Advertisement
Published: September 17th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Obfuscator writes: We woke up pretty early, and since we were in the middle of sardine-style packed campers and RV’s, we knew there wasn’t much to see in our immediate vicinity. We threw our slightly damp gear in the back of the car again for drying (which had worked pretty well on Day 19, I might add), and started driving to see some more of the park. It was definitely a major advantage to be up as early as we were, as we beat a lot of the rush on some of the sites. We were able to see Mud Volcano, and Sulphur Cauldron, and the Upper and Lower falls of the Yellowstone river well before the crowds made them inaccessible.
Mud Volcano is really just what appears on the map, but it’s a series of muddy hot-spots, each with its own highly descriptive name. Our favorites were probably “Black Dragon’s Cauldron” and “Dragon’s Mouth,” which both sounded like something out of a bad fantasy novel, but were very cool nevertheless. It was here that Onaxthiel reminded me that my camera can indeed do video, and with decent sound quality to boot. If you like breakfast foods, morning may not
Misty Morning
Mist in the morning coupled with steam from the geothermals made for an interesting sight. be the best time to see all of Yellowstone’s geothermal sites, by the way, as most of them smell a lot like rotten eggs.
The Upper Falls are pretty, but nothing too unusual. The Lower Falls, however, drop quite a distance, and the river flows into the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, which while perhaps not as grand as The Grand Canyon, was, to put things succinctly, grand. It’s got a really gold/yellow color to it, which only makes the other colors stand out all the more when you see them. There’s also a nearly-coronary inducing climb on “Uncle Tom’s Trail” which apparently takes you to where Uncle Tom took people to see the Lower Falls years ago on ropes and ladders. It’s a heck of a climb back up, but the view was very much worthwhile. Around the falls and the many viewpoints there, we also kept running into the same Japanese tourist, who must have been something of a serious photographer, as he spent a lot of time fiddling with his tripod and camera to take pictures. He was pretty nice too, and took our picture.
We also saw the Mammoth Hot Springs, and while in
Don't do what Donny Don't Does
I think the illustration speaks for itself. Mammoth, we talked to a backcountry ranger who was able to recommend some routes to us. This was precisely the kind of ranger we had been hoping to encounter at the previous National Park, incidentally. You know, the kind that has actually been in most of the park for which he is a ranger, and has hiked many of the trails, and who knows about hiking. In other words, the useful kind. He was also able to give us a more professional opinion on bear sprays and the like, which was useful. We selected a 12 mile route, and since it was already getting to be about midday, and we were on the other side of the park, we opted to take that hike over two and a half days. We set up the permit and selected campsites with the ranger, and headed south to see the rest of the main roadside attractions. Near Mammoth, we also saw our first elk of the trip. There was a male with an enormous rack, scratching his head on a tree, and about 3 females nearby. There were also probably 30 cars backed up on the road.
We stopped at a place
called Artist’s Paintpots, which was pretty great. The whole place was a bunch of roiling and boiling little pools that all had different colors in them. There were a lot of browns and reds, and some whites, and some extremely vibrant blues. There was also a big steamy geyser, the spray of which we walked straight through.
On the way south, we also took a detour on Firehole Canyon drive, which was incredibly worthwhile. The canyon is really amazing, with the river winding through it. There was a cool swimming area, and lots of great scenic spots to pull off. Our next stop was Old Faithful. Unfortunately, we missed an eruption, and it wasn’t due to go off again for another hour and a half, which we really didn’t have time to spare, since we had about 10 more miles to drive, and about 4 to hike before we would be at our site for the night. Nevertheless, we walked around Old Faithful, and saw some of the cool geological bits in the immediate area.
We arrived at our trailhead and began our hike. At this stage of the game, I have to say, we were a bit
disappointed. The first part of the hike was basically just more mountain pines and then some plains. Of course, it was very pretty, but it struck both of us as not significantly different than what we could have seen in Wisconsin and Minnesota. We got to Shoshone Lake eventually, and it was really pretty, and fairly big, but again, not distinctly interesting enough for our tastes.
We walked around the lake and arrived at our campground, a fairly nicely laid out affair, complete with a nice food suspension rig so that you could easily tie your food above bear level. It was already pretty dark and cold by the time we got into the campsite, so we got our food cooking ASAP, and hunkered down. As the night wore on, we got to hear a lot of wild elk calls on the lake, which was definitely a bit spooky and unnerving at first. Onaxthiel adds: Elk in the wild sound like the herbivores in Jurassic Park, and their going for a swim in the dark was a strange echo to go to sleep to.
Lessons learned: Hit the hot spots in the wee hours of the morning, before
Us at Lower Falls
The Japanese Tourist we kept running into took our picture. the tourists overwhelm whatever you want to see. Pump Rangers that really do know what they are doing for every bit of info you can drag out of them. The guy working the back country office at Mammoth hooked us up.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.056s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 5; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0347s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb