Day 06 - Yellowstone Day 2

Today we are in Yellowstone National Park for the full day.  If you look at a map, you’ll see the major road in Yellowstone looks like a figure eight (8).  We’ll begin heading north out of Canyon Village and head towards Mammoth by way of Dunraven Pass, at an elevation of 8859 feet.  We cannot believe the amount of snow in Yellowstone on June 5^th.  Here the snow is at least 1-2 feet in depth.

               

We arrive at the Mammoth Hot Spring terraces and take a quick tour of part of the terraces.  Most of the terraces no longer have water and are drying up.  Where water is flowing, the colors still remain on the terrace.

The water cascades down the side leaving mineral deposits until the water pools in little bowl like basins creating little mini-waterfalls.  When many of these exist, they create a terrace.  The result is quite something to see.

While in Mammoth Hot Springs, Elk are in the area.  They decide to eat the grass and just lie down in the shade.  The Park Rangers are here and have put traffic cones around to keep people from getting close.  Carmen was able to get this picture of two elk in the shade relaxing.

Leaving Mammoth Hot Springs, we head south towards Old Faithful and pass by falls on the side of the road. 

We again spy elk along the way.

We pass fumaroles (steam vents) by the road. 

Shortly afterwards, we see more bison.  We have seen a number of bison calves playing and lying around.  This time there is a little one with its mother. 

Before long, we stop at Gibbon Falls.  These falls are 84 feet and cascade down over

After the short stop to see the falls, we continued on our way to the Geyser Basin.  As we pull into the parking lot there is a herd of bison that is trekking through the beginning of the springs.  We were able to get a picture of them walking by one of the hot springs.

Behind them, the remaining bison in the herd were walking in line following the lead bison.  Wow!  You couldn't plan this any better than this.  Most people wanting to see this would have to be in the Park for days following the bison herd and hope they do something like this.  The sight was simply fantastic!

After watching the bison until it was safe for us to pass, we followed the walkway around the basin to view more springs and mud pots.  At least some of these mud pots were wet and bubbling.

Later we arrived at the Old Faithful Inn for lunch and were able to view the geyser Old Faithful.  We later found out that the geyser erupted to a height of 145 feet.

As we continued to the lodge we are staying at, we saw a White Wolf but we missed the picture.   But, we did see more bison with a little calf or two.  As Carmen says, “they’re so cute”.

We leave Yellowstone tomorrow, but between the Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks we have seen eagles, hawks, ducks, geese, birds of all sort, grey fox, coyote (no picture), a white wolf (no picture), moose, deer, elk and bison.  Wow!  The only thing we haven’t seen is a bear.

Later, Bob and Carmen.