Yellowstone Day 2 Part 2
August 11, 2016
I’m driving today. JA drove all day yesterday, so today is my turn. I’m definitely not feeling at my best. I’m good enough to go see things but feeling so worn out. I really just want to sleep…but then that means missing out on seeing this park. And I can’t stand that thought. I don’t even want to trade with JA because if I’m in the passenger seat, I’ll pass out.
Nearly Mammoth. There’s a river down there where you can apparently go swimming and soak in warm water. We went to check it out with the intention of taking a dip, but there were so many people we didn’t even bother.
The Visitor Center near Mammoth Hot Springs . Every major area in the park has a visitor center with complete facilities. The park is that big.
Mammoth Hot Springs is a big area. This’ll take up most of our time today, other than driving. Another set of boardwalks, another set of hot acid pools.
Dead landscape. Obviously it supported life at some point.
So there’s a point in time where my grandparents would have seen the Jupiter Terrace at it’s full glory. Most of it is dormant/dead at this point – at least on the south side. In 2009, the north side came ‘alive’ again and has since formed new terraces, which is pretty neat. However, we’re looking at the dead side.
Which is still really cool.
Old terraces.
The Cleopatra Terrace.
It’s really cool how these form. This spring isn’t as active as it used to be from what a guide was saying nearby. It used to bubble up enough to be seen, but has been waning for a few years now.
The Minerva Terrace.
The top of Pallete Spring. Not impressive up here…but it’s usually the terraces that are worth the view.
Another dead spring. I bet this was unbelievable when it was going fully. This is a pretty expansive set of terraces.
This is almost 50 feet tall. It’s a dormant spring that didn’t build terraces…it just formed itself upwards.
The lower side of Pallete Spring. Pallete Spring is the major/active spring at Mammoth these days.
The rock is known as the ‘Devils Thumb’. These pictures are a little dark due to the lighting (sun is behind the terraces) and my terrible photography skills.
The sharp contrast in colors is gorgeous.
This set of terraces is very wide. You walk quite a bit around this to see all of it.
The hanging spikes…calcicles? are pretty cool. And so is that little formation below them that looks like it’s slanting.
I had to fight off a busload of Asian tourists to get this shot. Just kidding…I had to wait maybe five minutes for the newly-arrived tour to rush over, take their pictures, do their poses, and rush off again. I guess they’ve got more ground to cover than I do today.
There wasn’t much to do after Mammoth Hot Springs, at least not on our list. We’re at the north end of the park and have to drive all the way back to Bridge Bay to get to our campground. And I’m sick and need some sleep. Also, the thought of being stuck behind buffalo-tourist-traffic is not an enticing one…so we decided to just drive back.
We did, however, pause on the drive in the valley to take some buffalo pictures. Because we could, with no tourist traffic due to it still being afternoon and not evening. Once back at the campground, we stopped at the dock shop to look around, buy some beer, and get ice cream. Not exactly ice cream weather, but it was a nice treat.
I ended up taking a long nap, or at least attempted to, back at the campsite. There was a very loud family behind us. And that’s fine; it was during the day and I was tired enough it didn’t matter for the first hour of napping. They didn’t let me get a second though. Oh well. We walked around for a bit while it got dark, ate dinner, and called it a night.