We’re back! It’s hard to believe Devil’s Tower was three weeks ago, but we’ve managed to keep ourselves occupied; Sarah contracted a nasty stomach bug the day after climbing the tower, so we spent a few quiet days having a nice visit with her mom and dad before heading to Spearfish, South Dakota for some light cragging (um…we climbed 3 pitches) and convalescing. Then, we headed back to Ten Sleep for two more eventful days; our frenemy status is still intact, as we hiked through moose country, climbed some more awesome routes, and continued to feed Sarah’s ice cream addiction there but also dealt with an unfortunate dead battery situation that required splicing together multiple jumper cables in a serious cowboy mad scientist kind of way! The next big thing, though, was my first trip ever to Yellowstone, and it did not disappoint.
Because we didn’t have a campsite reserved, we stayed just outside of the park and did the prerequisite pre-dawn getup to drive to our preferred campground, Norris, in the center of the park. Our game viewing began just a few minutes into the park, when we came upon a stopped truck flashing its hazards in the middle of the road. In most of America, this means “help me,†but in Yellowstone, it is often code for “big-ass bearâ€! As the truck drove off, Sarah spotted an adolescent grizzly about 5 feet off the road, digging through a rotten stump to get some bugs for breakfast. We watched it dine, snort, and move on…even standing briefly before moseying. No crowds and a bear…not bad for a start.
After waiting in line for 2 ½ hours, we were proud renters of a great campsite with lots of space, shade, a big ol’ picnic table, and bear box that held all our food. Since our day was half over by the time we made some breakfast, we decided to make the mile long hike to Norris Geyser Basin. We’d seen some bison right by camp, and bears frequent the area, so we saved our “how was your morning†discussion for the trail, along with more than a few “Hey, bear!†calls. Soon, we came out at the busy geyser basin, home to some of the world’s oldest geothermal pools (115 million years); magma runs only about 2 miles below the earth’s surface here, and the hottest recorded temperature underneath the ground here was 429 degrees. We spent the afternoon walking the two boardwalk loops checking out deep blue pools with various collections of colored bacteria on their edges; the world’s largest geyser, Steamboat, was due to go off sometime in the next 36 hours, so we waited about 10 minutes, mostly watching the crowd. We saw many bubbling pools, burping mud pots, and a few small spurts but no big eruptions.
As many of you may know, Sarah and I both love animals; two of our favorite things on our first trip were the African safari and Amazon rain forest tours. So, our first big splurge of the trip was a game viewing tour in the Lamar Canyon, sometimes known as the Serengeti of America. Again, we found ourselves up before dawn driving the super curvy road north through Mammoth to the original entry to the park in Gardiner, Montana; originally a stage coach road, this entrance is also home to the famous Roosevelt Arch…not originally designed to be named for him, but he was visiting around the time it was to be dedicated and agreed to give a speech. On the way out to the Canyon, I noticed a sign for Cooke City and immediately thought of a backpacking trip years ago in the Beartooths, where a certain best friend who shall not be named burned all of our toilet paper, sending me on a 3 mile run with full pack to the nearest outhouse on our way out. I decided to focus on the animals instead.
Some of the highlights of the day included a ton of bison (including watching a male guard the lady he was beginning to court), pronghorns (the 2nd fastest mammal in the world, who evolved and survived its ancient main predator, the American cheetah), and elk (some big ol’ racks and a few gangly young…the freshmen of the school of mother nature). We spent time on the viewing scopes looking for wolves but settled for learning a ton about them instead, including 1) their close relationship with ravens, 2) the positive curb-effect their re-introduction had on other species, and 3) the amazing story of their re-introduction, including a poacher, lost orphans, rescuers making mama wolf noises, a Leatherman tool, and 8 rescued cubs. Probably the most exciting part of the day, though, was coming up on a black bear dining on second breakfast and ignoring two idiots (not us) trying to follow it into the woods.
Oh, we also saw a unicorn! Metaphorically speaking, of course. In our 3rd cross-country road trip, spanning much of the continental U.S., we finally spotted a car from Rhode Island! I had all but accepted they had not actually benefitted from the innovation of the automobile, but apparently they do exist!
We spent the rest of the day tooling around Mammoth—first with a soak in the Boiling River, which isn’t as painful as it sounds. It’s a spot where a boiling hot spring runs into a really cold river, basically creating bathtub temperatures—or rushes of slightly too hot water followed by rushes of slightly too cold; every few minutes, though, we were straight baby bear—juuusst right! After our soak, we checked out the travertines around town; we both enjoyed the Minerva Spring. It was hot and crowded around Mammoth, though, so it wasn’t our favorite part of Yellowstone. We kind of liked it at dawn, when there were more elk than people.
