Yellowstone day 3

We walked to the cafeteria for a casual, inexpensive breakfast at the Lodge, then walked back to our cabin along the lake. It was a gorgeous walk, on rocks and black sand beaches. The lake is huge and you can see little ‘thumbs’ and trees flocking the lake on the other side. I decided to take a brisk walk to get some exercise as we spent so much time in the car and traveling the last two days. It felt so good! And it was so wonderful hearing the sound of the water washing up on the shore. That sound is absolutely my ‘happy place’ and I miss living near an ocean to hear it.

We headed out to Fishing Bridge, another point along Yellowstone Lake. This lake is absolutely enormous! We stopped in the visitor’s center and spoke for a while with park ranger Tom Vanzant. He was really friendly and so helpful! I asked if I could take his picture for my blog, and he generously agreed. I told him that he’ll now be famous.. that I have a travel blog and people will read about him. He laughed and said…

Quote #1 of the day: ‘I’d rather be rich than famous!’

So, I let him know that I’ll recommend that anyone who reads this and makes their way up to Yellowstone, please stop at Fishing Bridge’s visitor’s center, and find Tom Vanzant. When you do, offer him money!!!

We headed out and went to the mud pits. Before we parked we could see steam floating up from the ground, and could smell the rotten eggs of sulfur. Some of the pits were just venting shafts in the ground, and other are boiling witches’ caldrons. We walked along a boardwalk path between all of the mud pits. They range from being really small slightly percolating pools, and some are larger and the size of a backyard pool or larger. They had some interesting names like Dragon’s Breath and Black Dragon, among others. One was gorgeous shades of blue running in a narrow stream beneath the boardwalk. The land seems so barren with all of the pine trees either dead or absent from the area around the pits.

As we were finishing the walk, we saw a ranger talking with a  young boy who was filled with questions. The ranger told him that bison frequent the area, and they generally know where to walk to avoid the pits. While some are a reasonable temperature, many get to 180 degrees. Apparently some of the bison have burns on their bodies and faces from getting too close. He also shared that the gasses are from volcanic activity below, in the magma.

The views in the park change from sloping hills to tall yellow and gold grasses similar to what you see in the Serengeti, to pine-topped mountains with waterfalls and lakes. We drove to Canyon Village which was incredible crowded, especially for this time of year which is just off-season.

We decided to continue driving and went on the North Rim road, the north rim of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Each stop was more incredible than the next. We started on the upper basin waterfall and hiked down to enjoy the views, then we drove on and hiked out to the upper basin waterfall. We decided to eat a picnic lunch enjoying the view there and met several really great people. We continued down the road and took in the incredible views. The two amazing waterfalls, but also the beautifully-colored rocks, in hues of hold, orange and rust, and reds. Inspiration Point and Artist Walk were two of my favorites.

When we were at the lower basin falls it started to rain, and we quickly realized ‘that’s not rain!!’ It actually started sleeting pretty heavily, in the middle of September. We decided to drive on and thankfully the sleet turned to rain and cleared up. We’re hoping this will help contain some of the fires burning in the park (there are apparently three right now) as well as those south of Grand Teton. There were signs indicating smoke ahead at several points as we drove, so we knew the fires were near, especially around the Norris area.

Norris has the Norris Geyser basin, and we went there next. Wow. You walk through the visitor’s center and there are two trails. The first is a walk on a boardwalk through a barren wasteland with no trees, and only pools of bubbling cauldrons of steaming plumes that fill the air. There are several streams with green (from algae), orange and red (from rust) and bright blue (silica) as well as yellow and gold (sulfur.) The land here is barren of trees and quite eerie, but beautiful in its way. One hike is around ½ a mile, and the other is around a mile and a half. We did both and were glad we did!

The second walk started off similarly to the first however, the cauldrons are in areas with some trees. You could see where the living was starting to make way to the pits.  Then we started walking up the boardwalks and it felt almost like we were in a treehouse. The last three that we saw were the most impressive.  The first was a gorgeous bright turquoise blue. The second, Steamboat Geyser, is the largest geyser in the world and has reached heights of over 400 feet! It’s very not consistent, and while it does blow 10-40 feet, the last time it blew over 300 feet was in 1995. The last was Emerald geyser, and it is a gorgeous emerald green pool. It has a heavy concentration of sulfur, and with the blue water, it turns the pool an impressive green color.

We went through the bookstore and marveled at some of the pictures of the other geysers in the park, and the scenes in the winter. We headed back and ate in the cafeteria instead of the restaurant. We only were able to get reservations at 5 and didn’t want to rush back and were back after 6:30. The meal was much less than in the restaurant, and almost as good. The rain hit here as we were eating, and we made our way back to the cabin to have a couple of drinks. It’s been a long and busy day with a lot of walking. It felt great but we’re all pooped! And very ready for bed. What an amazing day this was!!

Tomorrow will be a slower day, kicking around different vantage points around Yellowstone Lake. We’ll head down the Grand Teton the day after and that’s a good bit of driving. This park is so amazingly beautiful, and the diversity of the landscape is really amazing. Within five minutes we saw herds of buffalo and antelope, and we’ve now seen two coyotes which blend in well. Tomorrow will be a new adventure!!