Mammoth Hot Springs and Norris Geyser Basin
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The Walmart spot had a slight downward tilt. We didn’t really realize it until we got up in the middle of the night and both found ourselves wobbling a bit down the hallway.
We were only about 50 miles from Yellowstone. We left the interstate at Livingston and headed down the Yellowstone River Valley. Or I guess it’s called Paradise Valley but the Yellowstone River runs through it. We discussed the benefits of good marketing with your place names and concluded that if it was called Devil’s Gulch it might not attract the same number of people. Not that there were a huge number of people there. We couldn’t really figure out what people do there, or how they did it 6 months of the year when they were likely snowed in.
The RV site Les had reserved was just outside of Gardiner along the river. A very nice spot. When we checked in the people asked if we were government people or ‘minders’. Minders are apparently people who come out and track/count grizzly bears or other wildlife. We said no and suggested we didn’t want to be near anybody who might be near grizzly bears.
Les backed the camper in but we discovered the site had a pretty good left tilt. After the forward tilt last night, we figured we better level it out, especially since we will be here a few days. It took some doing but we ultimately got one side up on the chock blocks and after 2 or 3 tries got it almost exactly level side to side, which satisfied the engineer in both of us. Then of course it was a question of getting it level front to back. “Does this look straight to you”? Close enough.
That took most of the morning. So time to grab a quick lunch and then head into Yellowstone. But first, a stop in Gardiner for coffee. Yellowstone Perk Café was closed, much to Les’ dismay. But we managed to find the other coffee place and the crisis was averted. And we seem to have brought a big crowd with us. I suppose it helps to be the only place in town.
Due to Les’ advanced years, we were able to get a week park pass for only $20 (usually $80). I still have a few years to go before I can do that (but just a few). We headed up the road to Mammoth Hot Springs, passing through the park headquarters. There were lots of people and a few elk milling about but not the elk convention that was there the last time we visited. Given it’s the last week the park is open for cars, it’s surprisingly busy. Makes me wonder how crazy it must be during ‘prime time’ in the summer.
Mammoth Hot Springs did not look like I remembered it. Which I guess isn’t too surprising since it’s been 20+ years and things change as the water flow changes and whatever is going on underneath the earth does too. I didn’t find it as impressive for some reason. Possibly because I’d seen it before but also the last time, I think there was more water flowing and more color and there was snow on it too. It seems very much diminished, which is sad. Hopefully it’s temporary.
It’s still impressive though and we walked around most of it which was probably a ¾ of a mile to a mile of boardwalk and hundreds of stairs. They don’t call it Mammoth for nothin’. After a couple of days in the car it was a good workout. And at 6000+ feet to boot.
From there we drove up the road to the ‘upper basin’ road that went around the top of the springs (which we had walked to up from the bottom earlier). We hadn’t done that road the last time. We came across a terraced hill that was completely white (from minerals) that looked like it was covered by snow. Very cool.
We thought about heading to Old Faithful, but it was 50 miles (it’s a big park!) and it was around 2pm. At 30 miles an hour it was 2 hours each way. So we decided to go as far as Norris Geyser Basin, which was only 25 miles away, and give it a thorough look. I should point out that 30 miles per hour was the speed *we* wanted to go but not most of the people behind us. So annoying tailgaters were a constant problem requiring frequent use of turnouts.
On the way we came across 4 bison in a field down by a thermal pool (which we could tell from the parked cars and photo taking) and stopped to take their picture. They were happily eating and refused to look up for pictures, which I thought was a little rude.
The parking area at Norris was very full. We aren’t the only idiots out here waiting to get snowed in. It was a brief walk down to the log cabin where in the 1800’s and early 1900’s the cavalry that ‘monitored the park’ used to live. Looked like a pretty tough gig. Although (presumably) no one was shooting at you so maybe not so bad. An officer and a couple of privates. We discovered later that into the 1910’s or so, a much larger contingent of soldiers was here. We never figured out what they were protecting the area from but apparently a number of people had designs on it. At some point the National Park Service took over.
We wandered down to the ‘overlook’ which gives an impressive view of the geyser basin, which looks like something from another planet. A few trees and a lot of dead ones. The ground is grey/white from the minerals spewing up from the earth. There’s steam rising from the ground in various places and the smell of sulfur is in the air. It’s the hottest, oldest, and most dynamic of Yellowstone’s thermal areas according to their website.
