Day 11 Yellowstone Day 1

A solid breakfast buffet started my day off and I was off to Fairy Falls Trail head. The trail winds out to a glorious fall as well as has a turn off for the Grand Prismatic Spring Overlook. As I rounded the first turn there was Mr. Bison having breakfast. I inched a little bit more out of his way before heading along the path.

I took the overlook on the way out and the Spring was covered with mist from the heat and early morning cold. I figured I would just wait and check for a good picture on the way back. Out into the woods I continued. Random note the morning chill does keep ones water cold and tasty. The trail is listed as 4.9 but my GPS tracker clocked me in at 5.4 miles over the two hours I was on the trail. I did not see anyone till I got to the falls. He was as surprised as I was. The falls was worth it at least the team thought so.

On the way back people started rolling past me. The emptiness was over. Did get a few good shots of the Grand Prismatic Spring as I had expected.

At the end Mr. Bison had decided to start walking down the middle of the trail so everyone was taking pictures. He posed nicely.

After that up north I headed and took Firehole Lake Drive. There were plenty of pullouts and neat stops. But the start of the show was a Bison rolling around in the dirt like my dog Kali. I just couldn’t help but notice how much it looked like a dog doing that.

One of the stops was White Dome Geyser and as we were standing there it erupted. Was pretty cool. The first geyser eruption of my visit.

After Firehole Lake Drive I started the long trek north. I say long because I knew there was going to be a traffic stop for 30 minutes due to work. Before that though I got to check out Roaring Mountain. It is a whole mountain side covered in hissing hot fumaroles. The heat is so intense nothing really grows there.

I continued onward to Mammoth Hot Springs. First let me tell you Mammoth is insane. It is a cray tourist section of Yellowstone, I mean more so than most. I did check out the visitor center and got to see some deer or elk. Im not sure which hanging out on the Fort Yellowstone lawn.

This leads me to something cool. The whole story of the US Army coming into tame Yellowstone years before the National Park Service is awesome. Yellowstone exists due to the U.S. Army’s presence that stopped the pillaging of natural resources and the defacing of so much of Yellowstone today.

I wandered the lower and upper terraces of Mammoth Hot Springs. The upper terrace is mainly a road but I felt that I needed to just walk and get some exercise as well as see more. I enjoyed it. One of the formations was Bath Lake. With no water. But do not worry the Springs are not drying up. One of the interesting things is the Springs are constantly changing. Canary Springs in the pictures you can where the water previously ran and now has changed.

The grey in the foreground was once covered in running water

My journey now took me east into a whole new part of the park. The Northern Range. It really is like a whole different world then west Yellowstone and the hot springs. Here we see large rolling grassy plains populated by glacial boulders and other remains of what shaped the caldera that is Yellowstone. One interesting fact, 15 inches of rain a year. The least amount of any area of the park. The park is just sooo big.

Next turn and I was on the unpaved six mile Blacktail Dear Plateau road. It was a fun little jaunt that took a while and sadly there were no animals but some really nice views of the Northern Range.

After that I took a quick detour to the Petrified Tree. There use to be two of these ten million old specimens but vandals of course destroyed the other. Thinking that something had stood there for millions of years… it was just wow.

I then decided I needed some adventure. So I hiked half a mile out to the Lost Lake that was deep within beer country. Yeah I have done some dumb things on this trip. Just around the first bend I Had to make a wide path of a bison and then out to the lake I went. It really is pretty but not that lost as others were there already.

On the way back I heard something along the woodline above me. Whatever it was it was loud . . I think it was my bison friend from earlier moving on as he was nowhere to be seen when I got back to where he had been. But no doubt my step was quicker after whatever made a noise.

Random note as I was driving along and checking out more spots, the water is so dark in Yellowstone. I will need to look it up and find out what it is.

So a few more stops along the way towards dinner in order with some cool pictures are Calcite Spring, Tower Falls, Artists Point and Uncle Tom’s Point. Each area gave more stunning views.