July 14 Day 14

Our ride today will take us through the southern loop of Yellowstone National Park. Our hotel is in the town of West Yellowstone which sits about a half mile from the parks western entrance.

Yellowstone was the first established national park in the world (established in March of 1872), and is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially the Old Faithful Geyser, one of the most popular features in the park.

Yellowstone National Park spans an area of 3,468 square miles, comprising lakes, canyons, rivers and mountain ranges. Yellowstone Lake is one of the largest high-altitude lakes in North America and is centered over the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest volcano on the continent. The caldera is still considered an active volcano.

Below you can see a photo of a lady we picked up along the road. She looked lonely so we offered her a ride in our trailer. Actually, the park is pretty busy this time of the year, and getting a picture of the park entrance sign without someone standing in front of it is nearly impossible.

Over half of the entire world's geothermal features are found in Yellowstone. Lava flows and rocks from volcanic eruptions cover most of the land area of Yellowstone.

Driving through the southern loop in the park, you pass by vast areas of steaming calderas, mud pots, geysers, and fumaroles (cracks in the earths crust that emit steam and gases).

The area shown below is the Biscuit geyser basin. These areas are covered with lava flows, and hot water, and there are boardwalks built so that you can make your way through these geothermal features. When the geysers erupt, the water is scalding hot, but by the time it hits the ground it has cooled. "Cooled" is relevant, as the water is still very hot, and there have been several deaths in the park from visitors falling into the hot springs.

Here is a small geyser erupting. Notice the boardwalk in the photo?

Here you can see the flow of hot water, algae, and bacteria from the eruptions, as it flows down into the nearby stream.

Some of the hot springs are huge in size.

You can supposedly tell the temperature of the flow by the colors of the algae and bacteria, but I cannot remember if darker is hotter, or lighter is hotter?

Another algae shot... the colors are pretty intense.

Below is a huge hot spring pool. You can see how clear the water is in the pool. The color is deep turquoise and is just gorgeous. You can see the steam rising from the pool.

After visiting Biscuit Basin, we headed toward an obligatory visit to the famous Old Faithful geyser.

Being one of the main (and most famous) attractions in the park, there were a lot of people gathered for the next eruption. Old Faithful erupts about every 91 minutes (give or take 10 minutes). The height of the eruption varies from 90 to 190 feet.

Our timing was pretty good, about 15 minutes after our arrival, Old Faithful fulfilled her commitment much to our pleasure.

Since we spent time finding a parking place in the Old Faithful area (which is a huge chore), we decided to spend more time here. Lennie prowled the gift shop, and we enjoyed our lunch here before moving on to the rest of the park.

We passed an area obviously impacted by forest fire. There have been a number of fires in Yellowstone, with the worst being the fire of 1988. The 1988 fire impacted almost 1/3 of the park.

After spending time checking out the geothermal features of the park, it was time to see some of the wildlife.

Yellowstone is considered to be the finest large animal wildlife habitat in the lower 48 states. There are almost 60 species of mammals in the park, including the gray wolf, the lynx, and grizzly bears. Other large mammals include bison, black bear, elk, moose, mule deer, white-tailed deer, mountain goat, pronghorn, bighorn sheep and mountain lion.

There are an estimated 600 grizzly bears, 3000 bison, and over 30,000 elk in Yellowstone.

These elk were out grazing near one of the parking lots.

They are obviously accustomed to humans in the area, and even sometimes perform for them, as this one does a little jig for the crowd (looked like he was chasing flies away).

The area shown below is Hayden Valley, and consists of huge meadows and wetlands. Here we encountered our first bison herd in the park. There were at least a hundred of them right along the roadside.

There were also a large number of young calves with the adults. The calves are pretty cute, the adults can look rather ragged.

Anytime you have animals this close to the road, the traffic comes to a complete stop. Everyone wants pictures!! Keep an eye on the big fellow shown below, Lennie and I sure did.

We were completely trapped by the cars in front of us and behind us, with no where to go. Then our large friend decides he wants to cross the road between us and the car in front of us. Interesting fact, bison can weigh up to 2000 pounds and can sprint at 30 miles per hour! Not sure how much this one weighs, but he's coming in our direction.

Then he stops!! He is about 8 feet from the front of the bike, and seems to be leery about us and the bike. He stands there and stares at us for way too long. Hopefully he does not feel threatened? You can see in my mirror, I cannot really back up, and there is certainly no moving forward at this point.

Everyone knows that Lennie can be a talker... well right now she is sitting on the back saying absolutely NOTHING ! Very unnerving having an animal this big trying to decide what to do about you being in his path.

He eventually decides we are not a threat, and crosses in front of us. Notice the clowns near the cars (there are more hiding in their cars to our immediate right). Minutes ago these idiots were out running around taking photos. Now they all ran and took refuge in or near their cars, leaving us alone to tangle with the big fellow. Great plan, let's irritate the animals and run to our cars then watch what happens to the bikers. Thanks!

A few miles down the road, we passed another large meadow area with a herd grazing away.

Lennie and Tom have grown much wiser now, and we decide to leave a large gap between us and the autos in front of us. This gap allows the herd to cross without being as close. Trust me 20-30 feet is much more comfortable than 8 feet when dealing with these guys. When these animals decide take over the roadway, they do it and no one challenges them.

Finally the larger adults crossed and the traffic started moving. We rolled on, and this young calf decided to cross in front of us at the last minute, only to get spooked and run the other way.

This large, somewhat ugly, fellow was just sitting in the dirt watching the traffic go by. He looks pretty cool with his furry head and horns.

It turned out to be a great day visiting the southern area of the park. It is amazing how the various portions of the park are so diverse. You have the caldera areas, the thick lodge pine forest areas, the huge lakes, the far reaching meadows and wetlands, and the rugged mountains, all in one park. Pretty amazing place.

Tomorrow, we will be back in Yellowstone visiting the northern portion of the park.

Our stats for today indicate that we covered 129 miles, bringing our trip total to 4189 miles. Below is a map of our route from today.