6/25/14

I had a customer come to my window five minutes before we closed on Saturday, complaining that there was a bison laying in his campsite right where his tent was supposed to go. It was our good friend and mascot Stubby. We called the rangers, who tried to get him to move and let the customer set up his tent, but Stubby would have none of it. Stubby actually got mad and made the ranger get back into his car and leave. I think the customer was moved to a site that the rangers hold, just for such occasions. A couple of weeks ago, Stubby walked right through someone's tent. Fortunately, no one was in it at the time. The day before yesterday he spent some time in our loop lounging around in different sites looking for some good grass to eat.

Yesterday, we went for a drive to Lone Star Geyser. It's about three miles southeast of Old Faithful. You have to hike or bike 2-1/2 miles from the parking area to the geyser. It's not a strenuous hike (other than the distance if you haven't hiked much) since most of the hike is on an old road that you used to be able to drive out to the geyser. It's a fairly flat hike that follows the Firehole River. It's quite beautiful scenery as you are walking. There are logs to sit on when you get there. We will probably do it by bike next time and take our chairs.

 

The geyser erupts regularly, every three hours. It has an initial eruption of up to 15 feet that lasts a few minutes, then it's quite for 30 minutes to an hour.

 

If you are patient enough to wait, you get to see a more spectacular eruption that lasts quite a while and throws water and steam up to 60 feet high.

 

 

6/16/14

The crew had a potluck yesterday evening. Everyone seemed to have fun and it was good eatin'. A few of us sat around a campfire until it started raining at 8:30. That pretty much broke the party up.

I had a customer come to my window a couple days ago asking about our "Full" sign out on the road. Rather than the usual "I know the sign says full, but I know that sometimes there is one or two sites left" question, this guy wanted to know what the "Full" sign meant. I explained that it meant we are Full. He then asks, "Does that mean there's no room to go see the sights in the park"???? In my best customer service voice I said "No. It only means that the campground is full". It still took another few minutes to get him to understand that he could still go see the geysers and animals, but he wouldn't be able to camp in this particular campground.

Tuesday we went to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone. It's a place where they house grizzlies and wolves that have become habituated or troublesome to humans (or in some cases where cubs were orphaned), as an alternative to euthanizing them after attempting to relocate them in the wild. They currently have eight grizzlies and six wolves along with some injured raptors. It's a very informative place and they appear to take good care of the animals.

Twice each day they hide food around the outdoor roaming area and release one or more bears so that they can forage for the food and the visitors can watch and learn. While we were there, they released the largest of the bears - Sam - who weighs 1000 pounds. He and his sister were orphaned in 1996 when they were 6 months old and started foraging human food because they had not learned to hunt or catch fish. 

 

A couple hours later they released a brother and sister pair named Kobuk and Nikina who like to play with each other. Each of these bears only weighs 500 pounds.

 

On the way home, we decided to drive over to Grant Village, since we hadn't been there yet. Coming out of Grant Village we saw a doe elk with her baby crossing the road. They moved into the forest, so we didn't have time to get many good photos of them.

 

Wednesday we drove around the entire loop, with the hope of finding more elk with calves. Unfortunately none were out where we went.

It was snowing over Dunraven Pass and in most of the park. It was only sticking at the higher elevations though.

 

 We stopped to see Undine Falls between Mammoth and Tower.

 

We also passed by a buck elk in velvet in the Hayden valley.

 

Basically, it was just a relaxing weekend for us.

 

6/11/14

We seem to have acquired a campground mascot, at least for a little while.

 

We call him Stubby because at some point, he lost most of his tail and only has a short stub left. He likes the fresh grass in the campground loops and doesn't seem to bother or be bothered by any of the campers. Some of the campers seem to be oblivious to him, since we find him within 10 feet of some campers and they haven't even noticed him.

We've also had our black bear back in the campground a couple of times. One of the campers had a child that got sick and threw up on their sleeping bag. Instead of cleaning the bag or throwing it in the trash bin, they simply threw it out on the ground and left the campground. A bear came in and dragged the sleeping bag away, leaving claw marks in the campsite. All this while other campers near them, slept in their tents and RV's. Fortunately, we didn't have a disaster and have to put an innocent bear down.

On the sixth of June, Don got to be a test subject for the Roosevelt Cookout. The day before a Xanterra run food service center opens for business, they invite other Xanterra employees in for a free meal that gives the cooks and servers a chance to get used to what they will be doing when they have a packed house. The cookout is limited to 150 people, so only the "new" front desk staff of each campground and hotel that Xanterra runs were invited. So the eight of us that had never gone out he cookout before carpooled to the event. Penny, unfortunately, didn't get to go because she isn't part of the front desk staff at the campground.

