Day 11: Yellowstone!

After a night spent in eager anticipation of entering Yellowstone, we ... entered Yellowstone. We went through the Roosevelt gate on the North entrance. (Frankly, if we went through the North entrance without going through the Roosevelt gate, we probably would have been arrested for property damage.)

For the first couple of miles into the park, Yellowstone looked more or less like the rest of Montana: beautiful.

We started the day by going to the Albright Visitor Center at Mammoth Hot Springs to make sure my planned itinerary was sane and would fit with the road closures. The ranger let us know about a few minor road closures (e.g. we decided not to go to Tower Falls because the road is closed and bear-y), but otherwise seemed to think our plan was sound. The plan, in a nutshell is:

day 1: Mammoth Hot Springs, Lamar valley (and, as a bonus, we spent some time in the Norris geyser basin)

day 2: Norris geyser basin, Madison, and Old Faithful 

day 3: Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (and maybe check out the lake)

Since we haven't used up any of our buffer days, we may spend more time in Yellowstone if we discover more activities to do. (Perhaps some kind of professional tour? A ranger-led hike? Got suggestions?)

Anyway, let me tell you more about day 1. 

We began in Mammoth because it was right in front of us. Doing both the upper basin and lower basin combined took about 2 hours, and was well worth it. There are no geysers in Mammoth, just hot springs (maybe the name "Mammoth Hot Springs" is a clue?) Hot springs are basically areas where the water is not obstructed coming to the surface, so it doesn't need to form a geyser, and where there is enough water that it doesn't turn into a fumarole (or "steam vent") which is dry but steamy (like a bad romance novel). Just to round out the geothermal features, there is also the 'mud pot', which is kind of an acidic hot spring where there's bubbling mud instead of water. We haven't seen any mud pots yet--that's tomorrow.  In the visitors center, we read an old set of rules for visiting Yellowstone where we learned that it is totally not allowed to graze cattle by the hot springs.  Good to know!

The water from all of these geothermal features comes up through limestone, which gets dissolved and then deposited on the outside of the feature (which is where geyser domes and hot spring terraces come from).

Here's a picture of a capped spring (or geyser, or something) showing the buildup:

Here's an example of a terrace formation:

Alex and I tried to imagine what the early explorers must have felt when they came across the hot springs and geysers. Probably terror. If Montana is out of a movie, it would probably be the Lord of the Rings series (or something. I've never actually watched or read LotR, but I assume it has beautiful panorama shots of mountains and stuff); if Yellowstone is out of a movie, it'd be some movie about demon lairs that I'm sure I've also never seen. So I hope that helps you imagine Yellowstone.  

Oh, and the whole thing smells like sulfur (unfortunately Blogger does not support smell-o-vision) or, as I told Alex, "like breakfast" (it does!).

Halfway through the upper basin in Mammoth Hot Springs we ran into a couple of tourists telling us, "there's a bear over there". And indeed, about 100 yards away from us (a safe distance), was a big ol' bear prowling around. We decided that seeing the rest of the hot springs near the bear was not as important as not being eaten by the bear. (A couple of British tourists made a different choice; as far as I know, they're still alive.)

After finishing the rest of the bear-less part of the Mammoth Hot Springs loop, we stopped by the Visitor Center to alert the rangers of the bear that was a tad bit too close to the boardwalk, and God rewarded us by sending a fox directly in front of our (parked) car. It didn't stay around too long, instead doing adorable things like sticking its nose out adorably and then walking adorably away from us. So cute! 

Primed for wildlife viewing, and thinking we were wildlife viewing rockstars for our bear and fox within hours of entering the park, we drove out to Lamar Valley, aka the Serengeti of the Yellowstone. (Yellowstone also has the "Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone". What's next, "The Sphinx of the Yellowstone"?) We quickly learned that the best way to spot animals was to look for their traces, most especially the numerous cars with telescope lenses surrounding them. Immediately upon entering Lamar Valley we spotted a car pulled over to scope out a coyote that was right next to the road. Our next stop, a few minutes later, was a black bear prowling around the side of a hill. If this pace had kept up, we'd probably have seen every living creature within a five mile radius. Unfortunately, our luck started to dry out (other than seeing some adorable bison babies and some rather large herds of bison, including a bison jam that we narrowly avoided).

