Day 8 - Yellowstone - Hayden Valley and Yellowstone River Canyon

Wildlife Tally: bison, otter, elk, golden eagle, American white pelican, loon, mule deer, sandhill crane, osprey, bald eagle

In yesterday's post I told you to keep in mind the late nights and early mornings. Then I forget to tell you why. So I'll back up to yesterday for a moment. Our plan last night was to go to our condo, eat dinner and then head into the town of West Yellowstone to browse the stores and get ice cream. It was not to be. The kids hit the wall around 7:45 PM. We have been traveling for days and packing in a lot of sights on less than normal sleep. The attitudes came out to play. They were each other's worst enemy. We called a family meeting and it was early to bed for all and sleeping in a little bit in the morning.

Back to today. The best place to see wildlife is Hayden Valley. When we entered the park the road in Hayden Valley was closed due to a wildfire. When I left the park last night, I checked with a ranger and the road had been opened back up. So our plan for today was to focus on wildlife and also to see the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. 

You might think that wildlife spotting is a challenge. In Yellowstone it is easy. You just look for a bunch of cars parked every which way and a throng of people. You know there is something there. There are so many people in the park that any animal within 100 yards of a road is going to be spotted. And then craziness ensues. The roads are all 2 lane roads. Some have a shoulder and some don't. There are numerous turnouts but the animals don't seem to realize that they should only appear near the turnouts. The result is that people pull over anywhere, sometimes only halfway off the road. You can imagine the traffic jams as this happens in both directions. For the most part people are either patient or more interested in the wildlife than they are in getting to where they are going. But I have heard a couple of people losing their cool and screaming at other drivers. At least they did not honk their horns and scare away the animals. 

In addition to the traffic jams, people do crazy things when they see a bison 10 feet from the road. They hit the brakes and dive into a pullout spot with no warning, jump out of cars right into traffic, and pull back into the road without looking. You have to be extra alert when you are driving and ignore the temptation to look at the animals. The best one I saw today was a van that was parked in the middle of a turnout, engine running, doors open and no one in it. It stayed that way for the entire time we watched a bald eagle, maybe 15 minutes. Here are:some shots of what we saw:

This young bison crossed the road about 10' from an idling Harley just after this picture was taken. No fear there - at least on the part of the bison.

An American White Pelican looking for lunch

A pair of ospreys in their nest on top of a 500' pillar of rock

Sandhill Cranes - big birds at 3-4' tall

Some of the animals don't like to hang by the roadside waiting for the tourist to snap their picture. We saw a group of people a little way off the road and we stopped to see what was going on. A couple of people had set up telescopes and were patiently scanning the terrain about a 1/2 mile off the road. They had seen a wolf or coyote a few minutes before we got there, but all we saw looking in that direction was a lone bison. Meanwhile, Susan was looking in the opposite direction, where there was another bison and she looked up to see a golden eagle soaring about 100' above us. So we watched him work the thermals and look for lunch. 

When we got to the end of Hayden Valley it was lunch time for us so we drove a little way around Yellowstone Lake and found a nice quiet picnic spot. There was a rock beach and the kids did some wading and explored a cave right next to the water. I did not realize this but Yellowstone was formed by a super volcano that blew its top 640,000 years ago. The caldera, the depression left by the explosion, is about 35 miles wide by 45 miles long. Imagine an explosion powerful enough to remove that much earth. Yellowstone Lake fills about 1/4 of that area and it has thermal vents and geysers all around it. Some of them are actually in the lake. There was a steam vent about 100 yards from where we ate lunch and every once in a while we got a good whiff of rotten eggs while we were eating. 

During lunch thunderstorms rolled in to the north of us. We could see the lightning and rain up in the Hayden Valley area. We planned on going back up to the north end of the valley to see Yellowstone Falls and the canyon carved by the Yellowstone river. We got out our raincoats and headed up there. We got lucky. Most of the storms had cleared out by the time we got there.

There are actually 2 falls, referred to as the Upper and Lower falls. The Upper falls are only 85' high but are really cool because the entire river gets channeled into a gap between two stone walls. The gap is only about 30' wide so there is a huge flow through there just before the river goes thundering over the falls. 

The Lower falls are 300' high and the river tumbles into a canyon carved by the river over the millennia. This area is known as the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

View looking down the canyon from above the lower falls. Notice the slight rainbow in the lower left. That mist is from the falls. It is hard to get a sense of scale here because it is so big. Take a look at the size of the trees to put it into perspective.

Looking back up the canyon at the lower falls. The falls are 308' high.

David had been asking all day to go north to a cliff face that had a lot of obsidian, which is black volcanic glass, in the rock. So before we headed home we drove north and found the cliff. It was somewhat of a bummer because they have restricted access to it. Tourists have been chipping away at the rock for souvenirs. Apparently the Native Americans also loved this cliff. Obsidian makes really nice arrow points and the local tribes obtained it and traded it. The sign said Yellowstone obsidian was traded all over North America by various tribes. Fortunately for us they put big blocks of rock along the roadside to prevent cars from parking there. They got them from the closest source of rock: the cliff face. The rocks were full of obsidian and David got to look at it up close, despite the best efforts of the National Park Service. 

On the way out of the park Susan spotted another golden eagle and a bald eagle. We watched the bald eagle fly across the Madison river and land in a tree about 30 feet off the ground. Very impressive. 

Since the kids were in much better moods we stopped in West Yellowstone and  had dinner, browsed the stores and had ice cream. A much better end to the day.