Yellowstone the Great

Just a short note this morning. Our second day in Yellowstone was incredible. I took so many picture, I wore out the battery (don't worry, I had a spare).

We got to the hotel in Cody, Wyoming (the Rodeo Capital of the World) around 7:00 p.m. I was simply too tired to process/post so many pictures and write a detailed blog to go with them.

So, I'll update this later tonight. For now, you'll have to enjoy the photos without captions in the album.

Despite our love of the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park has moved to the top of our list. Nothing can match the singular power of the Grand Canyon, but Yellowstone has such variety and sheer multitude of things to see.

We entered Yellowstone at the West Entrance near Cody. Almost immediately we began to see more buffalo along the Madison River. I got some good shots of several baby buffalo, which were a treat to see. Just after taking the pictures of the babies, we sort of had a "run-in" with a stray adult buffalo. I'd heard stories of the wildlife simply blocking the road, and that's what this one did. He halfway charged a white car about 5 feet in front of me as we pulled away from the baby buffalo. The white car sped off, leaving me at the front of the line. The buffalo trotted right down the middle of my lane for about 25 feet, and then he turned completely to face me and blocked the road. I stopped. He stopped. He lowered his head, as if he were going to charge. We looked like two gunfighters facing off. I wanted no part of him, so I pulled over to the side and let other cars pass to achieve a buffer zone. Once the cars started coming a little closer, he finally decided to head back out to the riverside pasture with the rest of his herd.

Once we reached Madison Junction, we turned north and went to Norris Junction, which contains a geyser basin. Here, we had an unintended hike. In order to see the geysers, you have to walk. We started along the shorter route to see some smaller geysers (which we did), but then we ran into a Ranger who mentioned that if we kept going we'd get to see the world's tallest geyser, Steamboat Geyser. Well, we got ourselves on a one-way track for almost 1.5 miles. We did get to see Steamboat Geyser, though. But, what the Ranger neglected to tell us was that while, yes, Steamboat Geyser is the world's tallest geyser, it only erupts every 5-40 years. Not good odds. Its last eruption was on May 23, 2005. So we continued on to the bikes, a bit disappointed.

After Norris Geyser Basin, we kept going north to Mammoth Hot Springs. This was an unusual place, probably my favorite place of the day. It has an upper and lower terraces (or levels) of hydrothermal ground (just like the geysers). Limestone is the underlying rock here instead of rhyolite, which is dominant in the park's other major hydrothermal areas. The heated water rises through the rock, it dissolves the compound in the limestone, and, at the surface this is deposited as travertine, the rock that forms Mammoth Springs. Colors abound.

Beyond Mammoth, we turned east to the Tower-Roosevelt Junction (where the Tower Falls is). Between Mammoth and Tower Falls we encountered more wildlife, including more mule deer (they seem to be the "cows" of Yellowstone - they're everywhere), and a herd of pronghorns (see album).

The Tower Falls was impressive, which is in Hanging Valley. Among all the falls we saw, it clearly attracted the most attention (judging by the cars and people). Apparently, folks really like waterfalls.

After Tower Falls, we took a newly-opened, high-elevation road south to Canyon Village. I took a number of snowscapes during this stretch of road. Once in the Canyon area, we once again saw a waterfall, the Upper Falls, which was not as impressive (my opinion, others vary) as Tower.

From the Canyon area, we went southwest over the Fishing Bridge and then 54 miles to Cody. This piece of highway, although not in the National Park, was as impressive as they come. A huge descent through rocks and cliffs gives way to valley riding with lots of long and easy twists that you can take at higher speed (the limit is 65). We stayed around 60, though, as many deer and bighorn sheep live through here. One of the best moments of the day came when we stopped along a deserted piece of highway and watched a herd of bighorns simply graze and drift along the valley grasslands. I tried to get a few photos, but they aren't among my best.

All in all, our second day in Yellowstone was our best day of the trip. We were sad to leave.

183.3 miles. 5,036.6miles total