This morning we got up early to watch the sunrise over the Old Faithful Geyser area— Geyser Hill encompasses numerous geysers of different kinds, as well as hot springs, mud pots and steam vents. The landscape looked ghostly on a sub-freezing morning, as all the features were steaming (even if not erupting). The steam picked up the colors of the sunrise, and Old Faithful erupted a little earlier than expected, which allowed us to see our third eruption and still race back for breakfast and the start of the group’s activities.
We visited several different geyser and hot springs areas, all of them a little different from the others. We walked along the lower terraces of Mammoth Hot Springs— it is fascinating to see what different features are created when the underlying rock is limestone rather than silica-rich rock as at Old Faithful. It is also worth mentioning that we began the day at 26 F and mid-afternoon it was 74! We ate lunch in Mammoth Springs, where we encountered a few bull elk with their harems wandering and lounging about town. After lunch we traveled through the Lamar Valley on our way to Cooke City Montana. During our travels we saw a large herd of bison, a few pronghorns, a coyote, and a bull moose. We are staying at the Super 8 in Cooke City. It is the fanciest place in town (but not a lot of bandwidth so no pictures in this blog post). We ate a fine dinner at the Bearclaw Bakery which doubles as a snowmobile parts and paraphernalia shop. The town itself is near the northeast entrance to Yellowstone Park, and was a mining center prior to the Park’s opening. The general store is on the National Historic Landmarks list and is still fitted out with shelving and equipment from 1907.
No comments:
Post a Comment