More Adventures in Yellowstone

Yellowstone is a huge park, and after our first day we had barely scratched the surface. We spent the next two full days exploring the different areas of the park, going on hikes, and watching for wildlife. Day two began with an early morning drive up through Dunraven Pass (8,859 ft), which was still covered in thick snow even though it was almost June. After taking in the amazing views, we descended down toward the road leading to the Lamar Valley. We saw a bear with two cubs, who came very close to our car. Second day, second bear sighting! We continued past an awesome columnar basalt formation, and saw some bighorn sheep before stopping for our big hike of the trip, the Specimen Ridge Trail. This was a great un-crowded hike through a meadow and up a mountain for a fantastic view across the Lamar Valley. We saw a couple of bison, some North American pronghorn, and ground squirrels while hiking. At one point a bison decided to walk right on the trail towards us, so we had to step out of the way for a while.

Driving through the Hayden Valley in the morning.

Snowy Dunraven pass. Doesn't look like summer!

Beautiful views of the snowy mountains and foggy valleys.

A bear with two cubs!

We watched them walk around for a while (from the safety of our car). The cubs were adorable!

Huge basalt formation alongside the road.

First bighorn sighting!

Walking across the first park of the Specimen Ridge Trail. It was a bit chilly at first.

Great views from the trail across the meadow.

David and his Dad with the Lamar Valley in the background.

Specimen Ridge Trail is worth it for the views alone.

Paul on the trail.

We saw a ton of these guys in the meadow on the first part of the trail.

After the hike, we drove through the Lamar Valley, seeing several huge herds of bison. We exited the park's northeast entrance for lunch in Cooke City, Montana. Cooke City is interesting as there's just one road that goes through town from east to west. In the winter the road east is closed and it had still not opened for the season when we arrived. All winter folks living in Cooke City have to drive west through Yellowstone to leave town, which can take a very long time to reach anywhere.

After lunch, we found an ice cream shop while heading back towards Yellowstone. The couple that owned the store were actually retiree school teachers from Fayetteville, near Atlanta. Small world! While eating our ice cream we noticed a moose across the street chilling in a small city park. We spent a little time watching it graze and then headed back into the park. This was the only moose sighting of the trip.

Heading east through the Lamar Valley, near the northeast entrance of Yellowstone.

It's a bit more mountainous on this side of the park.

Obligatory Yellowstone sign shot!

Lunch was at a beer-friendly place. Someone else wrote Atlanta.

Hi Mr. Moose!

The next stop on our tour was Mammoth Hot Springs, which was more than an hour drive from Cooke City. Along the way we stopped at Undine Falls to check out the view. Mammoth Hot Springs is the northern entrance to the park, and has one of the busier visitor areas. There were quite a few elk chilling in the little village center, and lots of tourists running around.

The springs themselves are a series of cascading geothermal features that built up over time. They sort of look like stalagmites; as they both form from the build up of minerals from ground water over time. The springs look different depending on the time of year and rain. The weather was a bit bad when we arrived so we didn't linger.

Undine Falls.

David in front of the Mammoth Hot Springs. 

Completing our visit to the north side of the park, we swung around the west loop road to check out Norris Geyser Basin before returning to the Lake Lodge for the evening. The Norris Geyser Basin hosts a large collection of geysers, mudpots and other geothermal features. Paul really loves checking these out! Norris is one of the most geothermally active areas of the park, and probably the most impressive geyser basin.

Back at the hotel, we had a late reservation for dinner at 8:45 (way past David's Dad's dinner time). The food was expensive for what it was, but it was still the nicest meal we had in Yellowstone, where the food is in general just ok.

Overview of the Norris Geyser Basin.

Steam rising all around in Norris.

Paul with some steam vents.

Boiling water and bacteria.

Norris has fascinating streams of hot geyser water. The different colors are different species of bacteria and microorganisms that live at different temperatures.

Back at Lake Lodge there's still ice built up on Yellowstone Lake.

Paul's dinner.

On our third and final full day in Yellowstone, we focused on the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, one of the central features of the park. It has two huge waterfalls, and multiple scenic viewpoints. Unfortunately a couple of the viewpoints and trails were closed for renovation, but we still had some amazing views of the falls and canyon.

Classic viewpoint of Lower Falls.

The canyon has a beautiful variety of colors from minerals in the rock.

We hiked down to the brink of the lower falls. You can get really close.

Paul at the brink of the falls.

We also stopped at the Canyon visitor center, which had some excellent exhibits on the geology of Yellowstone. This was our favorite visitor center in the park. We had breakfast at the Canyon diner next door, and visited the mud volcano area on our way back to lake lodge. It was a rainy day, but the mud volcano area had some amazing roiling mudpots that were worth getting a little wet for.

A giant model of the park at the canyon visitors center.

A bubbling lake at mud volcano.

This was an impressive steaming, roiling mud lake.

Walking the boardwalk through the steam.

The dragon's mouth, steaming and bubbling.

After mud volcano, we dropped David's Dad off at the hotel to rest, then drove to the West Thumb Geyser Basin, despite the rain. West Thumb is a small but interesting basin with some geothermal features right on the shore of the Lake. We saw a baby elk there too, but didn't linger long due to the soggy weather. We rested back a the hotel for a bit and had a quick dinner at the deli in Lake Lodge, before a short evening drive past LeHardy's Rapids and some wildlife viewing in the Hayden Valley again.

An overview of Lake Yellowstone from a burned hilltop.

This was a pretty cool fact. The other side of lake Yellowstone is farther from a road than anywhere else in the continental US!

Yeah it was a bit rainy all day.

A big blue steaming hot spring in West Thumb.

There was still quite a bit of ice on Lake Yellowstone.

An elk wandering around West Thumb. Her baby was hiding nearby under a tree.

Another cool colorful hot stream full of bacteria.

Quick stop at the rapids.

That wrapped up our final day at Yellowstone. It's a spectacular place, and should be on everyone's bucket list. Our next stop is Grand Teton on the way back to Salt Lake City.