On the trip from the campground to the event, we went over Dunraven Pass, which is a beautiful drive. Being one of the two drivers, I wasn't able to take any pictures except when we stopped at Tower Falls.

 

At the event, the participants ride a couple of miles in a horse drawn wagon, similar to an old Conestoga wagon used in the 1800's. but these wagons have automobile type tires and (somewhat) padded seats. They were pulled by either Belgian or Percheron horses, depending on which wagon you got to ride in. We didn't see a whole lot of wildlife during the event but we did see a coyote carrying a marmot off for dinner. There were also three bison lounging a little ways off from the dining area (picnic tables). The dinner consisted of steak, corn, beans, corn bread muffins, potato salad, coleslaw, apple crisp and milk or soft drinks. There was also a guy that played guitar and sang country songs during the dinner. The dinner wasn't bad, but I'm not convinced that it would be worth the $60 price tag, if I had to pay for it.

One of the couples that works with us went on the cookout the next day, for their 47th anniversary and got a photo of a bull moose that came out of the hills right next to the dining area.

Monday afternoon, Penny and I went to the Artist Paint Pots and walked the one mile loop. There was a bear off in the woods in the Gibbon Meadows, but there was no room for us to stop and get a photo of it, with all the other cars parked along the road. It wouldn't have been much a photo, as far away as it was.

We got a few photos of the thermal features at Artist Paint Pots though.

 

 

 

 

Tuesday Penny and I drove to Tower Falls, since Penny hadn't had a chance to see it.

Dunraven Pass still has quite a bit of snow on it, being 8300 feet high.

The crowds were smaller when we got to Tower Falls and the sun was in a better position than when I went on the cookout. We were able to see a rainbow in the mist of the falls.

 

When you drive around the back side of the falls, you can see some very interesting rock formations.

 

There were numerous traffic jams with people trying to see bears in the area between Tower Falls and the Lamar Valley. One place, a woman parked her car in the middle of the road and walked down a ways to take a picture. The park ranger had a few words for her, in an unfriendly voice. Penny was able to get a couple of photos of one of the black bears while we were driving by.

In the afternoon we went to West Yellowstone for a pizza. On the way home Penny saw another eagle sitting in a tree across the Madison River, waiting for supper to come swimming by. We stopped and took a few photos.

 

Wednesday we went to Bozeman, on a grocery run. On our way out of the park there was a 50 car traffic jam, going the other way, due to bison on the road along the Madison River.

Between Earthquake Lake and Ennis there was an Osprey in a nest near the road.

 

 On the way home, there were a bunch of people rafting the Madison River, near Big Sky.

 

Happy Father's Day

6/3/14

We didn't do much touring this week but a herd of bison with their babies came through camp yesterday and took a nap in the meadow by the rivers. I got there a little before nap time ended and got a few photos.

 

 

Earlier in the day Penny saw a hawk flying over the campground.

 

We also had an earthquake in the wee hours of the morning Tuesday. There are literally thousands of earthquakes each year in Yellowstone but 99% are so weak that no one feels them. This one was strong enough to rock the trailer for five or ten seconds. Around noon we had a thunderstorm with about an hour of rain.

We went for a drive to the Old Faithful Grill in the afternoon, since neither of us wanted to cook dinner. We didn't have our regular camera with us but we used our phone camera to get a picture of a swan sitting on the bank of the Firehole River, just upstream of Firehole Falls.

 

6/4/14

We decided to drive the side roads between the campground and Old Faithful todaythis morning. Partly to see if we could find the swan again and also to see the sights available on the back loops, since they had been closed until Memorial Day.

The Firehole Canyon drive takes you close to the Firehole River, between Madison Campground and the Firehole Falls. It's a beautiful area with interesting geological features.

 

 

 

We did find the swan, pretty close to where we saw her yesterday. Today, with the better camera, we were able to get better photos. She was also cooperative and spread her wings for us, just as we were driving by. There was no place to pull off the road, so we weren't able to stop.

 

 We also took the loop to Firehole Lake. There are a number of thermal features along the loop drive, from hot springs to geysers.

 

We just missed the eruption of Fountain Geyser. We found out from the ranger that was there that it erupts every 10 to 14 hours, so we decided to come back and wait for the next eruption this evening.

This is White Dome Geyser erupting in the background, while we were waiting for Fountain Geyser to erupt.

Fountain Geyser fills its cauldron between eruptions, then bubbles and steams for quite a while before it actually erupts.

 

 When it is ready to erupt it first puts out a 1 or 2 meter high blast.

Then it bubbles and steams for about five more minutes, until it finally erupts. The eruptions can last for a few minutes to an hour and a half.

  

 

When it's finally done erupting, its cauldron is virtually empty and it begins the cycle again.

Below is Pink Cone Geyser erupting, another geyser in the same area.