Day 8 - Monday, Sept 10 - Gardiner, MT, Yellowstone, Idaho Falls, ID
Starting mileage: 2658 Starting time: 8:00 am
Ending mileage: 2830 Ending time: 4:00 pm
Travel mileage: 172 Travel time: 8:00 hours
The temperature was only in the high 40s when we arrived at Mammoth Springs but it still seemed comfortable taking the boardwalk around the springs in only a tee-shirt and shorts. My metabolism is usually pretty high in the morning.
The springs are very impressive, having built up a mountain of travertine (calcium deposits) over a hundred feet high. The water comes down in different areas over time and ends up embalming trees which had been growing downstream. Some of the standing dead trunks should be over 100 years old. It is interesting being downwind of the hotsprings and being bathed in hot sulfury steam.
There were numerous elk grazing on the lawns around the Mammoth Springs visitor center, although not the dozens that were there when we passed through last evening. It is certainly a strange sight. They are completely oblivious to all the people getting out to take photos or walking by them.
We wonder if there is ever a slow time at Yellowstone. It certainly isn't now. As we went by hotels and motels in both Gardiner, MT and West Yellowstone, MT, most of them had "No Vacancy" signs. By 10am, parking at popular sites is a nightmare with lines of cars backed up waiting for a parking space. Yesterday Carmen dropped me off and drove around the parking lot until someone backed out and left a space she could park in. Road rage is a real possibility with people competing for parking spaces.
We stopped at the Norris Geyser Basin which has one of the oldest park museums, an historic stone building at the entrance to the different routes around the geysers. Norris is famous for having the hottest water and steam in the park. There are a number of fumeroles that have super-heated steam shooting out and it makes quite an impressive sound, some a roar like a train, others like a steam whistle.
From there we visited the Artist Paintpots - mudpots of different colors. It is quite amusing to watch the thick mud shooting up in globs and plopping down, especially later in the season when the surface water is reduced and the mud is very thick. I captured this in a video but couldn't get it in a photo.
After that we headed out the western entrance to the Park and through the city of West Yellowstone.
Coming down off the rim of the million year old caldera west of Yellowstone, the terrain is again similar to Wyoming, rolling grass and sagebrush hills with flat plains that are irrigated for corn, wheat, hay and now potatoes. We passed through Ashton, ID which claims to be the "Seed Potato Capitol of the World"!
We decided to call it an early day and stopped in Idaho Falls at 4pm.
We both needed new shoes and went to a large mall in the city which is still anchored by Macy's, Penny's and Sears - makes the HV Mall look pretty sad.
Ending mileage: 2830 Ending time: 4:00 pm
Travel mileage: 172 Travel time: 8:00 hours
The temperature was only in the high 40s when we arrived at Mammoth Springs but it still seemed comfortable taking the boardwalk around the springs in only a tee-shirt and shorts. My metabolism is usually pretty high in the morning.
The springs are very impressive, having built up a mountain of travertine (calcium deposits) over a hundred feet high. The water comes down in different areas over time and ends up embalming trees which had been growing downstream. Some of the standing dead trunks should be over 100 years old. It is interesting being downwind of the hotsprings and being bathed in hot sulfury steam.
There were numerous elk grazing on the lawns around the Mammoth Springs visitor center, although not the dozens that were there when we passed through last evening. It is certainly a strange sight. They are completely oblivious to all the people getting out to take photos or walking by them.
We wonder if there is ever a slow time at Yellowstone. It certainly isn't now. As we went by hotels and motels in both Gardiner, MT and West Yellowstone, MT, most of them had "No Vacancy" signs. By 10am, parking at popular sites is a nightmare with lines of cars backed up waiting for a parking space. Yesterday Carmen dropped me off and drove around the parking lot until someone backed out and left a space she could park in. Road rage is a real possibility with people competing for parking spaces.
We stopped at the Norris Geyser Basin which has one of the oldest park museums, an historic stone building at the entrance to the different routes around the geysers. Norris is famous for having the hottest water and steam in the park. There are a number of fumeroles that have super-heated steam shooting out and it makes quite an impressive sound, some a roar like a train, others like a steam whistle.
From there we visited the Artist Paintpots - mudpots of different colors. It is quite amusing to watch the thick mud shooting up in globs and plopping down, especially later in the season when the surface water is reduced and the mud is very thick. I captured this in a video but couldn't get it in a photo.
After that we headed out the western entrance to the Park and through the city of West Yellowstone.
Coming down off the rim of the million year old caldera west of Yellowstone, the terrain is again similar to Wyoming, rolling grass and sagebrush hills with flat plains that are irrigated for corn, wheat, hay and now potatoes. We passed through Ashton, ID which claims to be the "Seed Potato Capitol of the World"!
We decided to call it an early day and stopped in Idaho Falls at 4pm.
We both needed new shoes and went to a large mall in the city which is still anchored by Macy's, Penny's and Sears - makes the HV Mall look pretty sad.
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| Day 8 map |
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| Elk at Mammoth Springs |
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| "Embalmed" trees at Mammoth Springs |
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| High travertine shelves at Mammoth Springs - color is from heat-loving bacteria |
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| Hot spring with shallow shelves |
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| Steaming fumeroles at Norris Basin |
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