Our 3rd day in Yellowstone began with another early start and some sunrise game viewing—3 elk on a hillside with giant racks—it’s hard to believe they regrow antlers every year. We also stopped to check out some other elk in our binoculars and spotted a grizzly in the distance—it’s humped back was pronounced. Not sure what he was up to, but boy, can those things move. Our reason for getting up so early was to have a nice breakfast (we put on our nicest clothes in the parking lot) in the historic Yellowstone Lodge, where I discovered that cheese blintz rule. Then, we were on to Old Faithful.
We actually got to the parking lot right as Old Faithful went off, which gave us about 90 minutes before the next eruption. I wanted to see it from Observation Point, so we hiked up there after checking out the visitors’ center and touring the 1st part of Geyser Hill. We were right below the point when Old Faithful went off about 17 minutes early; I had expected this grand view, but the wind was blowing our way; we mostly saw steam and the lodge behind it. Not what I had pictured, but we had plenty of time.
The highlight of the geysers actually was seeing Castle Geyser go off—it only goes off 1-2 times a day, and it is one of the coolest looking formations. From most angles, the base really does look like a castle, and when it goes, the water even creates a sort of moat! Anyway, the thing erupted in long spurts for about 25 minutes, sometimes 60 feet or so into the air. This was followed by sort of hissing steam farts for another 20 minutes. It was awesome!
After finishing our loop, we hiked back down to check out Old Faithful from up close and lucked into a couple of good seats opposite of the wind. Then we waited…and waited. This time, it was 17 minutes late! Some people were getting irritated, as if cable TV was interrupted, but in reality, the geyser averaged out to be right on time! When it went, the cool thing was, about 500 people shut up at once! It wasn’t the grandest geyser I’ve seen, but the way it mesmerized people seemed pretty special.
Maybe our favorite thing that we saw, however, was not an explosion at all. The Prismatic Spring is simply gorgeous! Rather than join the hordes on the boardwalk around it, we hiked up from the nearby Fairy Falls trailhead to a magnificent viewpoint above it. This 370 ft. wide, 121 ft. deep pool was the purest blue, and the light coming off it and the colorful bacteria around its edges really did create a prism that basically spanned the colors of the rainbow. Sarah and I spent a good deal of time admiring it before hiking down—sometimes the serene outshines the exciting.
On our final day, we began with a hike of Mt. Washburn, one of only 3 active lookouts in Yellowstone. It is also the most popular: over 10,000 people hike it annually. Its summit is 10, 243 feet, but it is not a difficult hike, and we have slept between 5,000 and 8,000 feet almost the entire time since leaving Portland. We got another early start and actually had the trail and summit all to ourselves! The wildflowers were in—lots of lupine, paint brush, and sunflowers—and the animals were out—a mule deer, marmots, and even a fox. Right below the summit, we spotted either big horn sheep or mountain goats. The light was bad, and they were just too far off…out came the binoculars. We spent a few minutes trying to figure it out when a very loud CRACK went off just behind us. Umm, they were definitely big horn sheep—a big male had snuck up right above us and was watching us peer through the binocs at his cousins. Anyway, we enjoyed seeing this herd, including some babies, up close as we summitted. The lookout was great too…panoramas all around, including all the way to the Tetons. It was worth getting up early; the sheep were gone by the time the 3rd party arrived, and that view was even better with us hogging it.
After Mt. Washburn, we headed down to check out the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Both Sarah and I sort of had low expectations for this (how grand could it be—we’ve seen the real Grand Canyon!), but we were both really impressed by it! We hiked the north rim instead of fighting the traffic jams of drivers between lookouts, and it made for a nice afternoon. The canyon is very sheer, dropping 1,000 feet in places, spanning 4,000 feet across, with the Yellowstone River snaking 20 miles through it. Different shades of yellows, oranges, reds, and browns layer the walls of each side. We hit five different viewpoints to get different aspects of it; all were impressive, but of course, the best part is the falls. Apparently, the Lower Falls are twice as high as Niagara, but the size of the canyon disguises this a bit. From the Brink of the Lower Falls (the upper falls portion is closed, so we didn’t get great views of it), you are basically at the drop-off. They are astonishingly powerful; the spray churns up almost half the height of the falls from the violence of the water dropping! Probably my favorite part, though, was dropping 500 feet below the rim at Lookout Point, but I will let that picture speak for itself.
Yellowstone was not exactly at the top of my bucket list (actually, I don’t have a bucket list…we were asked at work last year what was at the top of our bucket list, and my answer was to buy a bigger bucket), but it was a place I had always hoped to see. It didn’t disappoint me and spending a few days here with Sarah living in a van together was more than just another drop in some bucket. Sometimes, life is pretty stinkin’ great!
