2014XC: Day 11, June 22 – Yellowstone (Mammoth Hot Springs & various Falls)
It’s Sunday, so God provided us with a little church service overlooking the valley. It was cool to sing praise to the One who created the beauty we are enjoying so, and be thankful for it.
On the way back to our campsite through some trees, we saw a bison walking past the stream about 100 feet or so. Morgan and Tyler wanted to race back to the campsite so they split in two directions. As the rest of us caught up to them near our site, we saw a crowd of people and a ranger patrol car – must be wildlife! Yesterday evening when we arrived at the campground, we were speaking to another guest who told us that a bison had walked right down the road through the campground between her site and ours. I thought that would be pretty cool, and it looks like I sort of got my wish! A bison had decided upon a spot near some pines to hang out. The ranger was using a bullhorn and siren to encourage the bison to move, but he wasn’t having any of it. The owners of that tent were packing to leave anyway, so they just moved their tent a little sooner. Then the bison dropped down for a rest After a few more minutes and lots of photos, everyone just went back to their own business. We left after about 45 minutes to go sight-seeing and he was still there when we passed by on our way out.
On our way to Mammoth Hot Springs, we stopped at a Falls.
Shortly thereafter, we saw a very familiar sight – traffic jam! I would get soo excited everytime I saw a crowd, because I knew what that meant. And this time, Brown Bear!
The park really hyped up the danger these animals pose, and I’m sure that it’s true and would never want to know for sure, but it seems that the animals are so used to seeing people gawking at them that they are hardly interested at all. Regardless, we all kept our distance.
Mammoth Hot Springs was packed. The sky was patchy and overcast, and that made for a really dramatic effect. The springs have so much calcite that it turns everything white. When the trees’ roots tap into it underground, it soldifies the tree. The entire place looks as if it’s under a fresh snowfall – beautiful! The sky looked like a storm was on it’s way so we tried to beat it back. We did beat it for that time. On our way out of the area, we saw a fox wandering around town.
As we drove back, there was a grizzly and a cub that caused a major traffic jam but I didn’t get a pic of them. But later on, we did see a black bear and a pair of Elk…
Back on the road, and then stopped at another Falls (I’ll give you one guess about how much the kids are enjoying Steve and I pulling over every 2 seconds!).
So about that storm that we sort of beat back at the Hot Springs…we chose a new road to take us back to the campsite, Tower Falls route. It took us up the a really high area, just as the storm was approaching. We watched it come over the mountains towards us, and that was really cool. So we backtracked a bit to a dirt road that went to the top of the mountain we were on, Mt. Washburn. At the time it was raining, but as we got about midway up, it began hailing! It was crazy – we parked under some pines for some shelter. It turned back to rain so we continued up the hill. We were passing lots of snow patches. At the top, the boys got out of the truck in the rain and went out onto the snow. If it wasn’t raining, we would have taken the hiking trail up to the tip-top of the mountain, so instead we just took some fun pics.
We stopped at one more Falls. This one was an awesome surprise. From the top of the trail, you could see what was called “Upper Falls” way out in the distance. We took the trail that led down, switching back and forth the entire descent…maybe around a 1/2 a mile? Steve and I thought when we would get to the bottom it would just be a viewing point for the river as it rushed by from the falls upstream. But we come around the corner of the end of the trail and SURPRISE! Here’s this waterfall, I think another 80ft drop! It was so high, and the water was so fast and it was so loud. The viewing ledge was right up at the edge of the falls, and I really think I saw fish going over!
Leaving for Grand Teton tomorrow. 🙂