What more is there to say other than……. Yellowstone

Days 40 and 41

          We’ve had a few close calls in our travels.

          The one that I am about to relate to you could have had catastrophic consequences.

          Given the slightest provocation, an upheaval of cataclysmic proportions that was lying just below us and it  would have brought our quest to drive around the country to an untimely and abrupt halt.

          Volcano!

          Unlike the previous day’s cheap attempt to lure you into reading one of these posts by alluding to fierce Anacondas, this one is actually true.

          Well, maybe just a little stretched.

          Let’s say by about 500,000 years or so.

          The last eruption of the Yellowstone Super-Volcano was about 650,000 years ago and if memory serves me, we have another bunch of eons before it erupts again. But it’ll be a big one! The last eruption covered most of the US in ash and other remains of a Big Blast, so we’re only spending a few days here, just in case!

          We’ve decided to plan just a few days ahead of ourselves because the weather has been a tad unpredictable. We left Anaconda and headed south to Yellowstone National Park where Winter has doubled her grip on the area. Ten degrees Fahrenheit (overnight) is just a bit too low for our somewhat delicate on-board systems to tolerate for any length of time, so our track is definitely in the southern direction.

          The road between Anaconda and the town of West Yellowstone (both in Montana) runs mostly through a valley, so the hills and curves of mountain driving were mostly absent from this leg. What a relief!

          But…..

          This is where Mother Nature disguised herself as the ol’ Widow Winter and provided us with some Whiteout conditions as we were driving along a large (and reputedly) beautiful lake, but we couldn’t see it! Luckily, the snow did not stick to the road, they thankfully remained just wet, so we did not have slipperiness to contend with.

          While the snow did not stick to the roads, it did stick to almost everything else, including the Bison crossing the road. This camouflage trick almost worked had it not been for an oncoming motorist who flashed his lights in warning. Peering into the distance we could see that there were indeed big critters on the road. See example!

          We also came across some Bighorn Sheep which, even down in Colorado, is not an everyday occurrence.

But hey! This is Montana (and Wyoming) where the Mountains are large, and the National Parks are even larger! At over 3400 square miles, Yellowstone is our largest National Park behind the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska. Wrangell-St. Elias  is enormous at over 20,000 square miles!

          But no one goes there!

          Everybody goes to Yellowstone! At least in the summer, and for good reason. Yellowstone is another one of those other-worldly places here on Earth. It boasts the largest collection of geologic/thermal sites (and sights) on our still geologically active planet.

          The Volcano that I mentioned in the beginning sits down underneath this area and still provides pools of magma to heat the water that eventually finds its way to the surface in the form of geysers and multi-colored hot springs that are absolutely everywhere in the Park. Yellowstone Lake at twenty miles long and ten miles wide is the remnant of the caldera of this super-volcano so that should give you an idea of how large this beast really is!

          But while the activity below is frantic, the life on the surface is quite tranquil. Especially in winter when all is snow covered and the steam from the thermal activity is that much more pronounced. It was like looking at far away villages with everyone inside sitting by their fireplaces, smoke curling out of their chimneys.

          I believe that I have found a new favorite River.

          Mind you, I’m not sure that I had a favorite before this, but I am quite sure that I have one now.

          The Madison River guided us all the way from Anaconda down to West Yellowstone. It was her valley that we traversed while driving. I liked it then, but when I found out that the Madison is one of the major rivers that define the topography of Yellowstone… Well, that just solidified it. Everywhere it ran gave an opportunity to view one beautiful scene after another.

          We decided after getting into West Yellowstone at a decent time, that we would just go and get a map of the Park and speak to someone in anticipation of a next day visit. Upon our arrival and subsequent conversation with a Ranger, we decided to give Old Faithful a try. It is about an hour’s drive from the Entrance. Even though the weather was snowy and cloudy we figured we didn’t have anything to lose, so on we drove. It did make for some interesting sights, or non-sights, as the visibility was not that good.

          Who needs visibility anyway!

          It was an Adventure of Volcanic Proportions so who are we to judge? On we went, did some reconnoitering for a return trip the next day and had a frozen good time. At twenty-six degrees and with a wind speed of fifteen miles an hour, it made for some very cold forays into the features of the Park. Note Photo!

          All of this just primed us for the return visit the next day when the Weather promised to be nicer to us. It had snowed all night so that in the morning we had a gorgeous blanket of pristine mountain snow covering everything, and a Bluebird Sky to back it up.

          We repeated our trip from the day before and now that we were seasoned veterans, we were able to bypass all of the Bison that roam freely and stop traffic frequently. Well, we almost bypassed them all.     Who can resist  a photo of Bison traveling across a vast river plain starkly contrasted against the new snow?

          I can’t!

          Our return to Old Faithful was another highlight as the steam and skyrocketing hot water of the geyser were not lost against a cloudy, snowy sky. This time we had a beautiful background to witness a spectacle that has repeated itself with regularity for thousands of years. All of the thermal features of this enormous waterpark are fed by water dripping down into the ground. This groundwater is then heated by the volcanic activity and then reverses itself, finds other vertical passages and comes back to us via geysers and hot springs.        

  There was a time, about eight hundred years ago, that Old Faithful turned into Old Unreliable because a drought encompassed this region and all the groundwater that is needed to fuel the eruptions was not to be had. Ouch! It’s a good thing that we hadn’t built the Old Faithful Inn back then because we would have had scores of Unhappy Tourists!

We next plan to visit the northern part of the Park. Mammoth Hot Springs and everything in between is our destination. Mammoth lies about fifty miles from where we are so this will be an all-day excursion. Reports to follow!