Surprise! Another early start into a day full of adventures. We were out the door before 7:30, with gas station coffee & orange juice, and back off into Yellowstone. Today, our goal was to do the upper half of the “grand tour” of the park, and boy, did we ever see a lot of things that were just wildly different from each other. For the first half of the tour (and a little less than the first half of the day) we were still in volcanic country. We looked at several more geyser spots, including the “artist paintpot” and the Porcelain Basin, where the steam vents and superheated springs (in which the water boils explosively once it comes to the surface) were making these lovely early morning steam billows–as were several of the hot rivers in the area, which we could see from the road because of the steam. Again, we saw gorgeous pool colors–but this time also the kind of opaque springs that turn the rock around them to clay and bubble slowly (like thick white paint). We finally ended our tour of “volcanic Yellowstone” at the second must-see place after Old Faithful, the Mammoth Hot Springs, which have these incredible terraces of travertine because of the kind of stuff that’s in the limestone through which the hot water runs here. Many of these springs have dried up, and then the travertine first looks chalky white and then dirty gray, and that wasn’t so great. But the active ones, across which the water still flows, look amazing, with whites and oranges and occasional yellows–and the travertine builds up very fast, up to a half-inch a day, so that we saw animal footprints that were already calcifying over with new buildup. We took a nice long walk in this area, and Mark got a few very good pictures of this alien landscape.
After Mammoth Hot Springs, we drove a little further on the loop, now heading east, and found ourselves a picnic spot by a stream for our daily picnic. This was the first time in days we needed the bug spray, but we really did need it. We then continued on to Roosevelt Arch and to the Falls right past it, which were very cool to see. But what amazed us most about going (clockwise) down the northeastern quadrant of the loop was how much the landscape changed. All of a sudden we were back in rolling alpine meadows, with gorgeous wildflowers, some like carpets of yellow on the mountain meadows, and with several fantastic views of the canyon that the Yellowstone River has carved through the park. At one spot, one could see this amazing vein of octogonal formations among the layers of rock; it looked like someone had carved an ornamental border alongside the entire canyon! The peaks are not nearly as high as the Rockies, and it was a pretty hazy day, but there were also several snow-capped peaks a little ways in the distance.
We stopped several times on the way down to Canyon Village, but getting there and looking at the Upper and Lower Falls in the Yellowstone Grand Canyon was our big ambition for the afternoon. Around 3 pm, we got to the parking lot on the South Rim Trail where one can see the upper falls and then hike further to see the lower falls and a huge portion of the Canyon, and started on our hike. The falls are massive and impressive, as is the river down in the Canyon and the sheer cliffs with their oranges, reds, and greens from intermittent vegetation. We hiked the way up from the Upper Falls lookout to Artist Point, but our plans to also go down to the bottom of the canyon on another trail were foiled by the weather. It started to grumble, and then, when we had made it almost to Artist Point, to drizzle; by the time we made it to the only shelter, the roof between the bathrooms, it was raining buckets. So we had to wait it out a while, and after waiting for about 20-30 minutes for the thunder to move away and the rain to stop, we walked back, with a very wet couple from Kentucky, who eventually declined the ride we offered them from “our” to “their” parking lot, since it was already clearing up. This is the first (and pretty minor) bad weather tussle we have had the whole trip! We then drove back up to the North Rim, and went to the brink of the upper falls, which is a very cool spot, and to another spot on the rim called Inspiration Point, where one could see the falls and the river at the bottom of the Canyon a long ways back. Our plans is to hike a bit more in the Lower Falls area tomorrow, when we come back through the area.
It was after five by now and we drove back through the “shortcut” that turns the loop into a figure 8 right through the middle of the park–and apparently missed a major animal event, a couple of bears feeding on a bison, by a few minutes. But we had seen some animals over the course of the day, the two most striking ones in these ridiculously close-to-civilization moments–a couple of elk playing lawn ornament right in the middle of Roosevelt, and a pair of bison who were using the road as a walkway for convenience, so that the people behind just had to form a parade, while we got to drive by within mere feet, which was rather nervewrecking. There was also a slowdown on the way out the west entrance, but again, we never did see why the cars in front of us slowed down. We got back to West Yellowstone by about 6:30, had a mediocre diner meal (hamburger / chicken strips with fries, meh) and wrapped up our day rather early again. I hope this journal and the photos help us remember at least a fraction of what we saw today–it was so much and the sights were so wildly different from each other!