On Friday, May 29, we got up and readied to leave the lovely hotel of Jackson Lake Lodge. The most striking thing about this hotel to my mind is the lounge, which is a huge 2.5 story room with lots of sofas and chairs. It has floor to ceiling windows to the west so that you can see this site:
As we drove north along John D. Rockefeller Jr highway (we have him to thank for the hotel, and for 32, 000 acres he donated to the Grand Teton National Park as well as influencing Congress about the park), the sights of the Tetons still were around and in front of us.
We stopped at Colter Village, named for the Lewis and Clark team explorer John Colter:
The villlage includes this marina on the lake (the only one).
We also got our first glimpse of wildlife, a red fox. I thought perhaps we wouldn't see that much wildlife on this trip, but as I will detail below, we got to see plenty on this day.
The drive from the village to the south entrance of Yellowstone park is about 15 miles, and our plan was to see a few sights after entering the park on our 40 mile drive to Old Faithful VIllage where we would stay for 2 nights.
But all plans can go awry, and ours did because the bridge to the west to Old Faithful Village was out! That meant taking the lower loop around the park, a distance of more than 100 miles. Since the top speed in the park is 45 mph and often the speed reduces to 25 or 35 mph, it would take all of the day.
We decided to see sights along the way and our first stop was Moose Falls. Here's the stream that leads to the falls.
Here's the falls with Chuck in view:
Because we headed north rather than east, we followed the edge of Yelllowstone Lake with a view of what I think are the Absaroka mountains to the east. Yellowstone Lake is North America's largest high altitude lake at 7,700 ft and measuring 14 by 20 miles.
Once we passed the lake, the road follows the Yellowstone river, which flows north out of Yellowstone Lake (the continental divide is south of Yellowstone Lake). We came to our first geological oddity, one of the very many in Yellowstone: the Mud volcano area.
Now a diversion to explain why Yellowstone is so unique/odd. Much of Yellowstone park sits on a vast caldera, which is the basin the results from a volcanic eruption, after the volcano stops erupting and sinks back into the earth. The last volcanic eruption in Yellowstone was 640K years ago, and the eruption was so huge, it spread rock and ash over most the US west of the Mississippi River (what we would today consider the equivalent of a country wide disaster). But the volcano was not dead--it is very much alive and the result is hundreds of "hot spots" around the park--hot springs, geysers, hot vents and mud pots. Mud volcano area is a collection of mud pots within about a mile square area. Mud pots occur when hot water pushes through a vent and mixes with dirt as it rises.
This mud pot is continually bubbling, and like all the ones nearby, it puts sulphur gas into the air. It smells awful!
I also saw the smallest animal I think I will see during my visit. There are several varieties of chipmunks here, but I don't know which this is!
While Chuck took a snooze from driving, I walked the 2/3 mile loop above this mud pool to another larger pool. Along the way I took this photo, which shows many dead lodge pole pines, the victims of the huge fires of 1988, which burnt about 30% of the park (a part of that fire was due to a human mistake as well as very dry conditions).
Here's the Churning Caldron mudpot sign and sight:
The walk down to where I started was both lovely and smelly because there were several more bubbling pools. The mud in these pools contains many organisms that are able to survive the extreme temperatures, a recent biological discovery.
Back on the road, we passed meadows like this one.
And in those meadows are these big fellows. This one was ambling towards the road as we drove by. Chuck was urging me to get a photo quickly so we could get out of his way.
There are signs all over the park telling humans to stay away from the wild animals (they are dangerous) and to let them have the right of way. As a result buffalo herds seem to be comfortable wandering about without regard to people.
The Yellowstone River stayed on our right, and in it were some waterfowl--ducks, Canadian geese and this Great Blue heron.
The Yellowstone river eventually in one section cuts a steep canyon, known as the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It includes stunning falls such as this one, the upper falls:
Further down are the lower falls:
Here is a view of the canyon walls, and some details about them.
When we stopped to see these views, in the other direction near us was a meadow with this fine example of an elk:
Finally heading east, the afternoon clouds caught my eye:
As we passed Norris, where there are a huge collection of geysers, we stopped to see another kind of pot--this one with no mud--just clear bubbling water.
Equally amazing to me were these lovely shooting stars, that live in the soil right along the streams that flow out of the pots!
On our way finally to Old Faithful Village, we saw this herd of buffalo in the distance.
Finally around 6:30 pm we came to Old Faithful Inn, a huge historic inn, built in 1903.
We rested, had dinner and then of course we went out to sit on the deck in front of the inn to watch Old Faithful erupt, which it does about every 65 minutes +/- 10 minutes!
One big and very full day in Yellowstone Park!
