10/2/14

It's been raining for the last few days, but we went for a drive Tuesday afternoon, around the upper loop. They had just opened the road between Norris and Mammoth, after a two week closure for construction. There is now a new section of roadway, built above the old road, but none of it has been paved so it was a muddy drive through that section.

   
We saw three young bull elk in the Mammoth area and a few bison around the loop, but no large groups of either. There was a bit of snow falling on Dunraven pass but it wasn't sticking.

 

 

Heading south from the Tower Junction we stopped at the Calcite Cliffs Observation Point.

 
As we were leaving, we saw a herd of mountain sheep up on the top of the hill across the road.

 

We think Wednesday was our best sightseeing day ever. At first, we figured we'd stay home and do some needed house cleaning. After cleaning the kitchen and vacuuming the carpet in the living room, we decided to take a drive down to the Midway Geyser Basin and see if we could climb the hill overlooking Grand Prismatic Spring. About halfway there, we saw a grizzly sow and cub just in the trees across the road. Only a couple other vehicles were stopped, so the bears must have just reached the area where they could be seen. We were able to watch them forage for berries for about 10 minutes. They crossed the road in front of our truck and headed across the Firehole River to the exact place our friend Phil had been fishing earlier this summer.

 

A bit farther on, there was a herd of bison lounging in the meadow just west of the Lower Geyser Basin

As we approached the Old Faithful area we could tell it had been colder there than at the campground the night before, because the hills were blanketed with the first light snow of the season.

 The parking area for our hike was full, so we parked on the road, but there's a trail between the road where we parked and the trail head since this trail is extremely popular. The climb up to the observation point behind Grand Prismatic Spring is steep and cluttered with fallen logs, but the logs actually help to some degree by giving you a handhold for climbing. It's well worth the effort once you see the view it affords. Had it been 20 degrees warmer, there would have been less steam and the images would have been even better.

 

After climbing the hill, we drove on to Old Faithful and were lucky enough to find Castle Geyser erupting. Something we hadn't seen before.

 

Around the corner the Old Faithful Inn still had snow on the roof. We went inside and treated ourselves to a scoop of ice cream. When we came out, it was snowing again and the roof of the Inn was really turning white.

The snow stopped a couple miles west of Old Faithful and we drove through the Firehole Lake area. We got to Grand Fountain Geyser just as it was erupting, so we sat and watched it for the next 20 minutes. White Dome Geyser also erupted in the background while we were there, as you can see in the third photo below.

 

 

When we got back to the campground, there was a bull elk with his harem lying in the meadow by the Gibbon River.

 

It's a tough job seeing all these sights, but somebody's got to do it and it might as well be us. It was a great day.