9/25/14

Tuesday we walked the boardwalk around Black Sand Basin near Old Faithful. On the way, Penny spotted an osprey along the Firehole River.

 

After Black Sand Basin we took a  drive to the Lamar Valley and Mammoth, hoping to see the elk in rut. Unfortunately, we didn't see a single elk all day. We did come across a herd of female Mountain Goats and their kids just north of Tower Falls though.

 We also saw hundreds of bison in the Lamar Valley.

 

 The best part of the trip was all the fall colors showing themselves on the deciduous trees.

 

Wednesday we decided to try hiking Purple Mountain. It's a 6.8 mile (round trip) hike that climbs 1500 feet. About 1000 feet up we decided we had done enough, so we turned around and went back. We did get high enough to get some photos of the valley below (actually, the view is better from there than from the forested top of the mountain). You can see how steep the trail is from some of the photos below. It was an almost continuous uphill climb.

When we got home there were a couple of female elk and a baby lounging around the registration office.