different to Buffalo - Buffalo are only found in Africa and Asia. Bison are mostly found in North America...and mostly all over Yellowstone.

And then right beside the road, between Madison and West Yellowstone, we met this guy...a magnificent bull elk!

The picture is a bit fuzzy - a result of a drive by shooting (of the digital photography kind!) The ladies were grazing not to far away.

But we hadn't time to stop! We'd been warned about "Bison Jams" and wanted to get checked in, eat and return to the park well in advance of sundown so we could relax and absorb the sights.

Our accommodation - the elusive West Yellowstone Self Catering Apartments - was in a down-in-the-heel part of the town, but despite warnings in the reviews that the place was very hard to find (one person never finding it at all!) we landed at the right place first try. The man checking us in was really nice. It turned out he was South African and had lots of great advice about where to find bears. (I've found from past experience that the South Africans know their game!) We shared safari stories about Namibia, a place we'd both been too, as he walked us to our Apartment...

It was nice! Not top class luxury, nor Snake River Lodge and Spa luxury, but cleaner than the Riverside Inn, in Moab, and much better than the Hanksville Inn - though for $170 a night it was nowhere near value for money. It was clean, and everything in it worked - It was basically one of a row of cabins (that reminded me from the outside of the slave cabins described in Roots) that had a bed, two comfy armchairs, a counter top with two high chairs, a mini kitchen with cute mini appliances and a shower room with toilet. It had everything we needed and the decor was homely. We liked it!

With that sorted, we charged through our dinner at a nearby diner and tore back into the Madison area of Yellowstone. We stopped to get our ducks in a row, as we watched the changing evening light on the Firehole River.

This beautiful elk cow graced us with an appearance.

South of Madison is a geyser area. 

As the sun sizzled in the snow caps tucked behind the horizon, we went to watch the steam thicken from the geysers as the air temperature dropped, tripping over more Bison on the way.

Bison can see best in a field of vision 180 degrees from the sides of their heads and not very well straight in front of them thus they lack the binocular vision that their predators need to judge distance to catch prey. Many animals that are prey have this attribute. It means they can watch for predators that may try to sneak up on them. However, it makes it hard for them to read the signs that are posted to tell you stay on the boardwalks and off the possibly super-heated hydro-thermal areas!

We two humans, possibly the only ones crazy enough to be out in such frigid temperatures - it was now below freezing- had the boardwalks to ourselves to watch steam venting, sun setting and moon rising.

 

Satisfied that we'd milked enough excitement out of our first day, we headed for our apartment. Before we got too far along the road west from Madison, the traffic ground to a halt. We crawled along, chatting contentedly, not in any hurry. Obviously we weren't the only creatures feeling this way. Further up, we saw blue flashing lights and began to worry that some poor creature had come a cropper on the road. Eventually we discovered the cause of the traffic jam... A single Bison, walking straight up the road along the yellow lines, with his very own police escort!

Every so often he'd zig-zag off course as his poor eyesight revealed alien creatures with big shiny eyes! It was, for us, the funniest traffic jam ever!

And we were only at the beginning...more tomorrow...

Byddi Lee