Day 7 - Yellowstone Geysers

Wildlife Tally: bison, elk, osprey, marmot, ground squirrel, mule deer, ruffed grouse, moose, western bluebird, turkey

The reason Yellowstone is so popular is that there is a large variety of things to look at. Wildlife, 210 waterfalls, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and today's quest: geysers. It is a pretty easy quest actually. They are all over the place. They come in different flavors. Some, like Old Faithful, erupt on a fairly regular schedule. Ground water gets heated by molten rock near the surface and after a while it explodes out of a hole in the ground. Others are simply pools of boiling water. No kidding. Just like a giant pot of water ready for the spaghetti. There are the mud holes burping out steaming goop, the steam vents that roar and the large springs that generate a babbling brook of 200 degree water. Some of them stink to high heaven with sulfer. They come in all colors too. Clear as can be and sapphire blue. Milky white. Green. Black. Believe it or not, there are little beasties that like to live in the warm water around the edges. These bacteria form mats in shades of yellow, orange, red, green and blue. The net result is that no two are alike. Enough words:

Looks inviting but it would be instant death at 200+

The boiling spring kind

Closeup of some bacterial mats

Old Faithful doing its thing

The boiling, burping mud kind

We actually started out the day with a hike to a waterfall led by an 81 year old ranger. The guy was quite a character. An example: what should we do if we see a bear? Everyone gather in a circle with him at the center. The hike started from the Biscuit Basin geyser field and gained elevation until we arrived at Mystic Falls. Very nice. We watched an osprey fish the stream below the falls. Susan and Nicole saw a marmot on the way back down. David and I took a different route back but I'll let him tell about that. By the way this hike started at 9 AM and it was about 40 minutes into the park. Which meant that we were all up about 6:30 after a late night. Keep that in mind.

Mystic Falls

Hi this is David.  As dad said I am telling about the hike back.  It was long and treacherous, not really.  The hike was uphill a lot and tires you out quickly.  We sometimes didn't even notice the switch backs.  We saw lots of animals including a red squirrel.  Then we got to the top and took a rest and pictures.  Going down was easy and fun, although we had to brace ourselves for some steep downhills.  Then we finally got back to the boardwalk and saw the geysers again. 

Little squirrel

Back to Glenn again. Even with all the variety, there are only so many geysers you can look at before they become a blur and the kids start to get bored. They hit the wall in the early afternoon and we decided to head north and find something else to do. That turned out to be a side trip to a small river where the kids lost their shoes and socks and did some wading. I played lifeguard and Susan read a book. I think they would have waded all afternoon but parents get bored too sometimes. Back in the car. But we went barely a mile and found Gibbon Falls. So had everyone else. As with most of the popular spots in Yellowstone, parking is a bugger. Sometimes you just have to look for some family walking to their car, wait for them to pull out and then snag their spot. 

Nicole contemplates Gibbon Falls

By now it was late afternoon and we still had an hour ride just to get out of the park. The exit road turned out to be one of our better wildlife spotting areas. This day I saw a moose and in another mile or two we were treated to a mommy Elk trying to convince baby Elk to wade across the Madison river. You would never guess the sound an elk makes. It's a big animal. You'd expect a low loud call, not a short high pitched chirping thing. 

Part of the horde watching mom elk persuade baby elk to cross the river. Mom is on the left almost hidden by the trees and baby is directly out from the rock.

Come on Junior, the water is not that cold