We walked the Porcelain Basin loop. We passed a photographer taking ‘art photos’ of one of the pools. It didn’t look particularly ‘arty’ to me, but I couldn’t see the picture he was getting. Les chatted with him a bit and it turns out he has a brother who runs the Benson Hotel in Portland. Small world.
We walked to the end of one path that ended at a lake. Then proceeded around the loop. We saw our first geyser, which we thought was Continuous Geyser, based on the sign (or Perpetual Geyser, can’t remember but the adjective was something that meant ‘always’). We found out later that despite the sign and the obvious perpetuity of the eruption, it was not Continuous Geyser.
Porcelain Basin is the shorter loop. About .6 miles. When we finished that we decided we had the energy to do the Back Basin loop which had a shorter version at about 1 mile and a longer version at 1.6. We could decide at the cutoff which one to take.
We passed some bubbling areas that I suppose technically were geysers since they shot up a bit but weren’t going to set any records. But very cool to see. We met a woman who had been watching geysers since 8:30 AM (this at about 4:30PM on a VERY chilly day). She was sitting on the boardwalk with her backpack and notebooks. She was definitely tracking eruptions since when the geyser in front of her erupted she noted it down. But we never found out if she was there in some official capacity or it was just her hobby. We learned she lived in Gardiner and it sounded like she did this regularly. We were pretty cold just from the time we had been there and had been walking not sitting. So she was pretty hardy. We had mentioned we saw Continuous Geyser go off and she got excited, because it apparently (despite the name) doesn’t do that very often. We said oh yeah, it was going the whole time. She said, “oh that’s Fireball”. She seemed pretty expert so we trusted her. But either she was wrong, or someone didn’t quite understand what ‘continuous’ means.
There was lots of steam and sulphur smells. It tended to fog the glasses (and camera lenses) especially with the chilly weather. The wind seemed to always be blowing into our faces. So when you tried to look at something, the warm steam would cover you and fog up your glasses.
We, of course, decided to take the longer path. There was lots to see. The most memorable was Porchchop Geyser which at some point in the nineties essentially exploded, spewing rocks upwards of 200 feet. This was apparently quite exciting to the 8 or 10 people who were there when it happened. Luckily, no one was hurt.
As we came back around to where the cutoff was, we passed some families who were deciding whether to take the longer loop. We helped them decide how much farther to go and felt very useful. Les told them “You can take the longer path. You can abandon the children if you need to…”. The parents found this amusing. The children did not.
The grand finale was Steamboat Geyser. It’s the world’s tallest active geyser. That is, when it goes off big, it spews higher than any other (400+ feet). It’s last big spew, according to the sign, was late September. The sign said it could be days, weeks, or months between major eruptions, so we decided not to wait it out. But minor eruptions every 2-12 minutes. We saw one and declared victory. Generally speaking, the ‘art’ of predicting geyser eruptions is about as advanced (or really less so) as predicting the weather for next month. The signs try to be helpful saying this geyser erupts every few days or months or whatever. But really the answer is, “who the f*ck knows, take your chances. This ain’t Disneyland”.
People were still going into the area at 5:30 as we exited. That seemed like not a great idea as it would be dark in an hour. I suspect people get stranded out there on a regular basis. At least you can follow the boardwalks back to your car, assuming you can see them. Worst case you could crawl I suppose.
As we left, we came across a fox on the side of the road. People on the other side of the road were trying to get his picture so we paused, and I got a picture from a distance (through the side mirror without getting it in the picture!). Once they were done, we moved up, but he moved off into the woods. But I did get one of his eyes looking through the trees.
Coming back the same 4 bison were there, and we stopped again. They came up near a hot spring where there was a boardwalk and we walked down there and took some pictures. But as we drove away, we saw they came right up to the fence of the overlook. Doh! Later we came across a small bison in the middle of the road causing traffic to stop. He (or she) moved to the side and started walking down the road and we got a quick picture. Then a few minutes later down the road we (well, Les) decided to go back and try again. But he had disappeared! Despite the fact that to the right was a deep gully and to the left was a steep hill. We’re not sure where he went. Apparently, they have better climbing abilities than I thought.
We got back and got our first shower in a few days, which was nice. Warm too. We didn’t want to come out. Les made his famous burger/egg/potato/cheese agglutinated mass for dinner which was as good as ever. And we still had Dove bars left over from yesterday for dessert.
Now we wait and see if the snow comes…
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