Day # 13 - Yellowstone N.P.

Our final day in Yellowstone. This entry will be a long one because we packed so much into one day! On the way back to the camper yesterday, we saw blue and orange smoke rising from one of the geyser basins. We decided to take a side trip to check it out. It turned out to be Grand Prismatic Spring. It is Yellowstone’s largest hot spring at 370 feet across. The water is a deep blue and it is surrounded by yellow and orange colored thermophiles. It produces a beautiful prism effect. The spring pushes over 500 gallons of water per minute into the Yellowstone River. The only problem is that because the water is a constant 160 degrees and the air in the park is much cooler most of the time it produces so much steam that you can’t see all of the way across the pool most of the time. Having had our fill of the thermal features of the park, Tony wanted to check out the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and the Lower Falls. As we drove to that side of the park, we saw the lingering effects of the 1988 fires that ravaged much of the park. More than 20 years later there are huge areas with burned trees – many of them still standing. What was really cool to see was all of the smaller pine trees growing in to take their place. The guidebooks all say it will take about 60 years for the forest to fully recover. Nature is an amazing thing!

The Grand Canyon area was awesome. The golden cliffs were very impressive as we walked around to see Lower Falls from a spot known as Artist’s Point. The canyon is over 1,000 feet deep and 4,000 feet wide. Lower Falls are over 300 feet tall (twice the height of Niagra Falls). We saw a hawk and a chipmunk who, scurried after AJ. AJ thought it was chasing him and he squealed with delight before running the other direction! We decided since it was our last day to try to get in one more of the major sights before we left. We ate our picnick lunch in the car on our drive around to see Mammoth Hot Springs. We also figured we might as well drive around the top of the loop of the park to take in some more of the scenery.
We have been constantly amazed at how diverse the many different areas there are in the park. Each landscape seems completely different, yet they are all remarkably beautiful. We looked forward to rounding each bend to see what we would find. In addition to the many changes in scenery, we saw a wide range of wild life today as well. We pulled over to snap a few pictures at an overlook. A woman who pulled in said there was a grizzly foraging by the side of the road a few miles up. We were excited to see a grizzly so close up in the wild (and from the safety of our car). The bear was maybe 10 feet from the road. There were rangers posted in the area to make sure no human did anything stupid. We saw a second grizzly much farther away a little later in our journey as well as a baby black bear. We didn’t stick around to see mama bear. Sarah and I spotted a fox by the side of the road as well. We scoured the landscapes all day for signs of a moose, but never saw one!

By the time we got around to Mammoth Springs it was much later than we anticipated and AJ had fallen asleep in the car. We decided to get out and take a look anyway. Tony got him out of the car and he slept the entire time – through Tony getting him out of the car, putting his jacket on and walking around on the trail. He slept through all of the noise the small crowd that had gathered made, being handed over to me and then getting strapped back into his car seat. That was one tired little boy. Mammoth Hot Springs are very interesting. The minerals in the water are constantly building more and more tiers to the springs. They are getting taller and taller each day. They areas where the water is actively flowing have a deep orange color. The “dead” areas are a whitish grey. The springs are incredibly large and there are boardwalks and catwalks to take you all the way up and around. We chose to see the rest from the car. On our way back to the parking area, an elk walked right up and across our path. No matter how many of these wild animals we see, we can’t help but to take more pictures!

As we reluctantly headed back to the campground, a mother and baby buffalo crossed in front of us. We thought they were just crossing the road, but instead they decided to walk down the road in front of us – sort of like a buffa-pace car. We followed them for quite some time at a distance. The girls thought it was very funny. We took some good video footage of it as well. Finally, they decided they had gone far enough and moved off into the grass. We joked that today should be named wildlife day in honor of the many animals we saw in the park today. Our visit ended on a high note with a glimpse of a baby bald eagle sitting in the top of its nest on our way out of the park. We spent just enough time in Yellowstone to realize that we definitely want to come back!