Thursday, June 26, 2008

Day 12 - Yellowstone

Pictures are at url: http://picasaweb.google.com/mcthomas2005

Once all of the pictures are uploaded and labeled - I will create one blog entry with just pictures slideshows. You can double click on a slideshow and it will take you to our pictures web site.

Anyway, today was the north circle in Yellowstone. Of course, that meant repeating everything we had seen from West Yellowstone to Madison and north to Norris. But, even with the fact that we were repeating miles traveled, we did see something new - a wreck. How on earth someone can take out a pine tree with a maximum speed of 45 miles per hour - I don't know. But, someone did. There were emergency vehicles, ambulances, rangers and all of the other emergency services there with traffic stopped on both sides of the road - well, maybe just slowed down. We also stopped to take pictures of the eagle nest since the sun was covered with clouds in the morning.

Our first real stop today was the Norris Geyser Basin. The Steamboat Geyser is in this basin. It goes off on a regular basis, but when it has a major eruption (last one was in May 2005), it shoots water higher than Old Faithful. Now, its really big eruptions are on an 8 to 50 year cycle. That means, you could just walk away from the geyser heading to the parking lot and that sucker could blow and you would miss it!!!! That did not happen to us, but it certainly could have.

From there we headed north to Sheepeaters Cliffs. These cliffs were formed by a lava flow that solidified into basalt cliffs. They actually reminded me of Devil's Tower with the vertical stratifications and the broken off pieces at the base. There were supposed to be marmots nesting in the broken pieces of rock at the base. We did not see any, but I did get a great picture of a chipmunk (it is in the Yellowstone Animals album at the url at the beginning).

Just north of Sheepeaters Cliffs were the Hoodoos. Hoodoos are vertical stones that have eroded away and are just standing there. There was a little drive through the hoodoos. Luckily it was one way - because it felt tight in the jeep!!!

North of the Hoodoos was Mammoth Park Headquarters. We stopped there and had lunch. There were signs everywhere that you were not to feed the elk. We couldn't feed the elk. There weren't any!!! But, there were a lot of people milling about and taking a break from driving.

Rather than climb the Mammoth Terraces right after lunch, we decided to drive to the north entrance to Yellowstone. That is where the Roosevelt Arch is. The arch was erected in 1903 and reads "For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People" which was from the 1872 Congressional Act which actually created the park. It felt like it took us forever to reach the arch from Mammoth, because the park service was striping the road!!!! What was really interesting is that we actually left the park, did a u-turn, took our pictures and then had to show our pass to get right back into the park!!!

There were supposed to be mountain sheep in the area north of Mammoth and south of the north entrance. There was a wonderful area where the sheep should have been. We saw some pigeons - but no sheep in that wonderful area.

We then proceeded to the Mammoth Terraces. This was really an interesting area. It was a thermal area, but it didn't seem to be alive. The minerals from the thermal areas had created very artistic 'terraces' created by the deposits. Of course, you could not walk out onto the terraces, but it certainly did look like you ought to be able to. Jimmy and I agreed that we would go up one level. I do not know if either of us could have climbed all the way to the top. Plus, by now we have started to tire of thermal areas as well as bison!!!! There are so many you really become immune to their beauty!!! Kind of a shame, but it is the truth.

From Mammoth, we head south towards the Tower area. The first sight mentioned in our book was Gardner Canyon. As we approach the bridge, we saw lots of cars pulled over to the side. This is a clear indication in Yellowstone of animal life!!! So, as we drove across the bridge, I strained to see the animal everyone was taking pictures of. There he was. A brown bear down by the river. So, off the road we pull and out come the binoculars and camera. We get right down on the side of the hill and watch that bear waddle up the side of the hill (on the other side of the river!!!). I did take a picture of it. I can clearly see the bear. You will see kind of a brown blob in the middle of the picture!!! But, it counts as a bear sighting. It is our only bear sighting in the wild of the trip.

A short time after we left the bear and, later, Undine Falls, we came upon another traffic jam. It was another Elk Jam. There were two bull elks who needed to get across the highway. So, amble across the highway they did. No hurry - even with people jumping out of cars, slamming doors, and aiming cameras at them. They needed to get across the street to the meadow on the other side. I jumped out of the car and another lady and I ran up the highway with Jimmy keeping us safe by blocking traffic with the jeep. I got some really great pictures and then jumped back in the car and we drove across a little bridge and into a parking area. From there, I felt like we were right on top of the elk. Just look at the pictures. You can see the fur on their antlers!!!

Our next major experience was as we approached and went over Dunraven Pass. It had started to rain a little as we climbed up the mountain. By the time we were approaching the top, it started sleeting. We were high enough that a lot of the snow from the winter was still there. We had ice accumulating on the windshield. Lots of motorcycles were pulled off in little pull off areas getting under the shelter of the restrooms to wait for the rain and sleet to stop. Now, we were on a mountain road with a turnback called the Mae West Curve - so you can imagine that it was steep and curvy. Jimmy handled it like a pro and my armrest has a permanent hand print on it.

You can see the pictures that we took today at the url at the beginning of this day's blog. Please enjoy.

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