Day 6 - Saturday, Sept 8 - Wapiti, WY, Yellowstone, Gardiner, MT
Starting mileage: 2308 Starting time: 8:00 am
Ending mileage: 2472 Ending time: 6:00 pm
Travel mileage: 164 Travel time: 10:00 hours
The day started out pretty miserably at 55 degrees and raining steadily even though the forecast was only 20% chance of rain. Fortunately, it slowed down by the time we got to the east entrance of Yellowstone an hour later and stopped in another half hour. The rest of the day was beautiful, mostly sunny and temperatures in the 70s - so sunny that I ended up sunburned.😞 Today was mostly sightseeing with lots of stops, much better than long days of high-speed driving.
We bought an app for my phone that as we drove, provides commentary on what we are seeing and what we should see - sometimes things that we wouldn't have thought to check out otherwise.
One of the things that is striking on entering the park is the widespread fire damage which occurs every year to varying extents. In 1988, 1/3 of the park was consumed which led to soul-searching about fire prevention and fire fighting, resulting in an understanding that fire is a natural occurrence and necessary for certain kinds of forest regrowth.
Yellowstone is in an ancient (640,000 years ago) caldera resulting from a super eruption. The Sylvan Pass at the eastern rim is at 8530' and the temperature dropped to the 40s. Inside is the huge Yellowstone Lake at an elevation of 7732', the highest large lake in the US.
Our first stop was the West Thumb Geyser Basin which is right on the western end of Yellowstone lake. This consists mostly of steaming hot springs, many of which are a beautiful deep blue color. Right next to the water there is a hot spring where in the past, fishermen would take fish just caught and still on the hook and drop it into the spring to cook it! (Fishing is no longer allowed). In the winter, underwater hot springs keep the ice from freezing which would otherwise be several feet thick. These openings are enjoyed by otters and other creatures.
From there, we went to the geyser basin at Old Faithful where we watched Old Faithful erupt twice - very impressive! I took videos but need to figure out how to post them.The park service posts the estimated eruption times and they were close both times. Thousands of people occupy benches to watch the eruption. There are many other geysers in this area although most of them erupt very sporadically and unpredictably.There are miles of trails that take you along geysers, hot springs and fumeroles. It is a bit disconcerting to think what is going on underneath our feet, that boiling water and super-heated steam can come up all over. I had visited here with my grandparents over 50 years ago and we were here with our girls about 15 years ago.
Carmen saw a bald eagle in the morning. Driving along the lake, we saw a group of white birds that we assumed were swans but when we got closer, realized that they were pelicans, very unexpected. Later we saw a herd of bison but they were too far away to get a good photo. As we were driving, traffic was stopped for about 15 minutes that was caused by a bison in the middle of the road that didn't want to move! Just as we were leaving the park at Mammoth Springs, traffic was stopped as people stopped to take photos of dozens of elk were grazing and lying on the grass outside the visitor center.
We are staying at a Comfort Inn in Gardiner, MT which has a rustic western architectural design inside and is decorated with stuffed animals and heads that the owner shot in Montana, Alaska and New Zealand, including an 11' brown bear.
Gardiner was the main entrance to Yellowstone going back to the late 1800s when the Union Pacific railroad extended the train line here. During the winter this is the only open entrance to Yellowstone.
Ending mileage: 2472 Ending time: 6:00 pm
Travel mileage: 164 Travel time: 10:00 hours
The day started out pretty miserably at 55 degrees and raining steadily even though the forecast was only 20% chance of rain. Fortunately, it slowed down by the time we got to the east entrance of Yellowstone an hour later and stopped in another half hour. The rest of the day was beautiful, mostly sunny and temperatures in the 70s - so sunny that I ended up sunburned.😞 Today was mostly sightseeing with lots of stops, much better than long days of high-speed driving.
We bought an app for my phone that as we drove, provides commentary on what we are seeing and what we should see - sometimes things that we wouldn't have thought to check out otherwise.
One of the things that is striking on entering the park is the widespread fire damage which occurs every year to varying extents. In 1988, 1/3 of the park was consumed which led to soul-searching about fire prevention and fire fighting, resulting in an understanding that fire is a natural occurrence and necessary for certain kinds of forest regrowth.
Yellowstone is in an ancient (640,000 years ago) caldera resulting from a super eruption. The Sylvan Pass at the eastern rim is at 8530' and the temperature dropped to the 40s. Inside is the huge Yellowstone Lake at an elevation of 7732', the highest large lake in the US.
Our first stop was the West Thumb Geyser Basin which is right on the western end of Yellowstone lake. This consists mostly of steaming hot springs, many of which are a beautiful deep blue color. Right next to the water there is a hot spring where in the past, fishermen would take fish just caught and still on the hook and drop it into the spring to cook it! (Fishing is no longer allowed). In the winter, underwater hot springs keep the ice from freezing which would otherwise be several feet thick. These openings are enjoyed by otters and other creatures.
From there, we went to the geyser basin at Old Faithful where we watched Old Faithful erupt twice - very impressive! I took videos but need to figure out how to post them.The park service posts the estimated eruption times and they were close both times. Thousands of people occupy benches to watch the eruption. There are many other geysers in this area although most of them erupt very sporadically and unpredictably.There are miles of trails that take you along geysers, hot springs and fumeroles. It is a bit disconcerting to think what is going on underneath our feet, that boiling water and super-heated steam can come up all over. I had visited here with my grandparents over 50 years ago and we were here with our girls about 15 years ago.
Carmen saw a bald eagle in the morning. Driving along the lake, we saw a group of white birds that we assumed were swans but when we got closer, realized that they were pelicans, very unexpected. Later we saw a herd of bison but they were too far away to get a good photo. As we were driving, traffic was stopped for about 15 minutes that was caused by a bison in the middle of the road that didn't want to move! Just as we were leaving the park at Mammoth Springs, traffic was stopped as people stopped to take photos of dozens of elk were grazing and lying on the grass outside the visitor center.
We are staying at a Comfort Inn in Gardiner, MT which has a rustic western architectural design inside and is decorated with stuffed animals and heads that the owner shot in Montana, Alaska and New Zealand, including an 11' brown bear.
Gardiner was the main entrance to Yellowstone going back to the late 1800s when the Union Pacific railroad extended the train line here. During the winter this is the only open entrance to Yellowstone.
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| Day 6 map |
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| Fire damage along Yellowstone Lake |
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| Hot spring at West Thumb Geyser Basin |
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| Old Faithful |
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| Pelicans |
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