Yellystone Day One

I was so proud of us this morning! We are totally the type of people who hate getting up early, and we love to sleep in. But we had our earliest morning yet, waking up at 6am and getting out the door by 6:45am. Then, we were officially in the Yellowstone National Park just 5 minutes later, since Flagg Ranch was only 2 miles from the entrance. We even beat the gate attendant when we got to the park, so we just drove on through after grabbing a map.

The first destination of the morning was the West Thumb Geyser Basin. We stopped for a few pictures on the way there, but did not catch any wildlife. The West Thumb Geyser basin has about a half-mile, boardwalk trail along Yellowstone Lake. There are several thermal features both along and actually in the lake itself. It was a bit difficult to take pictures because it was still only about 40 degrees outside, so there was a lot of steam coming off of the springs and pools. When we got to about the last quarter of the loop, we noticed our first animal for the morning – a very large, male elk. He was just meandering through the thermal features to get his breakfast, I guess.

When we were done with this area, we headed another 20 miles north to the Natural Bridge Trail. It wasn’t too long at 3 miles round trip, and the feature was a natural bridge created by rocks. It was sort of reminiscent of a rock feature you would see in Arches National Park, for example. Anyway, before any of that, about a ¼ mile into the trail, we ran into a couple from Indiana who had stopped. The reason was that there were several mule deer (basically deer that have antlers) grazing in the area. So, we spent about the next 20 minutes playing cat and mouse with them as we tried to slowly and quietly work our way along the trail. In all, we saw about 8 of them, and were able to get close enough to obtain some fantastic pictures. Shortly before and after the Natural Bridge, we ran into a couple of marmots. They sort of remind me of ferrets, but bigger and not nearly as lean. So, they are pretty cute if you like that sort of thing. They were also quite curious, so we were also able to get some close up shots of the little buggers.

We finally finished the trail around 10:30, had a quick breakfast by sharing a pop tart, and headed northward again towards Mud Volcano. We didn’t quite make it up there immediately though because in the open meadows along the Yellowstone River was a massive herd of grazing bison. We observed them and took pictures for a good 15 minutes, along with everyone else in the park, mind you. It was quite a sight though. Some bison were rolling around taking dust baths, some were making big to-do’s about demonstrating their dominance, and the rest of the bunch were grunting away like belching cattle. So, after that little jaunt, we made it to Mud Volcano. Mud Volcano is an area of more thermal activity that features mud pots and fumaroles. This area was definitely a lot smellier than the West Thumb area from earlier in the day. But, it all comes with the territory! A couple of the coolest mud pots included Churning Caldron and Dragon’s Mouth Spring. Churning Caldron was like a giant pot of boiling mud. Occasionally, it would splash up to 5 or 6 feet as it bubbled. Dragon’s Mouth was a hot muddy spring that generated its energy from the inside of a small cave in the side of a hill. The steam coming out of the cave and the low rumbling sounds it made as the hot gases and water are forced out led to its name many years ago.

By the time we finished in this area, we decided to find a good lunch spot and to begin heading towards the east side of the park. Once again, however, those plans were thwarted by the pesky bison. It was nearing noon, so the park was that much more crowded than before. We were stopped for about another 15 minutes on the way back south to the East Entrance Road. This time, the bison appeared to be acting as crossing guards as others milled across the road supposedly for better pastures. They couldn’t have paid less attention to the car jam they were creating on either side of the road. And so it goes…

About 30 minutes later, we found our lunch spot along the northeastern shore of Yellowstone Lake. We maybe only sat out there on the picnic table for about 10 minutes though because Justin was getting annoyed with the bugs. So, we finished our meal in car and then decided to try another trail. I wasn’t feeling too well because I seem to have come down with a cold as of yesterday, but I told Justin we could give another trail a shot. The one we decided on was called Avalanche Peak. Well, let’s just say that we finally faced our first Park vs. Peter defeat. This particular trail was 4 miles long round trip, with a 2,000 foot elevation gain. It was a category 4 out of 5 hike and was considered strenuous. You can call it being overambitious or you can just call it stupid. But, we made it about ½ a mile and were just too tired to continue on. We were also a little concerned because there were signs everywhere suggesting bear activity. Since there were only two of us, we were a little leery. So, we turned around and headed back to the car.

We made one more stop to Lake Butte before heading to our cabin for the night at Absaroka Mountain Lodge. From this 8,000 foot viewing spot, we could see the Tetons to the south, all of Yellowstone Lake, several other named mountains in the park and smoke from the current Lehardy Rapids fire burning in the backcountry of Yellowstone. On our way out the east side of the park, I thought I noticed more smoke in the distance (and in the direction we were traveling). As we got closer, we began to see road signs and other emergency vehicles making that fact more obvious. We stopped at a spot about six miles outside of the park to take a picture, and as we were doing so, a helicopter carrying a large bucket of water flew into the burn area. And about six miles later, we arrived at our cabin. There was not any indication of the fire at teh lodge, but we found out that a few weeks ago they did have to evacuate for 3 days and that some of the property above their horse corral was destroyed.

When we checked into Absaroka, the first thing we decided to do was take a well-deserved nap. That’s the only disadvantage to an early start – you are tired by 3’o’clock. We didn’t even bother bringing any luggage in. Around 5:30pm, we got up and decided to walk around the property a little bit. We walked up to the horse corral just as all of the horses were having their dinner. We spent some time hand-feeding some of them, and it seemed like several of them much preferred it that way. They didn’t have to bend down quite as far! Once we got back to the room, we got ready for dinner.

Dinner was just a short 30 foot walk to the main lodge…how convenient. I had trout with just a light lemon garlic seasoning and fries while Justin had a rib-eye and fries. We also both had a cup of creamy potato soup with bacon. We got done with dinner around 8:15 and decided to take another walk down to the main highway to see if we could see the wildfire. As dusk approached, we could begin to see the smoke settling into some of the valleys around the cabins. As we were walking, we also saw the Absaroka house pets – a dog and a couple of cats. I was able to get another kitty fix to help with my withdrawal from our baby. We couldn’t see anything from the road, so we decided go ahead and go for a drive instead. After about 4 miles traveling back in the direction of the park, we rounded a corner and there it was: an entire hillside of a mountain on fire. It was definitely a first for the both of us, and it’s unfortunate but awe-inspiring at the same time. Justin was able to get some pictures that hopefully represent the scale of what we saw.

We finally got back to the cabin at 10. Before heading inside, we spent a few minutes looking at the stars. We are not going to see a night sky like this for the rest of the trip since this is the most remote of the places we are staying. The stars are incredible out here. I can’t even estimate how many stars I saw as I scanned across the sky…there were tens of thousands that just blanketed the sky. We were probably even seeing a bit of a distorted view with the smoke nearby.

It’s after 11pm, and it should be another early morning tomorrow with the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone being the first thing on the docket. Off to bed and good night.