Day 4: Yellowstone Day 2

Today we went to the Moon Mars and back. Or at least that’s what it felt like…the sheer volume of geothermal features at this park are staggering. To put it in perspective – over half of all the world’s geysers are contained within Yellowstone. Another staggering fact: if you drove all roads in park (which most people don’t do), you would still only see less than 3% of the park. And perhaps the saddest statistic I’ve heard in a while (and also a PSA to get out hike or even go for a little nature walk): Locals tell us that 99% percent of visitors to Yellowstone don’t travel more than 300 feet from their vehicles when approaching points of interest.

Anyway, the sheer size and diversity of the park is mind blowing. I’m glad we have three days in the park, but wish we had more like 3 weeks. If you could only visit one national park in this country, let this one be it – you would surely not be disappointed.
We started our day with a filling home-cooked B&B breakfast. We the consulted our map and decided to head down to Norris area to check out the geothermal features we ran out of time to do yesterday. It’s weird how one feature ran into the other in our minds, although looking back at the pictures, each one is truly unique.

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We then made our way over Dunraven Pass en route to the Lamar Valley (aka the American Serengeti – the wildlife hot spot of the park). At over 8,000 feet in elevation, the pass was truly stunning and we caught glimpses of the snow-capped Araboska Mountains in the distance. The traffic diminished greatly in this northeast corner of the park. Instead of seeing solitary buffalo, we saw entire herds. We also saw pronghorns and possibly some mountain goats on the high cliffs of Baronette Peak. Driving along we saw a crowd gathered by the side of the road – apparently the ranger had spotted a dead buffalo and photographers we anxiously awaiting the arrival of a bear or pack of wolves to consume the remains. Unfortunately we didn’t catch any bear or wolf action, but they are a bit harder to spot.

On our way back to Mammoth Springs, we stopped at a petrified tree that is estimated to be 50 million years old! Back in Mammoth, we encountered male elk bugling to their harem of seemingly disinterested females. These elk apparently run the town, as they have park rangers informing gawkers that they needed to get back in their cars and sit tight because Mr. Buck wants to stand in the road. It was somewhat comical, but also serious; they are in rut at the moment and can be very dangerous.

Mammoth Springs did not disappoint. The limestone terraces were truly a sight to behold and the extensive boardwalk structure to allow viewing was really impressive. We returned back to our B&B in Gardiner, MT utterly exhausted. Although we hadn’t planned on hiking, we probably ended up doing 5-6 miles of nature walks to points of interest during the course of the day (and thus, we are not a sad statistic).

Tomorrow we hope to summit Mt. Washburn and check out the Canyon area, and will exit the park at east gate (we’ve hit 4 of the 5 total park gates) to spend the night in Cody, WY.

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