The next time we saw an animal was quite a number of miles later: a wolf! Now, spotting a wolf is darn cool, but the problem was that SEEING the wolf was damn near impossible. Even looking through a 20x mounted view, we only got the faintest glimpse of it. A few miles later, same story: two wolves, really far away. This time we could make it out a little bit better, but it was still tough. And who can complain about seeing 3 wolves? Not I. But after our earlier close encounters with carnivores, we'd hoped all our animals would come out and play in front of us. Our last telescope lens experience was viewing a dead elk carcass where, again, we couldn't see much detail. Why can't the animals hunt next to the road? (I have to say, though, every single person was extremely nice and lots of folks let us use their awesome optical equipment, and there would have been literally zero chance of seeing these animals without the equipment, patience and kindness of strangers.)

Our next step, however, was much more gratifying; we saw a mama bear AND HER BABY BEAR CUB. (OK, I think maybe only I saw it; Alex had some trouble getting into the right position). This bear was much closer to the road, so our relatively cheap--you can spend a fortune on optics--binoculars had fantastic views. I got to see the bear's face and the back of her cub, and she even moved its head a few times. Mamma was sleepy! (We also had a nice chat with a couple of Neil Diamond fans who want to go to a Red Sox game entirely because of the seventh inning stretch singing of Sweet Caroline.)

We headed onward, and within a few miles ran into another group of cars. I know what you're thinking: must be an animal! And you'd be right. See how easy it is to find wildlife? This was another sleeping bear. (Job skills required to be a bear: sleep; eat berries; kill tasty animals; complain about your honey being stolen) A nice couple let us spot it through their scope, but it was well within view of our binoculars.

You might now reasonably ask, where are our amazing bear photos? The problem is that the bears are far away, and our iPhones are not exactly going to give 8x magnification. If you're going to Yellowstone, you really must get decent binoculars (8x32 seems to be quite good [8x magnification, 32 millimeter front lenses], we like our 8x32 more than the bulky 7x35. If you have glasses, definitely get something with eye relief of at least 15-16mm so you can keep your glasses on while using the binoculars.) 

Done with our wildlife loop, we saw it was only around 4pm, so we decided to get a head start on day 2 by going to Norris Geyser Basin. Along the way, we ran into several beautiful geothermal features, including an impressive fumarole. We did a loop around the "Porcelain Basin" at Norris. We saw only one very very minor geyser eruption, but even without actual eruptions, the geyser field is amazingly colorful due to all the thermophile lifeforms that feed on iron, arsenic, and sulfur, producing different colors based on the food source (you can probably guess how the colors match). One color that comes entirely from the minerals is blue: several hot springs collect silica that gives them an oddly opaque sky blue color. We also learned that fumaroles are usually at higher elevation than the other geothermal features, as they are both extremely hot and also quite dry--all water that enters them is immediately turned to steam and so little water enters them that they are not cooled down by the water (in which case they would likely turn into hot springs).  The overall view is crazy, with water bubbling and spurting and the entire thing stinking and a million different colors and huge clouds of steam wafting over it all.

Little green and red dudes called thermophiles live in the water and are part of the reason why it's so many crazy colors.

This is Congress Pool, so called because it hangs out on federal government property and is dangerous to those around it, but mostly just spews hot gas and doesn't do anything. (Okay, it was actually named after a meeting of geologists.)

Alex is ready to take on the rain and cold:

Undine Falls:

Tomorrow, more geothermal features! We WILL see at least one geyser eruption (Old Faithful; guess where that name comes from.)