I can’t believe we have been on the road for 3 weeks now. Time has flown by and I’ve seen so many mind blowing things.
We started this morning at Norris Geyser Basin. This area appears to be a lot less visited, and we were among the first ones there. There are two loops - the Back basin and the Porcelain basin. We started with the Back Basin. This is a pretty active area in that there seemed to be a lot of geysers going off and a lot of colors caused by the different bacteria that live in different water temperatures. We were so lucky that we even got to see Vixen geyser erupt. It very rarely goes off and is usually just a hole in the ground that occassionally hisses steam. The eruption seemed to be just for us. It shot in the air about 40 feet.
When I see these geysers erupt, it just thrills my soul. You can hear, see, even smell the build up of the overheated water as it crescendos into a powerful blast of water sometimes straight up in the air, sometimes at an angle. Some of them make a lot of noise but just spit water a few feet in the air. Some of them make a lot of steam and gurgle, but never do anthing more than that. Some of them remind me of those fireworks that you buy that shoot showers of sparks into the air. They make different sounds too. The Veteran geyser sounds like a steam engine to me. Most of the names of the geysers fit pretty well, like Pork Chop, Green Dragon, Minute, and some do not make sense to me, like Black Dragon Cauldron. I think some of them get names and then they change.
We met a family whose young sons had a bunch of Junior Ranger badges pinned to their hats. They had visited a lot of National Parks, and I envisioned my grandchildren working on their Junior Ranger booklets and getting their badges and patches. At an earlier park, I picked up some booklets for them. They can complete them at home and then get their badge at any National Park. Some of the booklets are free and some cost a few dollars.
The Porcelain basin was filled with springs that were varying degrees of milky blue. There were geysers going off in this area as well. Some of the colors reminded me of very old china dolls. At times as we were hiking, especially when it was on dirt and not boardwalk, I felt as if I had been transported to a very early time on earth, when the world was still new. Once when a geyser was going off it created a rainbow.
When we left, we had to wait at a road construction area for a few minutes. Shortly after that, John got the Diamond Stick Pin for spotting the first bear at Yellowstone. I saw it just moments after he did. It was a HUGE grizzly. However, since we were in a construction zone, there was no place to pull over and no place to turn around, so there is no photographic evidence.
We keep seeing tourists stop for buffalo on the side of the road, and they even block traffic. We have seen so many buffalo that they are old hat to us. John has taken to calling them Prairie Cows. They go wherever they want to. They weigh about 2000 pounds and can run about 30 miles per hour, although we haven’t seen them run. They usually just stand in the way.
Next we went to the Mammoth Hot Springs area, where there were terraced landscapes colored by the bacteria into a rainbow of colors. This area had deteriorated a lot the last time John was here but it was good to see that some of the features were coming back. The best one - Minerva - was completely dead. The ones we saw that were back looked almost landscaped. They were beautiful.
After this we went on Blacktail drive, a six mile, one way, dirt road through the back country. We saw a riot of colorful wildflowers and whole mountainsides would be tinted yellow or blue or purple. We watched for bear, and didn’t see any. We stopped for a quick lunch and then finished the drive.
We went to Tower Fall. It was pretty cool. The water makes a horseshoe shape before it tumbles off, and the canyon leading up to the fall has a lot of basalt columns.
As we drove we got close to the top of Mt. Washburn, the tallest peak in the park. It was named for the man who led the expedition that led to the creation of the park. There was plenty of snow and melting snow waterfalls.
Then we saw another bear. There was a crowd of people by the side of the road, so we stopped. It was pretty far in the distance - another grizzly. This time we did get photographic evidence, even though you could barely see it with the naked eye. It was just hanging out in the meadow about a half mile away.
Next we did the Upper and Lower Falls tour. Yesterday we had seen the falls from Artists Point and Uncle Tom’s trail. Today we saw them from the brink of each falls, then hiked down to the bottom of Lower Falls. Wow. These two water falls are green and explode over the edge with so much force and tumble down so far that it is dizzying. It is quite an adrenaline rush to be that close to the powerful rush of water and watch it tumble over, then crash at the bottom and bounce back up almost ⅔ the height it had just fallen. We even saw the same Osprey nest that I had seen last time I was here and I remembered it. The Osprey was in the nest! We shared it with the people around us.
This area is very “Bear Aware” so no food, toiletries, even water bottles can be left out. We had to put everything away every time we were not using the items. Apparently someone had put leftover food in their fire pit and a bear had come into camp and rooted around in the pit.
Showers, dinner, and a fire. then off to bed. Tomorrow, Grand Tetons!
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