7/31/14

Monday afternoon, I called Walmart to get an idea of when my glasses would come in, as I was getting tired of wearing sunglasses full time. Fortunately, they had come in that day, allowing me to go to Bozeman and pick them up on Tuesday. Penny was working in place of one of her coworkers who had gone back to Georgia for a week, to visit her ailing mother, so we weren't going to miss a hike just so I could get my glasses. While I was in Bozeman I got the oil changed in the truck.

Wednesday we decided to go on a hike to Monument Geyser Basin. It is a relatively short hike (about 3 miles) but feels like twice that far because it is up the side of a mountain. The trial climbs over 600 feet in about a half mile.

We left home a little after 8 a.m., trying to avoid traffic and the hordes of visitors that pack every corner of the park at this time of year. There was quite a bit of cloud cover and a lot of moisture in the air. This is a photo of the Gibbon River, looking south, from the bridge where the trail starts, at 9 in the morning.

Penny found an interesting fungi growing on a chunk of dead wood.

 

This is a view looking north along the Gibbon River, from the trailhead. The steam near the road is from a hot spring under the water at the river's edge.

 

The water is very clear and you can see the interesting bottom features clearly.

 

While climbing up the trail, Penny saw a tree squirrel in a burned out tree. We're not sure what it thought it was going to find in such a barren tree.

Similar to the hike to Fairy Falls, we noted a lot of interesting burn patterns in the trees still standing since the 1988 fire.

 

Once you get to the top of the mountain you have a commanding view of some interesting rock formations and the Gibbon River Valley to the south.

 

Fortunately, there were places to sit after our arduous climb.

Walking to the west on the summit you get to see the geyser basin. It has some unique geyser formations not seen elsewhere in the park.

By the time we left a couple of hours after we started, the fog had burned off and we could see more of the mountains in the distance and how much the Gibbon River meanders through the Gibbon Meadows.

With the skies clear and the fog gone, the view to the bottom of the river was even better.

 

We decided to drive the lower loop to get home since it was only a little after noon when we finished the hike. Most of the view points were crammed with visitors, so we didn't stop anywhere until we got to the LaHardy Rapids, in the Hayden Valley. There, at least, there weren't too many people. The rapids is where the Harlequin ducks come to mate in the spring. Though there are no ducks there at this time, the Yellowstone River is still beautiful.

Right below one of the view points, on the boardwalk along the river, is a quiet little pool of water where we found a couple of large and a bunch of small cutthroat trout lounging around.

 

Got home around five that evening and relaxed our legs after the strenuous hike. Then we took a bike ride around the campground, just so we wouldn't stiffen up.